The Governor's Palace, Palermo, Sicily

Movie: The Leopard (1963), Starring Bert Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale and Alain Delon

John Keahey,the author of Seeking Sicily, calls the book, The Leopard, (not to be confused with Jo Nesbo’s latest mystery by the same name) a blockbuster and essential reading to understand Sicily. Although I’d like to read the book (1956) some day, I cheated and watched the movie, made in 1963.

You see, I’ll watch just about any movie with Burt Lancaster  (1913-1994). I love the way he moves. I love his sense of power and the feeling you get that he has a secret. From his sexy days on the beach with Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity, to his  dramatic role in Come Back Little Sheba , to his old man role on the boardwalk of Atlantic City , he was a gem of a movie star. This article lists the incredible Lancaster films, in case you’ve missed them. And, getting back to the subject at hand–Lancaster plays the Prince who represents the sinking aristocrat based on the book author’s own grandfather.

I also ordered up The Leopard  from Netflix because of Keahey’s recommendation of The Leopard and because I love movies that convey the history of a place I want to visit. I love movies with beautiful scenery and an authentic portrayal of a culture. And from what I read, it appears that the movie is fairly true to the book. The book relates the story of the mid-1800′s in Sicily, a time of upheaval for the aristocracy, who had been loyal to the Bourbon royalty. However, the movement for a united Italy headed by Garibaldi appealed to them until they decided they would be better off under an Italian King than a democratic Italy, and went with the first King of a United Italy.

The settings are grand–palaces on ancestral estates in Southwest Sicily. And the narrow hilly streets of the towns are appealing, but I could not help feeling that movie was almost too true to the original New York Times travel article, I realized just how good a guide to Sicily the movie actually is.

I could not help feeling that the movie stuck too close to the book. Most of the film moves along at a stately pace, but the last 40 minutes takes place at a ball where all is character development, and nothing moves the plot forward. My feeling is not shared by a lot of eminent critics and you can read what Roger Ebert had to say about The Leopard in 2003.

The political tugs and pulls on the Prince and the buffoonish Mayor (although not made clear in the movie, he’s a Mafia member, and a fairly typical one according to the author we discuss on Friday) definitely are fascinating. You will come away from this book, or the movie understanding a good deal more about the historic politics of Sicily than you knew before.

In the conversation most representative of the Sicilian character, the Prince is asked to run for the Senate in the newly unified Italy. He refuses, explaining that

“Too many things have been done without Sicilians being consulted for you to be able now–to ask a member of the old governing class to help develop things and carry them through...” Sicilians, he says, only want to sleep.  “…they will always hate anyone who tries to wake them, even in order to bring the most wonderful gifts; and I must say, between ourselves, I have  strong doubts whether the new Kingdom will have many gifts for us in its luggage.”

Yes, despite the fact that it may seem a bit slow for the modern audience, the film is still gorgeous and enticing to the traveler to Sicily. I’d say add it to your traveler’s library, unless you’d rather read the book.

Have you been to Sicily?  Did you get a feeling of the complexity of their history?

The Giveaway prize today goes to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+. It is a copy of Lights, Camera, Travel, a Lonely Planet collection of essays by people in the movie industry about places where they filmed. It is an interesting and varied collection. The “varied” is why I have not reviewed it. I prefer books all about one destination. (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Thursday Jan.26, 3:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments. See complete rules here.)

Disclaimer: The photo at the top comes from Flickr and is used under Creative Commons license. Please click on the photo to learn more about the photographer. The movie trailer comes from You Tube.

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The Winton Automobile, Smithsonian

Destination: San Francisco to New York

Film: Horatio’s Drive, America’s First Road Trip, a Ken Burns PBS Special (2003)

In 1903 the world changed. The Wright Brothers took their first flight, the President of the United States sent a message to the King of England over wireless, a cable was strung across the Pacific Ocean for communication, and Horatio Nelson Jackson and his mechanic, drove  from coast to coast across America.

If you have a member of your family who gets grumpy when you start planning a road trip, find the travel film, Horatio’s Drive, and make them watch it. On the other hand, if you or someone you know is obsessed with automobiles, check out this blog about automobiles and American life.

Most rational people in 1903 thought the automobile was at best a nice toy for the wealthy, and and worst, a menace to horses. Horatio, insanely optimistic and obsessed with automobiles, begged to differ. He believed that people would use the automobile for long distance travel, and he made a little bet–$50–that he could drive across the country in less than 90 days. At that point nobody had made the trip across the country, and with very good reason.

You did not just add gasoline and take off. You carried spare parts enough to build a second car. You made friends with blacksmiths along the route. And you hoped that your car would not sink into desert sands or mud pits, seeing as how there was not a paved highway to be found. Not to mention no maps, no road signs and no motels.

Every day Horace Nelson “Nel” wrote reassuringly to his wife little notes that said things like “We had to set up the winch and tow the car 18 times” or “took the wrong road and had to backtrack 50 miles,” and ended with “but from now on everything will be fine.”

Fortunately for us, he took photographs along the way. With those photos, letters to his wife, and a lot of new footage shot on back country roads that resemble the ones “Nel” was on, Burns has made a remarkable recreation of this fantastic adventure.

Tell your family nervous Nelly, that if these guys could do it in 1903, and in only 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes, then you can make a road trip to a National Park that is 200 miles away.

I really loved this video, partly for the production values (narration by Keith David , Tom Hanks, Adam Arkin, and Eli Wallach, among others.) But I also loved the personalities involved, and the picture of a nation trying to come to terms with a gigantic change in daily life. It makes me think of today’s struggle to reconcile the age of print with the age of pixel.

When Horatio Nelson Jackson got back to his home in Vermont, he fixed up his car (a cherry red Winton that set him back $3,000, a real fortune in those days) and kept on driving.  A few months after his return, he got picked up and fined for driving faster than six miles per hour. Somebody should have told him that those red cars are traffic cop magnets.

I got the DVD from Netflix, but you can also find [amazonify]037541536X::text:::: a book by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns [/amazonify] that was published to accompany the TV show. National Geographic carried an article in 2003 about a trip retracing Horatio’s wheel tracks.

The Winton picture comes from the Smithsonian Institution, and you can click on the landscape picture to see more about the photographer. Picture used by Creative Commons license through Flickr.com

Have you had to overcome arguments against a road trip? What are the worst obstacles we face in the 21st century to taking to the road? (Tune in Wednesday as the Great American Road Trip reaches West Virginia.)

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The Grocer's Son

Destination: Provençe, France

Movie: The Grocer’s Son (Les Fils de l’epicier)(2008)

Some time ago, a reader recommended this movie, and it finally made it to the top of my Netflix list.  Thank you, whoever you were–stand up and take a bow for introducing The Grocer’s Son.

When I thought about why I enjoyed this movie, it became obvious that the director, Eric Guirado, did nothing extraordinary, but that made the movie delightful.

The movie explores family relationships–harsh father, two sons– one rebellious, one obedient, and a long-suffering mother. There are family secrets (mostly held by the obedient son). There is the familiar return of the prodigal as the younger son goes off to a city life, but with a family crisis, returns to the village to run the father’s business.

On top of the family story, a romance unfolds. Boy meets girl. boy loses girl. Girl comes back. (Okay, that’s a spoiler, but you KNEW she would, didn’t you?)

I think the very ordinariness of the film appealed to me.  Believable characters in a lush landscape.  As the young son, played by the very appealing Nicholas Cazalé, starts driving his father’s grocery truck to the even smaller settlements in the hills of Provençe, we meet the elderly customers. Clearly, these areas are dying as the inhabitants do not include young people. The elderly characters are interesting and so honest in their portrayals, that the film has the feel of a documentary at times.

And when I learned that the director’s background includes many documentaries, it all made sense.

I fell in love with the sheepherder who had lost his sheep and his wife; the old man who scammed the grocer by not “hearing” the price; the wrinkled face of the woman who pondered her purchases and then bought the same thing each time.

But always there are the twisting roads and the green hills. These people live far away from the usual tourist haunts of France.  The director, interviewed in the film’s press kit, claims that he removed the most beautiful scenes because they would have distracted from the story. Imagine that. Provençe is even more beautiful than portrayed. As I plan my trip to France, these images of Provençe will continue to call to me.

Have you been to Provence? Have you ventured out on the country roads? Should I detour from my plan of doing only the north–Normandy and Brittany?

Among my many posts on France: Madame Bovary, French Writers,  Essays by an American in France, Travels With a Donkey, Mistress of Louis IV

and many more, particularly about Paris. You can find them with the search box at the top right of this page.

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Paris Movie Walks by Michael Schurmann

Destination: Paris

Book: Paris Movie Walks: Ten Guided Tours Through The City of Lights! Camera! Action!, by Michael Schurmann

I was going to say “You don’t have to be a movie fan to enjoy this book.”  But who among us is NOT a movie fan? And who has seen a movie set in Paris and NOT wanted to glide right over the Seine?

It might have been the breathtaking chases of the Bourne Identity. Or perhaps you swayed to Gene Kelly’s dancing in American in Paris.  Or romance, ahh, romance, with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in Somethings Got to Give (2004) or Keven Kline and Meg Ryan in French Kiss (1995) And the camera made love to Audrey Hepburn in many Paris films and I not only wanted to BE Audrey Hepburn, but I wanted to be Audrey Hepburn IN PARIS.

I can not list all of the movies made in Paris, and even Michael Schurmann, himself an American in Paris, does not try to list every movie ever made in this popular location. There are too many.  But Schurmann’s book Paris Movie Walks give you ten ambles through neighborhoods, and each route crosses paths with several movies.

The tours cover much more than just ‘this chase scene took place on this street,’ or ‘this kiss on this bridge.’  Schurmann packs the book with value added.  Although he promises “there will be no endless lists of French monarchs and their annoying mistresses, no stories about poets and painters about whom you know little and care even less” the book does include some references to history and the usual ‘Hemingway slept here’ kind of information. Inclusion of plenty of information beyond movie sets makes the book useful to more people and makes it more useful to all readers.

The book includes

• Tips on dining in Paris without going bankrupt. (Maxims charges €35 for a mousse au chocolat.)
• How to adapt to French culture
• A list of movies with Eiffel Tower shots. (Every apartment in a movie set in Paris has a view of the Eiffel Tower, he says.)
• The evolution of the use of locations rather than studio sets, with an aside on American in Paris. (Did they or didn’t they?)
• The student riots of the 1960s.
• Movies with scenes in or outside the Louvre.
• The best view (and most photographed view in movies) in Paris.

I love this book.

1. I love the useful index that shows which of the walks show scenes from which movies.
2. I love that each walk starts and ends at a metro stop and a metro map is included.
3. I love the list of movies to see before you go.
4. I love the depth of research that went in to the book.

I would love it even more if the maps of each walk showed where the stops are, if the photographs had captions, and if there were not quite so many French language movies included which are unfamiliar to me. Sigh! I guess I’d better spend more time at the Loft Theater, Tucson’s foreign and indie film house.

But on balance, this is a valuable book for the movie lover traveling to Paris, or even the person who just wants to find interesting walks in the city of Lights! without the camera!action!

So I am off to put Amelie on my Netflix queue. I did see it when it came out, but have forgotten much about the Paris background.  And how about you?  Do you have a favorite Paris film? Please recommend it here.  And if you think others would like this book, please share with the share buttons below.

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Destination: Australia

Movie: Australia (2008)

Stars: Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackson and AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE

Rather than talk about this movie which was released last year, let me instead just suggest that if you have not seen it,   To comment and scurry down to BlockBuster or click over to Netflix and get a DVD.  If this movie does not put Australia on your travel list, you just are not paying attention to that gorgeous scenery. Baz Luhrmann manages to make a beautiful landscape even more alluring.

We can go have a beer and discuss Luhrmann’s techniques later, but for now, let’s concentrate on where the heck all that beautiful stuff is to be found. And if we are lucky travelers, we will get to go on location in Australia.

Western Australia and the Kununurra Visitor Center are ready to welcome you to scenes from the movie Australia. They will tell you about the Mirima National Park, a tiny wonderland of canyons, waterfalls and rock formations practically inside the town of Kununurra.

The Kimberley Range, 422,000 sq. km. of more eye-popping scenery can be seen in this promotional video.

The El Questro Wilderness Park, privately owned, stretches over a mind boggling million acres of land that was once a cattle station. (Take THAT, Texas ranchers!)  If you want to stay in a tented cabin or a bungalow in one of the scenic areas near where the movie was filmed, it will set you back about $220 to $550 dollars for four people. Open between 1 April and 31 October. Learn more at their web site.

Of course your base of operations will not be those Austalian cities you are more or less familiar with like Sydney or Melbourne. Oh, no. We are talking the far north and west, here. Darwin, the Northern Territories, the town that starred in the movie, will serve as an operational base. (If you have journeyed to the iconic Ayers Rock in Australia, you know Darwin).

This travel agency site explains the story of the cattle station, Carlton Hill, that was “borrowed” to become Faraway Downs in the movie, Australia.

Now, all that said, anybody want to talk about the pros and the cons of the script, acting, and directing of the move, Australia?

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Books: The Bible; From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Freidman; Exodus by Leon Uris

Whether your interest runs to history or contemporary geo-politics, Roman ruins or Medieval times, when you travel to Israel, you will find a country that is exasperating, beautiful, inspiring, welcoming and off-putting all at the same time.

Jerusalem Market photgraph by David King

Conflict between “tribes” did not start with the founding of the modern state of Israel. The region has been embroiled in struggles since time began. The book that captures the modern conflicts best is Thomas Freidman in From Beirut to Jerusalem.  Before his father-knows-best sermons on everything from ecology to world banking made him a best selling author and popular columnist, Friedman was a hard-working journalist who tried to find the truth behind the middle-East conflicts by visiting with a wide variety of people and telling their stories. He delves into the American contribution to the Israeli state and shows that it is not always benign.

As the center of three major religions, Israel has drawn pilgrims for a thousand years. The once mighty Jordan may have shriveled to a mere stream because of siphoning off for farming, but place names like Bethlehem and Jericho took me right back to Sunday School lessons in the little white church in Ohio where I grew up. Unfortunately, I did not have a copy of The Book, the Bible, with me. When I got home I pored over maps and archaeology of the Bible from my father’s library. I used a very old out of print book, but there is a newer one available, on archaeological study of the Bible.

Finally, the birth of the modern state of Israel comes vividly to life in Exodus by Leon Uris, and sheds light on today’s struggles. Since it is now out of print, you can try Amazon or American Book Exchange for a used copy. The movie version starring Paul Newman and Eva Marie Saint may be available on Netflix.

Have you been to Israel? What books or movies did you find useful? I would particularly like to have your recommendations for more Bible-related books. My Bible is the Christian one, but I welcome suggestions for religious books that enhance the travel experience for Jews and Muslims as well.

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