[zelda_pinwheel]

i read the book a few months ago for the first time and i remember being surprised how much is left out of the film (although, if they had put everything in, it would probably have been eleventy hours long...). i think the film is more naïve and innocent in a lot of ways, which goes back to the whole insouciance idea. although the film does hint at the fight between marion and george kirby it never seems very serious, and marion and topper don't get nearly as involved.

going back to what you say about thinking of your grandmother etc... that's one of the reasons i love watching old films like that. my grandmother didn't grow up in the US and i'm pretty sure the 30's looked pretty different for her (well, partly because she was born in 1925, so she was just a kid still for most of them) but still i love seeing the films of that time (and they remind me of my grandparents nonetheless) ; everything seems so much more elegant and gorgeous ! nobody was lounging around in sweatpants. everyone in those films is always well-dressed and gorgeous looking. and every little object was a work of art, even if it was an insanely loony one : geoge kirby's car !!! it looks like some kind of alien spaceship !

my grandfather (born in 1908, but again i'm pretty sure the 30's looked a lot different where he was) wore a suit every day. he even wore suit pants and a shirt with buttons to work in the garden or fix things around the house ; just slightly older ones. and when i look at old photos of my grandparents from when they were young, they're all so well-dressed and lovely ! even in the middle of the war they always made an effort.

i can't help thinking, when i watch those films or look at old photos of my grandparents, that we've lost something of the art that went into daily life at that time, even for people who weren't rich as cresus like the kirbys or topper and living the high life. it makes me nostalgic for a time i never experienced, and for the aesthetic of that time.

my grandparents were far from rich and led a fairly modest lifestyle. like yours they knew how to do or make everything themselves. my grandfather could fix anything, he even resoled his own shoes. he had a beehive in the garden for honey, and one grapevine from which he made wine, and he made pickles from the cucumbers he grew in the garden... my grandmother sewed and knitted and made a lot of her own clothes (and mine, later on), but she always looked like a fashion plate. and she never bought jam because she had fruit trees and strawberries in the garden and made it herself. but i think that sort of ressourcefulness is a part of the same esthetic (although i'm sure marion kirby never made jam in her life !), finding value and beauty in mundane, everyday things, or rather making mundane, everyday things into something of value and beauty.