On John Walter's docufilm "Theater of War" (The Ravages of War and a Ravaging Disease)
Watching John Walter's "Theater of War" see parts of it on YouTube!at this year's Tribeca Film Festival brought me a different level of appreciation and understanding on how to better handle the requirements of one of my patients. more about them here! I do part-time caregiving assignments, among other part time jobs as a Freelancer. As such, I'd be doing this mostly on weekends for one of the children of the playwright, Bertolt Brecht,about him here! the monumental theatre figure who was the topic of Walter's documentary mentioned earlier. The movie also brought out much needed perspective on the 2007 staging of Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" in Central Park,NYT's review here! where people lined up to watch Meryll Streep playing the lead role.
I accompanied my patient, with his loving wife (herself, an accomplished clothes designer and retailer), son and his family (including 3 small children) to a well attended screening one bright Sunday evening, where most of the audience were made up of adults whose sense of perspective of the war has been mainly due to the effects of the current Iraq War. Soon, Mr Brecht's great grandchilren have gone so bored, and were ushered out by their parents back home one by one. John Walter's well-researched documentary, needless to say, covers a topic that's heavily loaded with so much material for children's tastes. Yet, the documentary featured certain unmentionable ravages of war, or any war for the matter, which from any way we look at it, demeans anyone who gets into it. There are winners, but there are far more losers. The ravages one experiences during and after a war make one consider to get into the silent mode, or perhaps proceed to a perpetual stage of denial. War brings so much hurt, so much unaccounted loss amidst the fact that most everything in life apparently continue to go on even during a war.
After the screening, we were left in the theatre with the rest of the audience. Due to the condition of my patient, we were seated almost anonymously at the back on extra seats. I could see that my patient was working on being attentive to the film about his father. I actually saw a version of the movie months ago in my patient's house when we were trying to elicit some comments or feedback from my patient. Apparently, the copy has been lying somewhere in the house as the filmmaker gave Mr Brecht's family a copy for advanced viewing, and would have wanted some feedback to it. My patient could simply just say so little about the movie on his father. Subsequently, only his sister was able to provide material and some participation in the movie that have made more interesting the persona behind Bertolt Brecht (he was among the first batch of suspected Communists summoned by Congress on a witch hunt in the 1950s). I myself was also surprised to learn from the movie the fact that Mr Brecht's family had a stopover in Manila, Philippines (where I hail from) during their flight by sea travel from Nazi-occupied Germany on their way to the US. Now I get to understand why my patient would say something about the Philippines on occasions that he would be in the right mood to say something to what I would tell him while doing my caregiving chores.
My patient's presence was not announced whatsoever in the screening. It was only way beyond after the screening when most people were already have gone out, that the wife went out of her way to extend her family's gratefulness for providing for invites and facilities for everyone in the family of Mr Brecht to be around during the screening. John Walter and his wife then rushed to where my patient was seated, and kindly introduced themselves. Of course, as most people are....they really didn't know what to do with someone who's been ravaged by a progressively debilitating disease such as that one that got inflicted on my patient.
I wondered how the audience would have turned to be far more fascinated and interested if they only got to see Mr Brecht's other living direct kin, his son, who's my patient. On certain occasions, I really get so amazed at how my patient converses with me. Being an accomplished writer himself, he has such depth, wonderful wit and appreciation whenever he's able to participate in any ongoing conversations in his house. I've seen videos of him showing how active and fast paced he was on a pretty regular day. But sadly, we can't expect him to be always like that nowadays. The ravages of the disease he now carries have simply made him unable to participate more actively. I was told later by his wife that my patient does not usually give interviews about his famous father. I've met several times my patient's sister, and she happened to be one really interesting, warm character. She didn't show up in the documentary, but her voice was heard for several minutes, in response to some questions fielded out by the film director. I would always find her interesting, nevertheless. I found out from the movie that she was also an accomplished actress, as I've found out in the times that I've seen her in my patient's house that she happened also to cook really well (apparently just like most anyone in Mr Brecht's family).
I accompanied my patient, with his loving wife (herself, an accomplished clothes designer and retailer), son and his family (including 3 small children) to a well attended screening one bright Sunday evening, where most of the audience were made up of adults whose sense of perspective of the war has been mainly due to the effects of the current Iraq War. Soon, Mr Brecht's great grandchilren have gone so bored, and were ushered out by their parents back home one by one. John Walter's well-researched documentary, needless to say, covers a topic that's heavily loaded with so much material for children's tastes. Yet, the documentary featured certain unmentionable ravages of war, or any war for the matter, which from any way we look at it, demeans anyone who gets into it. There are winners, but there are far more losers. The ravages one experiences during and after a war make one consider to get into the silent mode, or perhaps proceed to a perpetual stage of denial. War brings so much hurt, so much unaccounted loss amidst the fact that most everything in life apparently continue to go on even during a war.
After the screening, we were left in the theatre with the rest of the audience. Due to the condition of my patient, we were seated almost anonymously at the back on extra seats. I could see that my patient was working on being attentive to the film about his father. I actually saw a version of the movie months ago in my patient's house when we were trying to elicit some comments or feedback from my patient. Apparently, the copy has been lying somewhere in the house as the filmmaker gave Mr Brecht's family a copy for advanced viewing, and would have wanted some feedback to it. My patient could simply just say so little about the movie on his father. Subsequently, only his sister was able to provide material and some participation in the movie that have made more interesting the persona behind Bertolt Brecht (he was among the first batch of suspected Communists summoned by Congress on a witch hunt in the 1950s). I myself was also surprised to learn from the movie the fact that Mr Brecht's family had a stopover in Manila, Philippines (where I hail from) during their flight by sea travel from Nazi-occupied Germany on their way to the US. Now I get to understand why my patient would say something about the Philippines on occasions that he would be in the right mood to say something to what I would tell him while doing my caregiving chores.
My patient's presence was not announced whatsoever in the screening. It was only way beyond after the screening when most people were already have gone out, that the wife went out of her way to extend her family's gratefulness for providing for invites and facilities for everyone in the family of Mr Brecht to be around during the screening. John Walter and his wife then rushed to where my patient was seated, and kindly introduced themselves. Of course, as most people are....they really didn't know what to do with someone who's been ravaged by a progressively debilitating disease such as that one that got inflicted on my patient.
I wondered how the audience would have turned to be far more fascinated and interested if they only got to see Mr Brecht's other living direct kin, his son, who's my patient. On certain occasions, I really get so amazed at how my patient converses with me. Being an accomplished writer himself, he has such depth, wonderful wit and appreciation whenever he's able to participate in any ongoing conversations in his house. I've seen videos of him showing how active and fast paced he was on a pretty regular day. But sadly, we can't expect him to be always like that nowadays. The ravages of the disease he now carries have simply made him unable to participate more actively. I was told later by his wife that my patient does not usually give interviews about his famous father. I've met several times my patient's sister, and she happened to be one really interesting, warm character. She didn't show up in the documentary, but her voice was heard for several minutes, in response to some questions fielded out by the film director. I would always find her interesting, nevertheless. I found out from the movie that she was also an accomplished actress, as I've found out in the times that I've seen her in my patient's house that she happened also to cook really well (apparently just like most anyone in Mr Brecht's family).
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