How calmly does the olive branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair
Some time while light obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever
And from thence
A second history will commence
A chronicle no longer gold
A bargaining with mist and mold
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth, and then
An intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene corrupting love
And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer
With no betrayal of despair
Oh courage! Could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me
Nonno’s (Cyril Delevanti) final poem, the completion of which seemingly clears his road to death, is the crowning moment in the always wonderful The Night of the Iguana. Tennessee Williams was a playwright, and his works are by definition theatrical. Yet this play, an exceptional cast of actors, beautiful location photography, and most of all, a director (John Huston) with a wicked sense of humor, combine to give the film version a life of its own.
Although I have seen this film more than ten times (and shown it an unprecedented four times at MovieNight!), I hadn’t seen it for a couple of years… I fell in love with it all over again last night. Maybe we’ll show it again next season?
In an attempt to bring back a more party-like atmosphere in the wake of a spate of quite heavy films, we offered a special theme cocktail; the Rum Coco (golden rum, coconut water, agave syrup, and lemon juice). Some say that Williams meant the rum coco as a metaphor for decay, but we see it as a metaphor for “OK!” Well, you know what I mean.
Last night also saw the unanticipated (to some) return of the MovieNight Season Raffle Prize. 3 tickets were sold.
We now have a good supply of Danny Bo’s CHOCKA frozen chocolate vodka (both milk and dark versions); a decadent treat available at the Bowery Hotel Bar, and MovieNight. Yummy.
More about this film on IMDb 