We're all wondering why "Last Christmas"--among the many, many Christmas-y pop songs available for coverage--would speak to a young Taylor Swift. Would speak so loudly that it would demand--and win--a re-recording and re-release. Aren't we? We are--and I'll explain. And you're welcome.
That insipid tune is matched with a killer chorus. I go on a journey. The young woman presents her heart to her lover; it's a Christmas gift. But: the ally is a trickster! The young man *re-gifts* the heart! He gives it away--the very next day. But Taylor rallies: She becomes sadder-but-wiser. By means unexplained, she re-attains her heart, and she swears, this year, to give it "to someone special." Does this plot ring any bells for you? "It's too late for you and your white horse. I might find someone someday who might actually treat me well." "I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break, and burn, and end. But on a Wednesday in a cafe? I watched it begin again." "He can be my jailer. Every love I've ever known in comparison is a failure. I forget their names now. I'm so very tame now. Never be the same now--no." I've often suggested that "White Horse" is the ur-Taylor Swift song--but, with its high hopes, its brutally dashed expectations, its steely resolve, "Last Christmas" is a strong seasonal variant. It's "White Horse 2.0."
It's also worth noting all the ambivalence and subtext in this song. "I keep my distance but you still catch my eye." ("And when we go crashing down, we come back every time. We never go out of style.") "A crowded room, friends with tired eyes; I'm hiding from you--and your soul of ice!" ("There I was again tonight--forcing laughter, faking smiles. Same old tired lonely place. Walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy--vanished when I saw your face.") "If you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again." ("I don't wanna live forever--if I can't have you." "Say you'll remember me, even if it's just in your wildest dreams.") Wham! maybe doesn't have the rigor that Taylor Swift has, so the verses don't totally make sense. Early on, the speaker suggests she is putty in the icy ex-lover's hands. But then later the speaker reveals that she *has already* found a real love and is no longer in danger of "being fooled." Perhaps this is artful self-knowing sophistication. Perhaps Wham! wants to show us a truly Divided Self--a Self incapable of basic linear-narrative consistency.
In any case, I'd argue that Tay Tay chose "Last Christmas" specifically because it spoke to the part of her interested in character growth and missed, or at least subtle, signals. The speaker wrestles with herself and with her former lover; truth/self-knowledge is attained through suffering. Christmas: Just another battlefield, regardless of the bright and festive colors.
***
The thing I notice, over and over, in reading about "The Godfather II," is how art grows out of improvisation. An entire story was drafted for Clemenza; the actor wanted too much money; the story went to Pentangeli, a last-minute invention. (The actor, Gazzo--who went on to an Oscar nomination--was drafted the day before filming began.) Coppola wanted Elia Kazan for Hyman Roth; Kazan wouldn't do it; Pacino drafted his old teacher, Lee Strasberg, late in the game. (Strasberg came out of retirement for the role--and scored an Oscar nomination. He was quite old, so the script was re-written to make Hyman Roth sick and dying.) Sofia Coppola appears as Michael's male son before--later in life--she reappears as Michael's female son. Scorsese--who almost directed "Godfather II"--lent a female relative to the filming process. Coppola clearly fell in love with Cazale, whose role took on an epic quality in "Godfather II," and who also lent heft to "The Conversation." (Coppola invented that "Godfather II" story arch, of course; it wasn't in Puzo's book. You can be sure that, if Cazale were a weak actor, Fredo wouldn't have such prominence in the second "Godfather." This is like Sondheim writing "Another Hundred People" just as serendipity, because, last-minute, he had stumbled on a notably gifted, undiscovered actress.)
You need a way to end the second "Godfather" movie? Think back to Michael's Marines stint, and what that must have meant for the family. And: boom. You have an epilogue-through-flashback.
DeNiro was recycled from a failed first audition (for "Godfather I"). Entire subplots were discarded; at one point, we had Duvall sleeping with Sonny's widow, on the side; at one point, we had Brando returning to set; at one point, we had Clemenza making chaos before the Senate. (Nevertheless, Coppola retained great scraps from the cutting-room floor; the discarded Duvall subplot gave us one brilliant vestigial line, "Take your wife, your mistress, and your kids, and go to New York.") An actor had a stage name, but his real name, "Merle Johnson," was memorable. So Coppola had the actor, under his stage name, playing a character called Merle Johnson, which was actually the actor's secret real name. JFK, Sinatra, and Jackie Kennedy inadvertently donated storylines--or hints of storylines. Al Pacino was doing some compelling stuff in his monster's den--and Coppola had a stroke of genius: It's best to film Michael hanging his head, rather than to film the actual specifics of Fredo's assassination. (This is another Rosemary's Baby moment. We don't see Fredo getting offed. Our imagination supplies something far more compelling than anything a director could do. There's also something innocent and childlike and graceful about diverting the cameras at this moment. Finally, the decision puts the focus on Michael--who watches, intently, then hangs his head. The hanging of the head is such a small gesture, but it's coded; it stands in for so much; it stands in for the unspeakable. And so it's a perfect climax for the film; a capstone; it's metonymy; it represents so much of what is accomplished in this movie, where the indirect, the half-gesture, is made to stand in for fathomless, undefinable evil, again and again.)
Coppola took half-formed thoughts--repeatedly--and made magic. He caught lightning in a bottle. Mistakes and errors and setbacks were transmuted, day after day, into cinema gold.
That insipid tune is matched with a killer chorus. I go on a journey. The young woman presents her heart to her lover; it's a Christmas gift. But: the ally is a trickster! The young man *re-gifts* the heart! He gives it away--the very next day. But Taylor rallies: She becomes sadder-but-wiser. By means unexplained, she re-attains her heart, and she swears, this year, to give it "to someone special." Does this plot ring any bells for you? "It's too late for you and your white horse. I might find someone someday who might actually treat me well." "I've been spending the last eight months thinking all love ever does is break, and burn, and end. But on a Wednesday in a cafe? I watched it begin again." "He can be my jailer. Every love I've ever known in comparison is a failure. I forget their names now. I'm so very tame now. Never be the same now--no." I've often suggested that "White Horse" is the ur-Taylor Swift song--but, with its high hopes, its brutally dashed expectations, its steely resolve, "Last Christmas" is a strong seasonal variant. It's "White Horse 2.0."
It's also worth noting all the ambivalence and subtext in this song. "I keep my distance but you still catch my eye." ("And when we go crashing down, we come back every time. We never go out of style.") "A crowded room, friends with tired eyes; I'm hiding from you--and your soul of ice!" ("There I was again tonight--forcing laughter, faking smiles. Same old tired lonely place. Walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy--vanished when I saw your face.") "If you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again." ("I don't wanna live forever--if I can't have you." "Say you'll remember me, even if it's just in your wildest dreams.") Wham! maybe doesn't have the rigor that Taylor Swift has, so the verses don't totally make sense. Early on, the speaker suggests she is putty in the icy ex-lover's hands. But then later the speaker reveals that she *has already* found a real love and is no longer in danger of "being fooled." Perhaps this is artful self-knowing sophistication. Perhaps Wham! wants to show us a truly Divided Self--a Self incapable of basic linear-narrative consistency.
In any case, I'd argue that Tay Tay chose "Last Christmas" specifically because it spoke to the part of her interested in character growth and missed, or at least subtle, signals. The speaker wrestles with herself and with her former lover; truth/self-knowledge is attained through suffering. Christmas: Just another battlefield, regardless of the bright and festive colors.
***
The thing I notice, over and over, in reading about "The Godfather II," is how art grows out of improvisation. An entire story was drafted for Clemenza; the actor wanted too much money; the story went to Pentangeli, a last-minute invention. (The actor, Gazzo--who went on to an Oscar nomination--was drafted the day before filming began.) Coppola wanted Elia Kazan for Hyman Roth; Kazan wouldn't do it; Pacino drafted his old teacher, Lee Strasberg, late in the game. (Strasberg came out of retirement for the role--and scored an Oscar nomination. He was quite old, so the script was re-written to make Hyman Roth sick and dying.) Sofia Coppola appears as Michael's male son before--later in life--she reappears as Michael's female son. Scorsese--who almost directed "Godfather II"--lent a female relative to the filming process. Coppola clearly fell in love with Cazale, whose role took on an epic quality in "Godfather II," and who also lent heft to "The Conversation." (Coppola invented that "Godfather II" story arch, of course; it wasn't in Puzo's book. You can be sure that, if Cazale were a weak actor, Fredo wouldn't have such prominence in the second "Godfather." This is like Sondheim writing "Another Hundred People" just as serendipity, because, last-minute, he had stumbled on a notably gifted, undiscovered actress.)
You need a way to end the second "Godfather" movie? Think back to Michael's Marines stint, and what that must have meant for the family. And: boom. You have an epilogue-through-flashback.
DeNiro was recycled from a failed first audition (for "Godfather I"). Entire subplots were discarded; at one point, we had Duvall sleeping with Sonny's widow, on the side; at one point, we had Brando returning to set; at one point, we had Clemenza making chaos before the Senate. (Nevertheless, Coppola retained great scraps from the cutting-room floor; the discarded Duvall subplot gave us one brilliant vestigial line, "Take your wife, your mistress, and your kids, and go to New York.") An actor had a stage name, but his real name, "Merle Johnson," was memorable. So Coppola had the actor, under his stage name, playing a character called Merle Johnson, which was actually the actor's secret real name. JFK, Sinatra, and Jackie Kennedy inadvertently donated storylines--or hints of storylines. Al Pacino was doing some compelling stuff in his monster's den--and Coppola had a stroke of genius: It's best to film Michael hanging his head, rather than to film the actual specifics of Fredo's assassination. (This is another Rosemary's Baby moment. We don't see Fredo getting offed. Our imagination supplies something far more compelling than anything a director could do. There's also something innocent and childlike and graceful about diverting the cameras at this moment. Finally, the decision puts the focus on Michael--who watches, intently, then hangs his head. The hanging of the head is such a small gesture, but it's coded; it stands in for so much; it stands in for the unspeakable. And so it's a perfect climax for the film; a capstone; it's metonymy; it represents so much of what is accomplished in this movie, where the indirect, the half-gesture, is made to stand in for fathomless, undefinable evil, again and again.)
Coppola took half-formed thoughts--repeatedly--and made magic. He caught lightning in a bottle. Mistakes and errors and setbacks were transmuted, day after day, into cinema gold.
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