Offered in the anthology New York Stories (2011), Edith Wharton‘s “A Cup of Cold Water” is a New York (City) story from long ago. To a NYC bank the man Woburn owes his job, and he loves Miss Talcott, a member of the city’s aristocracy. But Woburn must be rich to marry the girl; at this he is an unscrupulous failure. Eventually he stops a destitute young woman—Woburn himself is nearly destitute now—from committing suicide. Jesus informed us that if a person gives a cup of water to a thirsty Christian, by no means will he lose his reward. Hence the story’s title. Although not a Christian, the young woman is a down-and-outer helped by Woburn in various ways, after which he does receive a reward of sorts. It is renewed strength and moral sense.

Plot and structure here sustain the reader beautifully. Perhaps the most appealing thing about the story are the paragraphs concerning a cotillion where Woburn and Miss Talcott respectfully see each other but do not speak. Wharton’s piece is a sympathetic winner.

I tried to read Cesare Pavese’s short novel, Among Women Only, but decided it was not for me. The film adaptation by Michelangelo Antonioni, from 1955, however, is a very enjoyable human-condition piece. Le Amiche (The Girl Friends) is Antonioni’s title for the film, and beautiful girl friends they are.

After a suicide attempt, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer), who is emotionally weak, is encouraged by her friend Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), cynical and corrupt, to pursue the engaged man with whom she has fallen in love. This is Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti), a moral failure who knows he must prove his love for his devoted wife-to-be, Nene. Rosetta is a moral failure too, one no longer able to bear life. A strong examination of unrequited love, Le Amiche is obviously sad. Earnest and savvy too.

I tried to read Cesare Pavese’s short novel, Among Women Only, but decided it was not for me. The film adaptation by Michelangelo Antonioni, from 1955, however, is a very enjoyable human-condition piece. Le Amiche (The Girl Friends) is Antonioni’s title for the film, and beautiful girl friends they are.

After a suicide attempt, Rosetta (Madeleine Fischer), who is emotionally weak, is encouraged by her friend Momina (Yvonne Furneaux), cynical and corrupt, to pursue the engaged man with whom she has fallen in love. This is Lorenzo (Gabriele Ferzetti), a moral failure who knows he must prove his love for his devoted wife-to-be, Nene. Rosetta is a moral failure too, one no longer able to bear life. A strong examination of unrequited love, Le Amiche is obviously sad. Earnest and savvy too.

Cover of Storytelling

Todd Solondz‘s Happiness (1998) was such an insufferable film it prompted me to wonder whether Solondz was the slightest bit capable of ever creating a good one.  His 2002 offering, Storytelling, proves that he is, in addition to demonstrating just how puny his talent is for anything exceeding half an hour.  Two independent tales, you see, constitute Storytelling, and only the 30-minute one (“Fiction”), not the hour-long one (“Nonfiction”), works.  In the latter we get confused and meretricious trash about a documentary filmmaker and the Jewish American family he will camera-shoot.  The story never clicks.  Solondz handles the material with cynical misanthropy, of course, but he does the same with the shorter “Fiction,” with a nice result.

“Fiction” tells of a lefty college girl (Selma Blair) who is callously dumped by her cerebral-palsied boyfriend before taking “solace” in the anal sex ministrations of her black creative-writing professor.  He all but rapes her.  The story concerns the fictions on which people feed so indulgently that they refuse to look sordid behavior straight in the face.  It concerns idealism in a vacuum.  Solondz scores with concision and wit, and has worked well with the actors in “Fiction.”  It’s a very sexy thirty minutes too, but with none of the foolish offensiveness of Happiness. 

A laughable nihilist, at least Solondz has not destroyed the whole of Storytelling.