Love is always better when someone dies

... onscreen, that is. Or, at least, when lovers are parted by time, distance or fate.

The re-release of James Cameron’s “Titanic” next Wednesday got me thinking about the greatest movie romances. Sure enough, they end not with lovers united but lovers divided.

Would we have felt the passion of Jack and Rose as deeply had they walked through life in the Vale of Happiness? Would we have embraced the Celine Dion song “My Heart Will Go On” if the title had been “Our Marriage Will Go On, Including Children”? I don’t think so.

“Gone With the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “Brief Encounter,” “Wuthering Heights” – the list of memorable, ill-matched film couples stretches on and on. (And not just straight couples, either: Think of the power of “Brokeback Mountain.”) The pictures needn’t be dramas: Woody Allen’s deepest comedy, “Annie Hall,” follows a couple whose affection for each other can’t compensate for their neuroses and differences. Nor is this strictly an English-language thing, as masterpieces from “Les Enfants du Paradis” to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” prove.

Maybe that’s because audiences see intense passions as unsustainable. If Scarlett and Rhett stay together, one will clobber the other after a few months. If Rick and Ilsa abandon Victor Laszlo to the Nazis and run away, their consciences will plague them forever. If Jack and Ennis live openly as a pair, citizens near Brokeback will hound them incessantly.

Maybe we just prefer a good cry to a warm smile. However much we beam with happiness when couples finally connect in “Sleepless in Seattle” or “When Harry Met Sally,” our feelings of joy aren’t as intense as our feelings of sadness when the soul-matched Cathy and Heathcliff part in “Wuthering Heights.” (Although, of course, death unites them, as it will Jack and Rose in “Titanic.”)

You’ll notice that a lot of these titles come from the 1930s through the 1950s, when a higher percentage of movies were made for emotionally mature people. (I could also have mentioned “From Here to Eternity,” “Citizen Kane” – which, in its own way, is a twisted love story – virtually all of film noir and even certain musicals, such as “An American in Paris” and “Carousel.”)

Today, more folks buy tickets for the purest kind of mindless escapism. A few filmmakers still believe that tragedies can lift us out of our daily lives in a meaningful way, but most aim to deliver excitement as superficial as a ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the state fair.

Get out of town!

Some Charlotteans see Mecklenburg County the way New Yorkers look at the world in the famous Saul Steinberg cartoon: We’re about 80 percent of the map, with neighboring counties forming another 15 percent around our borders. Anything beyond that rim appears as a grease spot on the horizon.

That’s why I have a hard time convincing people to go to RiverRun International Film Festival, even though a tortoise like myself can reach it in 90 minutes on the highway. But it comes back to Winston-Salem April 13-22, and I’ll be up there gorging on movies. I’m a judge this year and a speaker; I’ll be on the "What the Hell Happened to Film Criticism? Part 2" panel at 2 p.m. April 22. But even if I weren’t, I’d want to attend. (Get details at: http://www.riverrunfilm.com/.)

I’m a little old for the Intergalactic Space Party, which promises "DJs...playing all the music you’d ever want to hear on your road trip to the moon." But I can still sit through four movies a day, distracted only by two meals, and enjoy every one. The 140 films offered make this the most diverse festival I know of in the Carolinas, and the convenience of screenings -- most of which take place on the University of North Carolina School of the Arts campus -- make binging easy to do.

Want documentary Oscar nominees? Kirby Dick, Frederick Wiseman and Joe Berlinger all have new films here. Want big names in features? Hong Kong action master Johnnie To brings in "Life Without Principle," about a gangster, bank officer and cop whose fates intertwine at the onset of the global economic crisis. Fred Schepisi’s "The Eye of the Storm" stars Charlotte Rampling as a woman who controls every aspect of her upper-crust life; Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis play her kids. I look forward to a gritty new "Wuthering Heights" from Andrea Arnold, who won a short-film Oscar and has yet to hit her stride.

Two suggestions to festivalgoers: The food on campus doesn’t amount to much, and you’ll get tired of the sandwich truck (good as it is) that hangs around outside the screening area, so give yourself time to drive downtown for meals. (That takes about 10 minutes.) See a bit of Winston while you’re there, if you're less manic about movies than I: Buy sweets at the Winkler Bakery at Old Salem or check out American art at Reynolda House. And if you see me, let me know you made the long and dangerous journey north. We pilgrims have to stick together.

Public hangings? THAT's entertainment!

Did you see the news story last week about the town of Medora, N.D.? Mayor Doug Ellison wants to stage mock hangings to attract tourists and has offered to be the guy who takes the faux fatal drop. He plans to purchase material for his gallows from a movie industry stunt supplier. Planning and Zoning Commission members will vote on this idea next month: "Say, Ed, I'm not sure Water Street is zoned for executions. Let's move this over to Elm." (The story: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/03/22/3118159/mayor-of-nd-tourist-town-has-to.html#storylink=misearch)

I went to http://www.medinand.com/, where the town is billed as "North Dakota's #1 Destination." (Really? And it needs to stage hangings?) The spring calendar includes a Cowboy Poetry and Memorial Weekend, the 58th Annual Bird Walk, a musical revue honoring Theodore Roosevelt and multiple events featuring horses and guns, so the town doesn't seem to be dying. Although there's a precedent for public corpses: The "Murder and Mayhem in Medora" weekend June 9-10 celebrates "events that transpired in the 1880s, when Marquis deMores lived and ranched in the Medora area." (He named the town for his wife.)

But the mayor says his "vision is to stage a shooting, where I'd gun down someone in the street, have a trial and a hanging, all within 20 minutes." Maybe that's become the American fantasy of justice: A crime so blatant that there can be no doubt about guilt, followed by a speedy whisk through court -- no defense needed -- and a hanging that satisfies our need for vengeance. Vigilantes, who have temporarily been stilled by the recent unpleasantness in Florida, can cheer.

The problem is, this dimwit's idea is being marketed as entertainment: We're supposed to delight in the slaying of a criminal. After all the degradation of TV reality shows, the smarmy lip-smacking over public humiliations of celebrities and the mind-numbing brutalities of video games, have we really come to this? Are Americans so sick that they'd take pleasure in seeing anyone, even a ruthless outlaw, hung before their eyes?

Chucked out at the library (the sequel)

More people read and commented on my previous post -- the one about being unable to find three of Charles Dickens' novels in any branch of the Public Library -- than ever before, so I wanted to share one more round of thoughts. (In this case "ever before" means "during the month this blog has been around," so I tempered my excitement.)

Someone helpfully pointed out that "Dombey and Son" (which I bought today in a store for used books), "Martin Chuzzlewit" and "Barnaby Rudge" were all available for free as downloads. Yes, I knew that. But not everyone reads books on computers or portable devices -- some people don't even own such things -- and making hard copies of books available to them matters, especially when older folks raised on the classics are the likeliest readers for such titles. (And least likely to download them.)

An e-mailer said it wasn't a library's job (I'm paraphrasing here) to fill shelves with obscure books. I don't insist we keep the complete catalogue of Henry Handel Richardson. But we're talking about the most prominent English-language novelist of the 19th-century, whose collected works would fit on about three feet of shelf space.

Someone else made a disparaging comment about libraries not being museums. But one of their jobs -- only one, but a big one -- is to be exactly that: a preserver of culture, made available for free to residents of this county in formats that all of us can use.

Otherwise, what's the point of having a physical library at all? Why not just have ten dozen employees sitting in a windowless office somewhere off Arrowood Road, linking patron after patron to digital books and music and streamed video? That may indeed be the library of the future, long after I'm dead. I look forward to not seeing it.

Chucked out at the library

I went to the Public Library today to donate stuff. On a whim, I decided to see which branch had a copy of Charles Dickens' "Dombey and Son." Correct answer: None.

Also no "Barnaby Rudge" or "Martin Chuzzlewit." Say what? The entire library system for Charlotte-Mecklenburg has no copies at all of three novels by Chuck D., the most popular writer of the 19th century? He wrote 15 novels, not counting "A Christmas Carol," and we're missing 20 percent.

I realize there's not a vast demand for these books. I realize I can find them online for relatively little dough. I also saw an inexpensive copy of "Dombey" at The Last Word, where I go from time to time for shopping therapy. (It's the only used bookstore in Charlotte, as far as I know, that sells many CDs and DVDs.)

I also realize libraries want desperately to attract patrons who aren't middle-aged white guys, so DVDs and CDs and graphic novels and beach reads and literature aimed at underrepresented communities all take priority over musty, little-known novels by dead Brits. (I won't ask what happened to the copies of "Rudge" and "Chuzzlewit" I donated. I assume they were sold, which won't keep me from renewing my Friends of the Library membership.)

But one of the functions of a great public library is to offer books by the most important authors -- not just the most popular reads, but at least one copy of all significant titles by a writer of this caliber. And Dickens isn't an isolated incident: The library has Miguel de Cervantes' "Don Quixote" in English and Spanish, but not a single other work by Spain's most prominent writer. Surely there's room in our up-to-date system for a bit more history?

Size DOES matter

I speak, of course, of the arts. I thought about this after watching an estimable "Sleeping Beauty" by N.C. Dance Theatre and singing in the chorus of "Eugene Onegin" with Opera Carolina, which coalesced on Saturday night in a way none of us might have suspected from the dress rehearsal. ("Bad dress, good show" -- that's what people say, but it's not always true.)

As well as both came off, I imagined what might have been possible with greater numbers in the corps and chorus. Part of the impact of full-length story ballets and grand opera comes from sheer magnitude, from the spectacle of seeing a stage full of Wilis menacing Duke Albrecht in "Giselle" or rank upon rank of Egyptians screaming for war in "Aida." And Charlotte can't afford those.

The size of the venues available partly limits the performances: Even the smaller ranks of NCDT seemed plentiful enough in Knight Theater, and you can't fit more than one horse onstage in "Carmen" at the Belk. But most of the difficulty is financial, and this is one of the rare occasions where throwing money at a problem would solve it.

If I were a zillionaire, I'd give the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra enough money to hire another half-dozen full-time string players. (Or, rather, to expand its endowment, so money would regenerate itself over time.) I'd enable NCDT to add to its list of principal dancers and do pieces by expensive choreographers. I'd back a production that might otherwise be too costly for Opera Carolina: "Boris Godunov," perhaps. Or, in my dreams, a "Ring" cycle. (But I'd have to supply enough money that attendance became irrelevant.)

Audiences satisfied with current levels might not clamor for these improvements, and regular ticket sales won't pay for them. But this is one of the rare situations where bigger really would be better. I hope someone on the brink of endowing yet another business school gives that some thought.

You have 36 hours to "Beauty"-fy yourself

I seldom blog twice in one day, but I chugged back into the office to urge you to spend some part of Saturday or Sunday watching N.C. Dance Theatre's "Sleeping Beauty." I have seldom seen the company dance with such confidence and poise -- perhaps never, in so large an undertaking as this. (Tickets: http://www.carolinatix.org/default.asp?tix=59&objId=2598.)

Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux has based his version on the original choreography of Marius Petipa and stayed faithful to the "Beauty" I remember. I happened to catch Anna Gerberich's performance as the enchanted princess, a role in which she alternates with Alessandra Ball: Gerberich has just the right combination of tensile strength (especially in the Rose Adagio) and a liquidity that lets her melt from move to move.

The costumes and sets, borrowed from Ballet West, are eye-catching down to the vine-covered scrim that descends when Aurora falls under her spell. Bonnefoux tapped not only his NCDT principals and NCDT 2 dancers but students from the school, who together form a surprisingly unified whole. (Nice to see Kati Hanlon Mayo, who'd have been a fine Aurora in her day, in her cameo as the queen.)

"Magical" is an overused adjective, but it applies literally here. You could imagine little girls, bewitched by the grandeur and the satisfying story of wickedness vanquished, falling in love with ballet itself for a lifetime. It's remarkably hard for a mid-sized company to pull off a piece as large and difficult as this one, and you have until 2 p.m. Sunday to see how it could.