Cesky Krumlov II

After several attempts and a great deal of stress I finally found my way back to Cesky Krumlov.

Five hours after leaving the house I arrived at the castle, bought a ticket for Tour 2 and ran up the hill just in time to join the group. As the tourist season has passed, the tour was not offered in English. So I listened to the Czech and read the English off of a sheet of paper in a plastic sleeve. There were two other English speakers and three Czech people, so I was not alone in staring confusedly at the tour guide and glancing searchingly at the paper. It was a bit frustrating since the guide spoke English and so could have given us a little bit of guiding...but it is about 100 crowns more expensive for an English tour and we only paid for the Czech. Bummer. Still cool though. Tour 2 takes you to a different part of the castle where the Schwarzenberg family lived in the 18th and 19th centuries. The rooms were a touch shabbier than the ones on Tour 1, (the main part of the castle with the banquet halls and things) but interesting, nonetheless. The part I remember most was the bedroom of two young princesses, whose mother, Duchess Pauline, died at the ball celebrating Napoleon's engagement to Maria Louisa. A fire broke out in the ballroom but Pauline stayed inside, desperately searching for her young daughters. Horrible. Next to one of the beds was a girl's white dress; a replica of what one of the daughters was wearing at the ball. How awful! Let's show what the child was wearing the night that her mother died in a fire. Terrible.

The Schwarzenbergs acquired a tremendous collection of early 17th century Dutch tapestries. My question: where did they get them? Strange, you never hear about how these noble families got all their stuff. Did they purchase them legally? Steal them from an enemy they destroyed? Pillage someone else's country estate? Go to Holland and take them from the workshop? I don't know. They are beautiful and apparently quite valuable. It surprised me, then, to see the windows open in the rooms where the rare tapestries adorn the walls. We are so strict about climate control and preservation and obsessively monitoring everything special in American museums, so it always amuses me to see the more relaxed attitude over here. Maybe since they have so much old stuff they aren't as concerned about it? I remember my family and I were in a small town in Austria on a tour of a palace, or maybe a town hall? and the tour guide was really strict about "No pictures!" of the tapestries on the walls because the flash would damage them. Then we turned around and saw that all the windows opposite the tapestries were wide open and the sun was rushing in along with dust from the road...We chuckled.

There was a photograph of the Austrian Empress Elisabeth (Sissi) in her wedding dress, I believe. Sissi and the Schwarzenberg Princess Eleonore were contemporaries. It was funny to see Sissi in Cesky Krumlov. The Austrians, or at least Vienna, is obsessed with her. You see Sissi everywhere--on mugs, bags, jewelry, books, postcards, blankets, shirts...etc. She is a sad figure--depression, anorexia, hypochondria, obsession with her own cult-like status...but enormously popular and fascinating in her own time and ours.

The tour ended in the Cloak Bridge, which is a two story passageway from one part of the palace to the gardens farther up on the hill. The passages were begun in the 18th century. They are beautifully decorated with painted walls, lots of windows, cool lanterns, and Baroque maps of Europe. Every 15 feet or so are metal doors folded back against the wall so you can barely see them. They are painted to blend in with the walls, but in case of fire they could be closed to hopefully stop the spread of flames across the passage from one part of the castle to another.

No pictures inside the castle--darn it, but here is the Cloak Bridge from the outside.

The Cloak Bridge is neat, but it seems sort of wasteful to take up all of that space with just a passageway. If I had been their architect in 1706, I would have suggested they build a new wing to connect the castle to the gardens. A long hallway seems to have limited uses when compared to a whole new set of rooms! But no one consulted me.

You can sort of see the white Cloak Bridge on the left of this picture. The main castle is the grey-ish beige block on the right.

I bought a ticket to tour the Baroque Theater later in the afternoon and began walking about the town in search of lunch. I had an excellent pizza at the foot of the castle. But then I started to worry about catching my bus back to Prague. I had the ticket for 3:00, so I knew I had a place. But. There are two bus stops in Cesky Krumlov. I had gotten off at the first one since I could see the castle tower from that one and figured I was less likely to get lost if I could keep the tower in view. But my ticket said the bus left from the second bus stop. I didn't know if the bus would stop at the first one on the way back, and I was also stressed about making it from my 2:00, 45 minute tour of the theater to the bus stop at 3:00. Especially since I didn't know where that bus stop was or how long it would take me to get there. So I let my stress get the better of me and spent the next hour and a half fretting. I did a "practice run" from the castle to the bus stop, which should have taken me 12 minutes but took me forty since of course I got lost. The woman at the bus stop didn't speak any English so my "Does the bus stop at the other bus stop, too?" query did not make it through. I walked back to the castle, figuring I should try to return my theater ticket since I didn't want to get stuck in Cesky Krumlov. I asked the woman at the tourist information desk about the bus and she said that it did stop at the first stop, Spicak. So I felt better. I asked another person, just to be sure, and they said it did, too. So I bought a trdelnik and settled down on a bench by the castle to try to breathe. Welcome to my neuroses.

I had a shopping list from Eva to fulfill so I spent the next few minutes accomplishing that task. When we were in Cesky Krumlov back in July she bought two mugs and some excellent dark chocolate, and she asked me if I could get two more mugs and some more chocolate. I bought myself a squat, chubby blue mug with an elephant on it. I had seen it in July and was very excited to find it again.

Then it was off to the Castle Theater Tour. Which I am so glad I stayed for. It was really cool. There are only two Baroque theaters like this in the world. One in the Royal Palace in Sweden and this one. There are some other stages and things, but only two theaters with their original buildings and stages still intact. Cesky Krumlov was apparently an extraordinarily active place for theater, which is why the occupants of the castle built this one. They had their own theater troupe and professional musicians so they could have performances all the time. The theater was constructed in the 18th century. There is a beautiful royal box and upper level where the nobility would sit.

The tour group (me, three other Americans, and about 25 Japanese people--indeed, when I was here in July the town was packed, but this time it was quite empty except for groups of Japanese people and me,) sat on the long wooden benches while our tour guide told us about the theater. She was in her fifties but she was dresses like a tween in a black plaid mini-skirt and a red sleeveless shirt and lots of big necklaces. Her makeup was something to see, too. She had a pretty thick accent but spoke slowly and loudly so it was okay. And I was just excited that this tour was in English. She was a great tour guide--very enthusiastic and excited about what she was showing us. At one point she said, "Baroque music was extraordinary. (That was her favorite word and she smoothed it out into about ten syllables). Here is a song for you." I assumed she was going to turn on the TV which she was standing next to and show us a taped performance, but instead she began to sing! Awesome.

The stage itself seemed to go on and on.

The coolest thing about the theater is that the 18th century sets and costumes still exist. There are more than 350 backdrops (extremely elaborate and beautiful), almost 600 complete costumes including accessories like shoes and hats and gloves, 2,4oo props, and lighting equipment and stage machinery. The tour guide demonstrated some of the equipment for us, using replicas, naturally. There was a machine that looked like a wooden lawnmower and made a sound like thunder when you rolled it on the floor. Another big circle thing made a rain noise when you moved it. The flying machines still exist that would raise and lower gods or angels or whatever from the stage. We got to go under the stage so see the trapdoors and all the ropes and equipment. Really amazing. They could completely change the stage with all of its backdrops and everything in about ten seconds. Something like 24 boys would be at work beneath the stage pulling ropes and dragging backdrops around and making thunder noises. It seems that the extraordinary quickness of the scene changes and the special effects were the stars of the production, not the actors or the play itself. It would have been magnificent to see it, especially since only candles would have lit the theater so everything would have been sort of mysterious and dim. It would have looked like magic.

The theater reminded me a little bit of the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. Professor Finucci and I went there one of the last weekends I was in Venice. It is older, a 16th century theater, and was designed by Palladio. But it had the same amazing decoration of the building--this is the back of the theater:

...and an incredible stage. Palladio designed it as a Roman theater. Scamozzi designed the set, which is the oldest surviving one in the world. It has remained on the stage since the first performance since it was so beautiful.

The perspective he created makes it look as though the stage keeps going and going into the distance. Apparently, to sustain this illusion, they would hire short people and even midgets to walk around at the back of the set during performances.

I like modern, spare sets as much as the next person, but after seeing these ornate, gorgeous theaters I wish a bare stage with one chair and a bed wasn't so typical today.

Back to the Czech Republic: the Cesky Krumlov theater was in a horrible condition until 1966 when it was closed and they began restoring it. They have a few performances here every year, which are mainly for studying the theater. Since this is basically the only theater like this left (I don't think the one in Sweden has as many props and machines), a lot of people come here to study it. There are some machines and other objects that we still don't understand. So they make replicas and experiment to try and figure out what in the world it was used for. Isn't that cool? The whole thing is an amazingly intact relic from another time.

My trip, including the seven hours in a bus and the stress I needlessly caused myself, was worth it just for the theater. So farewell Cesky Krumlov! I finally made it back and I can check that off of my list.

Movie of the Week XII

The Women (1939)

1939 was a damn good year for movies. Pardon the language, but goodness gracious! It was a strangely awesome Hollywood annum. Gone with The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Stagecoach (starring a ridiculously young John Wayne), Dark Victory, Gunga Din...the list could go on. One of these movies would make 1939 a great year, but all of them coming out at the same time!? Wow.

Not least of 1939's super films is The Women. Besides being an excellent movie, it is noteworthy for a couple of reasons. One, there are no men in the movie. The slogan for the film is "It's all about men!" which is sort of true but not really. The conflict revolves around an adulterous husband (a few cheatin' men, actually), but the main focus is on the women and their relationships. No men are ever on screen. I can't think of another movie like that, besides the 2008 remake of The Women. The Women was also re-made as The Opposite Sex in 1956 starring June Allyson, but there are men in that one and it lost all spark and edge. The lead male is actually Leslie Nielsen, whom I only knew as a funnyman. He is very young and handsome in the 1956 film, but sort of bland.

Here is the cast in their beautiful evening gowns. No men!

Two, the movie is based on a play written by Clara Boothe Luce and the screenplay features contributions from Anita Loos, the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, though he was not in the credits.

Three, the movie is in black and white except for an insanely-irrelevant-to-the-plot six minute fashion show. Adrian, the legendary MGM fashion designer, created all the clothes for the movie, and the fashion show is the movie saying "Look what Adrian can do! Isn't he great? And look how rich MGM is!" The fashion show is sort of justified (almost) by having all the major characters in attendance and staging a dramatic confrontation between the wife and the "other woman" in the dressing rooms after the show...but the whole thing makes me chuckle. It is such a blatant "look at me!" moment and so MGM. That said, I love it. The clothes are extraordinary and it is just the sort of extravagant fantasy that makes old movies, particularly from MGM, so remarkable and fantastic.

So those are some reasons why The Women is interesting. It is also entertaining. Great cast, great script.

The movie is about Mary Haines (Norma Shearer, not my favorite but fine in this movie) and her perfect life as a wealthy, socially elite, happily married wife and mother in New York City. But things are not as perfect as they seem. Duh. Her "friends" some of whom seem to be waiting and hoping for her fall (warning: the movie does not give a super positive picture of the female sex, especially in regards to their capability for real friendship), soon hear that her husband is doing some philandering. Sylvia (Rosalind Russell, who is awesome, by the way,) is getting a manicure at Sydney's Salon. (The salon in the film supposedly is named for the hair guru at MGM, Sidney Guilaroff.) The manicurist with the comically annoying nasal voice talks about her friend Crystal who works behind a perfume counter and how she is going with Mr. Stephen Haines.

Sylvia cannot wait to spread the news.

She tells all her friends, and then instead of breaking the news to Mary gently, she sends Mary to the same manicurist. Of course the manicurist begins her tale again, not knowing who Mary is. Mary is, understandably, heartbroken.

Although many of her friends and even her mother urge Mary to keep quiet and hope that Stephen will eventually end the affair and come back, she refuses. Well, at first she tries to stay calm and not do anything. But then comes the fashion show...

The scene begins in black and white with all the major cast assembled. Notice that Sylvia is knitting. Fabulous.

A small square of color opens on the screen and then everything changes to technicolor. It is sort of a Wizard of Oz moment but without the munchkins. And instead of a crazy fantastical garden-land, it is a crazy fantastical fashion show with elaborate backdrops and ever-changing sets. We start with a tennis court, then go to the beach, then a zoo, then a summer picnic, then the theater, then a restaurant...

Really practical designs. Everyone wants to go swimming in an off-white mummy burka bikini with a clear plastic visor.

In a really magnificent moment, the camera zooms in on monkeys in the zoo scene who are dressed to match the models. Who thought of that? And were drugs involved?

Perhaps my favorite outfit is the severed hand beach cover-up. From a distance it is a pretty white cape with pink flowers and a funny hat...but then it gets closer and closer...

...until you can see the clasp at the neck...which is a life-like human hand with a diamond ring clutching a flower. As though the poor woman was picking flowers when she met with her accident, and the severed hand would not release the rose. Well done, Adrian. Way to give me nightmares.

Gone with the Wind the novel and the movie were extremely influential and everyone was crazy over antebellum styles. So of course Adrian included some southern belle hoopskirts in the fashion show. Looks like something Scarlett would have worn to the picnic.

Then we go to the theater....

...and finally back to the "reality" of the movie after six minutes of pointless awesomeness. The switch to black and white is a little jarring.

The plot picks right back up again. Mary Haines heads to the dressing room to try on some dresses she has just seen. In a strange coincidence, Crystal (a wonderfully catty and cheap Joan Crawford) is put in the dressing room across the hall. Sylvia hears Crystal tell the saleswoman to charge her purchases to Mr. Stephen Haines. She is ecstatic at the opportunity to cause a scene, so she arranges for Mary and Crystal to meet face to face.

Mary tries to outclass Crystal, but Crystal keeps replying with wonderfully cruel lines. For instance, Mary tells Crystal that Stephen would not like the dress she is trying on because it is too "obvious." Crystal answers, smiling, "Thanks for the tip. But when anything I wear doesn't please Stephen, I take it off." Ooohhh.

This is the final straw for Mary, who heads to Reno to get a divorce. She is there for six weeks, the required time for a divorce. She stays at a ranch which caters exclusively to soon-to-be-divorcees. That is funny in itself. She meets some fun women and there is a nice cat fight, too, when one woman finds out that the "other woman" in her destroyed marriage is staying at the same ranch.

Mary keeps hoping that Stephen will fight to keep her, but it turns out that Mary's big step for independence just opens the door for Stephen to marry Crystal. Sylvia befriends Crystal and there is a lovely scene in the bathroom when Crystal is in the bubble bath and Sylvia comes to call. A private telephone line, a male caller...Sylvia is ecstatic again. And look at her teeny hat! Oh the clothes in this film! Marvelous.

I shan't tell you how it ends. Only one of the last lines which Crystal delivers to the high society ladies at a posh nightspot in the final scene: "There's a name for you, ladies, but it isn't used in polite society...outside of a kennel." Today she would just call them the name and probably use some other bad words, too. Or shoot them or something. I love the subtle power of these old movies.

I wasn't crazy about the re-make. I think that The Women is such a product of that time that it is difficult to transpose it to today. In the recent one the women have jobs and there is much more of a focus on not needing men and being independent. This is great--honestly, the 1939 version is a little anti-feminist at times. Well, you could argue both ways. But most of the women are very wealthy and just hang out at beauty salons and fashion shows and gyms (I love the scene at the fitness center--the exercises they do are hilarious), and the movie finds nothing "wrong" with their lifestyle. They don't need to find their ambition and become executives, and the lazy, mean women who live off their rich husbands are not "punished." My basic point is that the catty humor of the original and the fundamental situations no longer work today, so they were altered for the 2008 movie. Which I think lessens the re-make.

Also, the whole thing about having to go to Reno for six weeks in order to get the divorce no longer applies. I missed that part of the movie.

One of the most fun things about the 1939 film is to watch the female relationships. In the 2008 version it seemed that the filmmakers were more hesitant about depicting women in a negative, i.e., catty, way. It isn't as politically correct to do that anymore. So some of the raw cruelty and funny, sharp dialogue is missing. For example, in the 2008 version they justify Sylvia's betrayal of Mary (she exposes the affair); Sylvia has to tell or her career will suffer. The 1939 Sylvia tells because she loves the power and drama of the secret. There is no excusing her actions. And I think that makes it more fun. Not that I condone the film's depiction of women or anything, but it is still fun and sort of zingy. So watch it. And then you can decide.

Loket

So I have been trying to get back to Cesky Krumlov. Last Saturday I made an attempt. I took a 6:00 AM bus into Prague and then a metro ride to the designated bus station. I arrived 45 minutes before the bus left, only to be told that all buses going to Cesky Krumlov that day were full. Awesome. Unfortunately, the adventure did not end there. I had to get back to my village, but the buses are infrequent at best on weekends, and the internet sometimes lies about the schedule. I went all the way back to Zlicin, about a forty minute metro ride, only to find out that the transportation site had indeed betrayed me and there is no 9:30 bus to Nove Stracesi. There is a 10:30 from Hradcanska, a stop by Prague Castle, though, so I hopped back on the metro, cursing just a little, and rode about forty five minutes to that bus stop. That bus actually did exist so I arrived back at my village at 11:40. It was a six hour trip that took me nowhere. I was terribly frustrated. On the bright side, I did get to wander around Prague very early on a Saturday morning. Here is Old Town Square with its adorable autumnal festival stalls. Not quite open yet.

Fortunately, I did get to see a castle that afternoon. Eva and the baby and I (boys were with grandparents) went to Loket, a tiny town with a small castle to the west of Nove Straseci, just past Karlovy Vary. Loket means elbow, and the name refers to the shape of the river.

Here is the castle. It is 800 years old and is one of the oldest stone castles in the country.

Nice, right? I was going to go on a tour, but there weren't any more English tours since the season is over, and we got there thirty minutes before it closed so there weren't any more tours in Czech. But it all worked out, because they handed me a sheet of paper with facts about the castle and I got to wander around. There were a few other people wandering, too, but it felt like it was my private viewing session. It was sort of fun to walk around aimlessly without having to follow a tour guide. I was able to linger in the archaeological room and skip the torture chamber altogether. The castle is pretty teeny so it wasn't like I was going to get lost.

From the handy fact sheet I learned that the castle was originally built in the 12th century, that Queen Eliska and her kids used to hide there from her husband, John of Luxembourg, and that their three-year-old son was imprisoned for several months in the castle dungeon after John conquered the castle. Eliska was imprisoned in a different castle. Sounds like a sweet family.

The Hussites (they are everywhere!) tried to conquer Loket twice but failed. In the 15th century the castle was mortgaged away by the royal family to an aristocratic one, the Sliks. They had the castle for about a hundred years and finally in the 16th century it became the property of the town. It was used as a town hall and a prison, among other things. In the 20th century it was restored and now we are up to date.

In the first courtyard, old old old tombstones were leaning against the wall.

There was one Jewish tombstone, Rabbi Benjamin's, from a now extinct Jewish cemetery that was nearby.

Part of the castle is used as a porcelain museum. I am not very knowledgeable or fascinated by porcelain, but I did like the designs beside the glass cases of dishes and tea sets.

After browsing through the porcelain I wandered up some stairs and found myself by the big tower. It seems like all the Czech castles I go to have one big tower and then little wings all around it. They are a bit, I don't know, haphazard feeling. You can tell that they were added on to and torn down and rebuilt and then this part burned down but this part didn't, etc.

This was a passage to the tower. You can see the town beyond the roof. Everything felt miniature at this castle. And you know how I love miniatures!

I climbed the little tower steps...

up to the little tower top...

Bare but functional.

This scary dragon sculpture was waiting for me at the bottom of the tower. But, according to the plaque (everything was very well labeled at this castle! The English was nicely written and informative) this dragon was nice and used his fire-breath to light the women's stoves.

This is the tower I climbed. I think during the summer they have vendors in the courtyard, but now the stalls were all closed up and empty. Sort of sad. It seems as though archeological research is still going on at the castle. There were three or four rooms filled with bricks and timbers with plaques announcing where they were found in the castle and what will happen to them. Most of the materials will be reconstructed and replaced. There was a headless angel sculpture, some twisted metal bits, roof tiles, and other random things on display, as well as before and after pictures and even a skeleton lying on some sand. There was no English plaque for him/her, so I have no idea what the significance of that person is. Here is some very old wood.

I think it is neat to be able to see the different phases of the castle: the reconstructed part, the touristy torture museum, the rooms of random objects waiting to be fixed and replaced...

Here is a lovely window on the outside of the castle. It was a gorgeous day.

Down the hill from the castle is a red and white candy cane church. A bit garish on the outside, but the inside was wonderful.

I wasn't sure if it was open to visitors, but the door was open...so I walked in. I was the only person there. It was silent and much cooler inside. A small carnival like the one in Nove Straseci a few weeks ago occupied the small town square and the noise from the rides and the children was quite loud. "Eye of the Tiger" was blaring as I entered the church but it all faded away once inside the massive structure.

I expected the inside to be as bright and heavy as the outside but instead it was pale and light.

I like the ceiling. I don't think there was any real marble in the church, just "faux finishes."

The altar was a bit dark. A small sign at the entrance said that the painting on the altar had been damaged by "overpainting." What does that mean? Did someone literally put too much paint on it? Was it painted over?

Unlike some of the churches I have wandered into recently, this one seemed to be still in use. Look at the cushions on the beautiful carved wooden pews.

It was lovely to be able to walk around the church by myself. Castle tour by myself, church tour by myself--I like being able to observe unobserved.

I met Eva and the baby below the castle by the small river. A big creek, really. There is an outdoor amphitheater that boasts a rather stunning backdrop.

Eva has been to some operas performed on this stage. She said it was incredible to see the castle in the background, all lit up. There are huge boulders and various outcroppings around the amphitheater where the singers perch. That would be something to see!

There is a pit for the orchestra and everything. The national opera company comes here during the summer. I am sorry I missed them!

Another view of the castle...

Another view, but with me in it.

Guess who is walking now?

Last weekend he still liked to have a hand, but yesterday and today he strolled around all by himself and loved it! Very exciting!

He has also been playing peek-a-boo with my sister Sally over skype and saying "huff! huff!" (what dogs say in Czech) when one of my dogs is held up to the webcam. Awesome.

We walked around the tiny town some more and I saw this interesting house. A little dreary, but I love the colored doors and window frames! Maybe it is a hotel or something. It is pretty big.

I also saw an elderly woman walking with two elderly friends. They were probably in their 70s. She had on a teal sweatshirt that said "Spring Break 2009" across the chest. Hilarious. But you see a lot of incongruous English here. Sometimes the slogans on the shirts make absolutely no sense.

And this is the coolest gate ever. Ever.

My day started out poorly with my attempt to go to Cesky Krumlov, but it ended well. We stopped in Karlovy Vary for dinner and returned home late that evening. The baby did not wake up during the transfer from car seat to crib. Victory.