the hours Virginia Woolf: [To her husband] Leonard, I believe I may have a first sentence. [ more quotes ]

i finally saw this amazing movie over the weekend. i can't wait till i start the book. i've started 'mrs. dalloway,' and keep letting interruptions distract me, so i can't finish it. virginia woolf simply rocks.

i don't know much about filmmaking, but some scenes look like film running after the performance of seasoned actors. meryl streep (clarrisa vaughn) and ed harris' (richard brown) first scene together mentioned 'that smile, the history behind it,' alluding to possibilities - which story of theirs need to be told, continued or concluded. their scenes play out like theater. richard brown is the movie's writer idealized, struggling to perfect craft and forever negotiating clearance from real life.

the movie wove smoothly between generations, as if time were nonexistent. like most expositions, the poet, the visionary, as woolf called him, dies. he dies, virginia tells leonard, so that we might learn how to value life more. if from a lesser character that statement would fall flat in the face of comedy.

in the end, virginia woolf falls prey to the character of prophet - for how else could writers suitably cast her? julianne moore's character, laura brown, reads her and gleans courage to do what she must. woolf haunts richard brown up until his dying moment.

yet writer michael cunningham brings in a character that questions and possibly demolishes all of woolf's claims regarding life and relationships - julia vaughn, clarrisa vaughn's daughter. she has no father. she was conceived through a woman's choice to have her. she is young, single and educated. i haven't studied woolf. i've read only pieces of her. i wonder what woolf would have to say about her.  ¶ 11/22/2004 06:40:00 PM