Blow Out

Given the implausible frenzy of this film’s opening, we should not be surprised that its conclusion is underpinned by a notion of affection only teenage sensibilities (and perhaps a few disturbed Romantic poets) could concoct. But between these uncomely bookends we are treated to sensational filmmaking, at once highly derivative and highly original, proving again that old adage about achieving maximum originality by following a model. The model is noir, the Man Who Knew Just Enough to get himself embroiled in a maelstrom of deadly currents, or, as it were, deadly current events. And our doomed sailor is an unambitious sound man by the name of Jack Terry (John Travolta). 

Our time is the late 1970s and our place a Philadelphia that some may mistily remember, but one about to celebrate a non-existent holiday, Liberty Day. The insertion of this fictitious fête is significant, because it lends the entire film a certain unreality that abets its game of twisted perceptions. And these perceptions begin and end in the rather terrible little studio that employs Jack Terry. Jack exudes intelligence in a very humble way, ostensibly in line with his self-description as "the guy who always put together radios as a kid, always won science fairs ... you know the type." He is also young, handsome, and almost suspiciously genuine, which means he must inevitably be sheltering a memory of great embarrassment or regret. He will reveal that regret much later in our film, in a passably convincing scene that also explains why he has relegated himself to the orchestration of slag-ridden grindhouse. I say "passably" because considering how much thought was put into making Blow Out, the motive behind Jack's series of unfortunate acts of kindness and interference will strike the viewer as plucked from a rather dusty hat. What acts of kindness, you ask? Well, what would the average citizen do if he saw, on a dark and lonely night on a dark and lonely park bridge, a car skid off the road into a lake? But since Jack Terry has been out all that evening recording nature's music for his sonic arsenal, he will have something more to do once he has fished the requisite damsel in distress (Nancy Allen) out of the drink.

The damsel in question is Sally, and she doesn't fool us one bit, but she certainly deceives poor Jack. Sally is the type of girl men should always avoid, not because she is insincere, manipulative, or incredibly boring – although all these epithets do apply – but because she is frail and suggestible. Like Jack, she has no ambition or plans in life; but unlike the young man who rescues her, her moral weakness allows her to be cast in other people's plots, most notably those of the inscrutable paparazzo Manny Karp (Dennis Franz). Why doesn't Jack see what is so clear to even the most naïve of onlookers? To his credit, we are privy to one piece of information that is only revealed to Jack much later on: he was not the sole witness to the car crash. So as Jack, roused to action, races to the lake to plunge for survivors, we see another figure racing up the stairs behind him. We also see that Sally was not alone in the vehicle (when Jack approaches the sunken car, a bloodied male corpse greets him from the front seat). But when Jack emerges from Sally's hospital room to find a mass of policemen walling off a throng of reporters, he learns that the other occupant of that car was the governor of the state of Pennsylvania, a strong Presidential hopeful who, at last Gallup auscultation, was more than three times as popular as the incumbent to the Oval Office. Alas, on that fateful eve, Jack was too busy organizing his wares ("strangling victims," "footsteps," "cries for help," and one of the most nonsensical horror movie staples, "knife slices") to notice the evening news piece on Governor McRyan's intention to announce his candidacy. Why would McRyan, on a night when he knew he would draw significant media attention, choose to spend that night with a woman who was not his wife? Is this his form of stress relief? What Jack also did not notice on that same news program is the President's spin doctor, who guarantees his man will prevail come November and gives the camera an unmistakable look – and we should stop our insinuations right there.

The film's title refers to the lakebound car's tire (which recalls this infamous occurrence), just as Antonioni's film, a work based on this short story, refers to a photograph; but the more immediate precursor to Blow Out is this masterpiece about another sound man. Thankfully De Palma's vision lacks both Blow-Up's pretentiousness and Harry Caul's overwhelming guilt. Jack Terry is both exactly what he seems to be and, in a very plausible way, a little more than that. The façade he erects and defends against all who approach him noticeably wavers in Sally's presence, a curious matter since she is hardly what one would call a knockout. More likely, the deed of saving a person's life has imbued the savior with more faith in our earthly existence than it has the saved. So when Jack comforts a mistrustful and confused Sally in the hospital, he does so in a manner almost unique to a young Travolta, in the soft, warm, yet still macho way of someone who could truly care for a stranger because that's what good people do. And when he tells Sally that since he saved her life, the least she could do is have a drink with him, the mild emotional extortion has the pungency of truth. Yet the best scenes involve the world Jack creates in his mind, the marriage of sound and sight (it betrays little of our story to mention that a film of the incident surfaces), coated with the memories of that inexplicable accident that could just as easily have left no survivors at all. One wonders whether Jack's aims and energy would have been the same if it had been his state's governor he had saved, not an average, lonely woman doing average, lonely things with quite possibly the next President of the United States. Maybe Jack Terry would even have been given an award for being such an exemplary citizen. An exemplary citizen, mind you, who spends his nights walking around and recording all the secrets of our universe.

The Big Animal

In all likelihood this is the only Polish film that has ever featured this mammal; but it is undoubtedly the only one to feature the adoption of a Bactrian camel by a Polish couple sitting at dinner one late evening. Despite their reputation as beasts of the sand dunes, some species of camels (specifically Bactrian camels, which are native to the Mongolian steppe) can live in colder weather, but are not quite as fond of it – as far as we can ascertain what camels are and are not fond of. Why a camel rather than another exotic animal completely out of place in Northern Europe? Were this camel trotting about, say, Central Park in today's political climate, one might cynically speculate as to the cultural associations that spring to mind (my godfather once quipped that such a tale would surely become a bestseller, especially if it featured a cross-park chase scene). As it were, a Bactrian camel is probably one of the more peaceful, low-maintenance animals you will find. It can eat and drink sporadically, acclimate to almost any type of weather, carry up to half a ton on or between its two humps, and does not need much exercise. When it does eat, it enjoys cud and other delicacies and generally minds its own business, masticating slowly with its double-jointed jaws. Its appearance on endangered species lists stems from its paucity in the wild, as the vast majority have been domesticated and are considered to be good pets. And who's to say that a good pet in China and Mongolia cannot be a good pet in Poland? In a way, a camel in a Polish village makes as much sense as an elephant in a city zoo, a point made during the course of The Big Animal.

It is never quite explained how, one evening, the adoptive parents Zygmunt and Maria Sawicki (Jerzy Stuhr and Anna Dymna) hear a noise in the modest, average garden of their modest average house, and how the source of that noise is none other than a large camel grazing on their lawn. The most logical idea would involve a runaway from a circus, as circuses are the refuge for everything not accepted by mainstream society. The looks they exchange suffice to tell us that the same thought has passed through their minds, but it remains unspoken. Soon thereafter, Zygmunt, who seems like he always really wanted a pet, is parading the unnamed mammal about town on a leash to the mockery and amazement of the locals. Yet what is most interesting is that the motive for such behavior appears to be altruistic: Zygmunt is convinced that his modest, average garden is no place for a beast that large (Bactrian camels are often the size of a bigger horse), and he very responsibly leads it to graze in the countryside. Yet that is not how the public sees it. That same day, he returns to his job as a bank clerk gorged on the wonder of nature's details and spouting platitudes which elicit a swoony response from an attractive young female colleague. Not that, mind you, Zygmunt notices. No, he is far too busy fending off suggestions that this curious addition to the village will net him a pretty penny. "How could I sell it?" he says, horrified at the idea. "I'm just happy it's there." An unusual but sincere sentiment, although no one believes it. 

Zygmunt returns from a long day to find Maria and the camel sharing space tentatively; after all, a modest average property has its limitations. "He just looks at me sometimes," she complains to her husband, "and then he keeps chewing." Zygmunt implies with patience earned through years of marriage that this is exactly what camels do, and neither the chewing nor the staring should be particularly off-putting. "He's so harmless," he adds, stroking him cautiously, and then makes his way to his second job of sorts, clarinet in the local orchestra. Here is where Zygmunt shows signs of distraction and confusion ("I've had a long day," he reiterates, which a joking colleague embellishes by talking about a "safari") obliging the conductor by the end of the film to demote him to second clarinet. Little by little, the couple garners an unfounded reputation for arrogance, snobbery, and isolationist tendencies – although we can't really blame their neighbors who find the whole matter ridiculous. A lucrative one-time advertising opportunity arises that could pay the couple more than Zygmunt would make in a year, provided that he be willing to invest himself with Arab garb and pose with the still unnamed camel (as for names, Zygmunt finds Pampoosh and Fuzzy too emasculating, so Ramses is suggested). After much hemming and hawing, the Sawickis decide the money wouldn't be that much of a bad idea, but the shoot predictably devolves into a debacle and Zygmunt feels bought although he's really only being rented.

One glance at the black-and-white cinematography and you would think it remarkable that this film was made in 1970s Poland (when its events take place), a good ten years before Kieślowski dramatized each of the Ten commandments separately. But the film was actually filmed in 2000, although Kieślowski's script does date from less liberated times. Stuhr, who also directed, has a demeanor about him that reminds you simultaneously of this American actor and this British-born actor of Russian stock, and, accordingly, his presence vacillates from the humorous and boorish to the philosophical and profoundly insightful. There are also a lot of secondary subplots: a lottery drawing with the winner to get a new car, the equivalent of a horse or camel; a claim that Mr. Sawicki has to pay a camel tax – which of course doesn't exist, so he is charged for a small horse; a wonderfully peaceful scene showing the camel's immense size out in the open fields; and a hearing with the Animal Humane society. All of these scenes matter and are integral to making the plot advance. But the one question that Zygmunt never seems to answer is "why do you keep a camel?" And the only response seems to be "why not?" I'm sure Maria could give us a few better reasons.

In Cold Blood

It was ideal apple-eating weather; the whitest sunlight descended from the purest sky, and an easterly wind rustled, without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on the Chinese elms. Autumns reward western Kansas for the evils that the remaining seasons impose: winter's rough Colorado winds and hip-high, sheep-slaughtering snows; the slushes and the strange land fogs of spring; and summer, when even crows seek the puny shade, and the tawny infinitude of wheatstalks bristle, blaze. 

                                                                                                                  Truman Capote

We have all heard the story (we may have even seen the movie – true, there have been several, but only one stands out), yet in our jaded era, when news has devolved into a summary of the day's wickedest and corniest deeds, we may no longer think often about the Kansas night of November 15, 1959. We may no longer wonder what motivated two recent jailbirds to ignite a nationwide manhunt, or how close they were on numerous occasions to not fulfilling their evil scheme. We may also not remember the speedy trial and windy series of appeals, that these two men sat on death row, what was dubbed the Corner in Kansas, for four years before their hanging in 1965. And once all persons immediately involved in the Holcomb tragedy were deceased ("four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives"), one of America's finest prose works was finally printed to everlasting controversy and acclaim.

We begin in one of the westernmost regions of the Bible Belt, "that gospel-haunted strip of American territory in which a man must, if only for business reasons, take his religion with the straightest of faces." The residents of these quiet nooks, like the two-hundred-seventy-odd inhabitants of Holcomb, Kansas, are the direct descendents of those courageous souls who decided once upon a time that a covered wagon on a straight path of destiny was superior to a restricted semi-urban community of property owners. The irony, of course, is that the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of these lonesome prairie doves are now some of the most prominent landowners in their fiefdoms. One such squire is the eminently respectable Herbert Clutter. Clutter is the father of four, getting his only son and heir on the last try. His children are successful – the two eldest daughters have already married well and the youngest and the son are promising high school students – and his marriage has held up despite his wife's chronic infirmity, what some nowadays may choose to characterize as a violent pendulum between two distant poles – but we need not belabor the matter. Perhaps the mild disappointment of the Clutters' matrimony can be best summarized by a typical vista from the lonesome cliff that was Herbert's wife, Bonnie:

She knew 'good days' and occasionally they accumulated into weeks, months, but even on the best of the good days, those days when she was otherwise her 'old self', the affectionate and charming Bonnie her friends cherished, she could not summon the social vitality her husband's pyramiding activities required. He was a 'joiner,' a 'born leader'; she was not, and stopped attempting to be. And so, along paths bordered by tender regard, by total fidelity, they began to go their semi-separate ways – his a public route, a march of satisfying conquests, and hers a private one that eventually wound through hospital corridors.

Until the night of November 15, 1959, this unbridgeable gap – and it most certainly is unbridgeable – was the worst thing ever to have happened to Herbert Clutter and his immediate family. Alas, almost no one picks up In Cold Blood to learn about Herbert and Bonnie Clutter, their youngest daughter Nancy, or their only son Kenyon. No, readers have flocked to the novel for the better part of five decades because of two deadbeat thirtysomethings: Perry Smith and Dick Hickock.

Four lives – thriving, prosperous lives, albeit undescribed to us in anything except careful bromides – were ended on an unwilled miscalculation; two others, we are shown and told in monumental detail, are the knotty sums of long years of frustration, exclusion, and defeat. The defeated are Smith, a half-Cherokee, half-Irish "dwarfish boy-man" who loves playing the guitar and lifting weights, and Hickock, the sex-crazed check bouncer. Smith's childhood was wanton, hungry, and streaked with cruelty and misfortune; Hickock, on the other hand, was loved and never poor, if restricted by Puritan mores and an unyielding paterfamilias. Smith will compensate for his pain in the most natural way possible: he will seek to educate himself on the books he was never given (his highest education was the third grade) and become a knower of life; Hickock will make up for what he viewed as an iron fence around his stifled adolescent urges by slipping into statutory rape and kleptomania. Keen observers of human nature will immediately note how commonly such an odd couple forges a bond of, if not friendship, then mutual need. Indeed, towards the end of our terrible tale, Smith and Hickock will be joined on Kansas's death row by a similar, if even younger duo, whose motives are somewhat different ("We hate the world," they declare, after massacring seven residents of it) but whose identical demises will come only ten weeks later. 

Of our pair of evildoers, Hickock has far less to offer, but he will also bring up an interesting twist in his case that makes his lot seem – at least to him and a few misguided partisans – quite unfair. Regardless of Hickock's machinations this is without a doubt the Perry Smith show. Smith has rage within him, rage that has accumulated over a lifetime of a drunken, cowardly mother, a wild, destitute, and criminal youth, and an appearance that has always generated scorn and distance. Two of his siblings committed suicide and he has mulled over such an exit on countless occasions with no small amount of relief. The plot to rob the Clutters was supposed, however, to bring him happiness and money – two things Smith has never really had, and certainly not at the same time. But happiness is not really the fate of Perry Smith. And so, aboard a Mexican boat with a German captain during the duo's brief but exotic flight from the Kansas killing fields, we get a rather haunting portrait:

When Perry sang, Otto sketched him in a notebook. It was a passable likeness, and the artist perceived one not very obvious aspect of the sitter's countenance – its mischief, an amused, babyish malice that suggested some unkind cupid aiming envenomed arrows. He was naked to the waist. (Perry was 'ashamed' to take off his trousers, 'ashamed' to wear swimming-trunks, for he was afraid that the sight of his injured legs would 'disgust people' and so, despite his underwater reveries, all the talk about skin-diving, he hadn't once gone in the water.)

Smith's injuries date back to a motorcycle "crackup" – but we are not concerned with his well-being, his constant knee-rubbing that begins to resemble a wringing of the hands, or his aspirin-popping that begins to resemble the drugs so typical of the loser and recidivist. When an incarcerated Smith sees from his window cats "hunting for dead birds caught in the vehicles' engine grilles" and recognizes that "most of my life I've done what they're doing; the equivalent," we nod at this soft moment of self-awareness. Even if it is one of the very few.

The years following the publication of In Cold Blood were not that kind to Capote, who began to investigate bottlenecks and tumblers with the same vigor he once devoted to his semi-fictitious creations. But what of the problem of content? Art is necessarily about life; it may, like life, conclude in some form of extinguishment, like the snuffing out of a candle or its gradual guttering into the thinnest glaze of wax. But Capote's masterpiece is about the opposite of life, what we generally know as physical death but which, in this context, may be best understood as a study in extinction. Still, even solely on the basis of one "non-fiction novel" Capote must rank among the twentieth century's foremost prose stylists. Consider the asides: "Dick's anger had soared past him and struck elsewhere"; "His confidence was like a kite that needed reeling in"; "Mrs. Clare, an admirer of logic, although a curious interpreter of it"; "Her [Nancy's] eyes ... darkly translucent, [were] like ale held to the light"; "It was as though [Dick's] head had been halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center"; "Tomorrow the aged Chevrolet was expected to perform punishing feats"; "Maturity, it seemed, had reduced her [Bonnie's] voice to a single tone, that of apology." Then there was the time a wounded, enlisted Smith hit it off with his nurse:

Sexual episodes of a strange and stealthy nature had occurred, and love had been mentioned, and marriage too, but eventually, when his injuries had mended, he'd told her goodbye and given her, by way of explanation, a poem he pretended to have written.

This magnificent snippet contains more artistic insight than an entire harlequin romance, and just as much plot. At another instance Capote refers to the greenest of the Kansas prosecutors as "an ambitious, portly young man of twenty-eight who looks forty and sometimes fifty" – and I am hard pressed to find a more dazzling portrait of genius amidst a museum of extraordinary exhibits ("I walked miles, my nose bleeding like fifteen pigs" may be a close runner-up). In the end, we are encouraged by justice because the crimes are the most unpardonable and merciless that man can commit. Yet what knowledge could have been gained during the "ideal apple-eating" season? Perhaps simply that of disobedience, neither first nor last. As Nancy stated of her beloved father, "I just want to be his daughter and do as he wishes." If only we all took such words to heart. 

Barbara

Until telepathy becomes a human trait, we will always retain the freedom to think of whom and what we choose. We can be restricted in where we go, what we read, even to whom we speak; but no oppressive government – and the history of human governance is merely the chronicle of these tyrannies’ demise – has as yet succeeded in fully breaching our inner securities. We have assisted them, however, by doing it ourselves: we have succumbed, and compromised, and relented, all for the sake of the thin hope that the future couldn’t possibly be as grim (as some, unfortunately bereft  of irony, have commented: we have helped lay the bricks to our own prisons). But like in any unholy cult of personality or citizenship, sacrifices for some preposterous common aim are expected, sacrifices which oftentimes assume the shape of our nearest and dearest. And soon we find we have betrayed our most intimate circles solely to elude our own destruction. An appropriate preamble to this fine film.

The year is 1980 and our titular female is Dr. Barbara Wolff (Nina Hoss), late of Berlin’s renowned Charité hospital and now ensconced in a less glamorous, rural setting not far from this city. Our first glimpse of Dr. Wolff is on a lonely bench, smoking as she always seems to be doing (in one scene she studies a serum beneath a microscope while still holding a gasper aloft), her eyes determined not to divulge their inklings. “She’s always like that,” says an unmistakable voice. “If she were six years old, you’d say she was sulky.” The you invoked is Dr. André Reiser (Ronald Zehrfeld) who, while casually spying on his newest physician, is also considering other matters: her intelligence, her vulnerability, and, of course, the fact that, despite her jagged edges, she is gracile and pretty. The unmistakable voice belongs to a beady-eyed man called Schütz (Rainer Bock), and his agenda will resemble the agendas of so many other unmistakable operatives who bide their time waiting, as it were, for others to make mistakes. A wrinkle in his otherwise straitlaced story will surface much later on, one which might explain why so many characters in the credits share his surname. For the nonce, however, his purpose is clear: Barbara Wolff is under surveillance for having sought work in the West, a crime whose punishment will not involve a conventional jail, but the isolation and obscurity of the country doctor. Schütz burdens Reiser with this information and in so doing makes him an accomplice – although in East Germany the number of such abettors was so enormous that Reiser is in no way remarkable. Furnished with this subterfuge from the opening scene, we have few illusions about what Reiser may or may not suspect; but like so many others recruited or press-ganged into intelligence work, he develops a certain sympathy towards his mark. That is why when Barbara glides by a cafeteria table in utter ignoration of her colleagues, he decides to give her a ride home and explain the lay of land. "You shouldn't cordon yourself off that way," he tells her (Sie sollten sich nicht so separieren), as people here are "very sensitive," especially towards someone once employed at the most famous hospital of the most famous divided city in the world. Compared to such a person "they would feel second class" (Sie fühlen sich bald zweite Klasse), to which Barbara inquires whether Reiser's opting for the bourgeois separieren (instead of, say, the proletarianly Teutonic trennen) comprises his own attempt not to sound "second class." That Reiser also finds her house without having asked for directions disabuses Barbara of any last hope that an unmistakable plan is afoot.  

While references to class distinctions and the so-called "second world" are hardly coincidental, mere minutes into Barbara two potential storylines have already been eliminated: the boilerplate melodrama of a shy and successful outsider pigeonholed by locals as a snob, and the cloak-and-dagger oneupmanship of the standard issue spy thriller. Instead, we are obliged to examine closely our two protagonists, who are both caregivers and victims – as well as in each other's way, if you know what I mean. Barbara withdraws to her modest abode complete with untuned piano, a shortcoming not lost on Reiser, who uses his connections to send for a tuner. With that tuner comes a written report that might terrify the average burgher; at least, so we think given the previous scene's confession as to how Reiser, a gifted physician in his own right, came to this hinterland. Barbara listens with like incredulity to this story and Reiser's dilettantish theory about this much-discussed painting; only this Russian tale will finally convince her of her colleague's desires, and at this point it might be all too late. Too late? It gives nothing away to reveal that Barbara is precisely what she appears to be: that is, a flight risk. She has burn-upon-reading notices and other sensitive materials which she hides in her stovepipe, a series of remote drop-off points, and, most importantly perhaps, a lascivious and affluent boyfriend, Jörg (Mark Waschke), who cannot wait to export her into his Western world where she no longer has to play doctor and "can sleep in every day." During a hotel tryst with Jörg, the latter's fellow interloper beds Steffi (Susanne Bormann), a young East German whose cries of lust literally come from the other side of a wall – behind which, of course, lies paradise. As Steffi asks Barbara her tastes in a wedding ring catalogue – Jörg's friend has already made promises of the unkeepable kind – Barbara cannot help but stare at this simple, desperate girl who would love to sleep in every day, provided that day does not rise too far to the East. There are also the ethical diversions supplied by two sick teenagers, Stella (Jasna Fritzi Bauer) and Mario (Jannik Schümann), one of whom is suicidal and likely brain-damaged, the other bent on escaping a work camp that cannot possibly exist anymore in the great civilization called Europe. That bedside Barbara reads to Stella from this book instead of this one should tell us all we need to know about their relationship.

The brilliance of Petzold’s film lies not only in the two protagonists’ mutual misgivings, but in how their intuitions continue to twist their fate. Privy to Dr. Wolff’s plans, as they are slowly unfurled, and to the fact that Reiser knows of her past indiscretions, we still sense that Barbara very slowly comes to trust or at least to understand her colleague. Yet it is Reiser who remains the unknown quantity. Blubbery, fuzzy-featured, and all too keen on impressing a Berliner, his acts of kindness may be more acting than beneficence (at junctures we also wonder whether he knows too much about Stella's personal history). In one scene, as Barbara appears to be asleep, he scrutinizes her Western cigarettes, and we cannot tell whether fear, admiration, or duty to report such contraband brings a smile to his face. Then at the very middle of Barbara, Reiser will deride her West German currency, leading to their first joint bout of laughter: they have become allies, even if the goal of their alliance is not yet clear (at another confederative moment Reiser will switch, likewise without precedent, to the informal du). They pedal their bikes together just like you're supposed to do in a romance and briefly seem far away from their drab reality; he invites her to "the most beautiful place I know," male shorthand for a proposition; and claiming she hates the sea, she retreats to her piano and her effortless talent. But it is another scene, one in which Barbara finds Reiser with a very unexpected patient, that shunts her down a track of fateful decision. And what about that odd gift, a bountiful basket of vegetables, which all tidily resolve into one tasty dish? Perhaps pure chance, even if chance may be minimized in a realm of unmistakable aims. And after all, what is life if not a few too many coincidences?

Gautier, "Le spectre de la rose"

A poem ("The specter of the rose") by this Frenchman, and the basis of this musical work.  You can read the original here.

No more your softest lids do close,
No longer graze a virgin dream:
I am the specter of the rose
You wore as yesterday's ball queen.
You took me still impearled in tears,
The pourer's silver drops relieved; 
Amidst the starry sky so clear,
You walked me all that darkling eve.

O you, who caused my mortal throes,
Shall not dispel this looming dread,
That all the night my specter rose
Will come and dance beside your bed.
But do not fear, I shall not dole
In Mass, or De Profundis wail;
For this faint scent is my own soul
And from sweet paradise I hail.

So enviable was my fate:
For such a beautiful demise
So many wouldn't have wished to wait;
My tomb beneath your bosom lies,
And on the alabaster white,
Inscribes a poet with a kiss:
"Here lies a rose of petals bright
Which every king will wish were his."