Green Porno – Reader Discretion Advised

 On Monday, Charles invited me to a film event hosted by the Gold Coast Film Arts Organization (or something). "Gold Coast" made me think of Australia or Africa, but it turns out there is a part of Long Island called the Gold Coast, which contains wealthy towns like Great Neck and West and East Egg. Of course I'd heard of West Egg from The Great Gatsby; it's where Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby all live in the book. The woman who gave the introduction, who was prosperous-looking and served as the president of the film organization, pointed out that the beautiful Gold Coast is what inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald to write his timeless novel. I wanted to raise my hand to tell her that it was the greed and elitism rampant in the people of the Gold Coast that inspired him, but I decided against it. My fellow movie-goers looked like the types for whom this sort of comment might strike too close to home.

 The films were very short and were all written, directed by, and starring Isabella Rosellini. She gave some very brief introductory statements before things kicked off in a charming Italian accent. I'd never heard of her, nor did she look familiar, but I discovered that I knew of her family: Her mother was Ingrid Bergmann, and her father was a renowned Italian movie director. This explained where she got the money to make her films, which certainly didn't seem to have a lot of value, commercially speaking. The first was dedicated to her father. It was very wispy and surreal. He had conversations with people like Alfred Hitchcock and several other prominent film icons, all played by Rosellini herself. I don't remember much of it, because I was asleep within five minutes. After an undetermined period of time, I was awaked by applause.

Next were two films from her Green Porno series. Charles asked me if I'd seen any of them and told me that they were both funny and ridiculous and that she'd made at least 30. The first one was about deer and the second was about anchovies. They were each no more than 3 minutes long, and in each Rosellini dressed in elaborate, cartoonish animal costumes and explained how animals mated while acting out the process. They were actually pretty amusing and mildly informative. View the one on bees here.

Finally there was a piece called "Animals Distract Me." It was an autobiographical piece about Rosellini's lifelong love for animals. She showed pictures and home movies of her childhood with her famous parents, which was interesting, and some of the scenes were shot in her studio in Manhattan and her home on Long Island, which were also interesting. She has about 7 dogs, some cats, and I'm not sure what all else, and she spoke about how her thoughts strayed to these animals throughout the course of her day, as well as to the animals she saw in the city, like horses, butterflies, pigeons, and rats. It was ok, but not fantastic, and as soon as it was over I was happy to go with Charles's suggestion that we skip the Q and A and reception and head out in search of dinner. I spent the rest of the evening mulling over how nice it would be to have enough money that you could spend buckets of it producing things no one really wanted just because it made you happy.