The Retrospective: Translated From the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman by A. B. Yehoshua Page B
Authors: A. B. Yehoshua
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character added joy and excitement to the last years of her life.
A long time has passed since her death, yet it pains Moses that Triganoâs script aged his mother beyond her actual years. They not only whitened her hair but also added wrinkles to her face that he is sure had never been there before. Yet she retains the wise humanity of a lonely old woman who offers shelter to a confused young woman in exchange for housework and personal services. This, as the film progresses, will prompt the old woman to evolve from a recipient of care into a caregiver, an angel of mercy for a woman more impaired than she is. Through the convolutions of the plot, that woman, despite her disabilities, will herself come to the aid of a dying man, who will assume a mission of his own and with superhuman effort postpone his death. With the remnants of his strength he will drag himself at night to a shabby cafeteria in the empty bus station, not to sip the last drink of his life, but to lift the spirits of the village girl who had come to the capital filled with hope and who now waits for the first bus to get her out of there.
For this was Triganoâs vision: everyone who receives therapeutic care can and must become a caregiver. And as this simplistic, seemingly unfounded idea circles in scenic waves of black and white, crafted long ago by a young director, the original title of the film flashes in Mosesâ memory, and he whispers it to his companion.
2
T HE FILMâS DIRECTOR sits in the last row, with de Viola beside him in the aisle seat; this way it wonât be hard for him to get to the stage at the end of the screening. Meanwhile, his heart beats faster at the sight of his mother, her voice faintly audible under the Spanish dubbing. She is giving instructions to the new lodger, who unpacks her suitcase in Mosesâ childhood room and emerges in a lightweight shirt and shorts from a bygone eraâvery short and baggy, with an elastic waistband. She had arrived in Jerusalem only an hour ago, at the invitation of a young man who raised her hopes, and now, weary and dejected, she wields a mop and pail in the home of a sick old lady.
The two converse incomprehensibly, and the director notes that even at the dawn of his career, he could create a natural flow of dialogue. The Spanish dubbing is so sophisticated that it almost seems not to be the work of actors in a sound studio but that the Israelis had been hypnotized to speak another language. No wonder the audience feels at home with the foreign characters, and little Jerusalem, in the black-and-white of the 1960s, is perceived in the province of Galicia as a familiar and likable city.
Moses recalls that this early film was awarded a prize by the city of Jerusalem, but the prize didnât help draw an audience, and after two weeks in the theater, it had to cede its place to a hard-hitting action movie. His father, who was distressed to see his wife as an actress, even more so to see her as an old lady with white hair, was unabashedly delighted that the film was no longer playing, but his mother was upset that not everyone she knew had seen her. She, who never shied from self-criticism, had become a fan of her fictional character, and repeatedly praised her son for the quality of his direction, perhaps to hint she was ready for another role.
Even had he wanted to find her another part in later films, it was not possible. Two years after the filming, his mother was diagnosed with the illness that forced her to struggle in reality and not just in the imagination of a writer or director. And now, in the small screening room of a former military barracks, as he watches her resurrection of sorts, so long after her deathâa brief resurrection, since she is present in the film only through the first halfâhe cannot contain himself, and in a whisper he turns to the priest on his right: âThere, that one . . . the old woman, she was my mother.â The
A long time has passed since her death, yet it pains Moses that Triganoâs script aged his mother beyond her actual years. They not only whitened her hair but also added wrinkles to her face that he is sure had never been there before. Yet she retains the wise humanity of a lonely old woman who offers shelter to a confused young woman in exchange for housework and personal services. This, as the film progresses, will prompt the old woman to evolve from a recipient of care into a caregiver, an angel of mercy for a woman more impaired than she is. Through the convolutions of the plot, that woman, despite her disabilities, will herself come to the aid of a dying man, who will assume a mission of his own and with superhuman effort postpone his death. With the remnants of his strength he will drag himself at night to a shabby cafeteria in the empty bus station, not to sip the last drink of his life, but to lift the spirits of the village girl who had come to the capital filled with hope and who now waits for the first bus to get her out of there.
For this was Triganoâs vision: everyone who receives therapeutic care can and must become a caregiver. And as this simplistic, seemingly unfounded idea circles in scenic waves of black and white, crafted long ago by a young director, the original title of the film flashes in Mosesâ memory, and he whispers it to his companion.
2
T HE FILMâS DIRECTOR sits in the last row, with de Viola beside him in the aisle seat; this way it wonât be hard for him to get to the stage at the end of the screening. Meanwhile, his heart beats faster at the sight of his mother, her voice faintly audible under the Spanish dubbing. She is giving instructions to the new lodger, who unpacks her suitcase in Mosesâ childhood room and emerges in a lightweight shirt and shorts from a bygone eraâvery short and baggy, with an elastic waistband. She had arrived in Jerusalem only an hour ago, at the invitation of a young man who raised her hopes, and now, weary and dejected, she wields a mop and pail in the home of a sick old lady.
The two converse incomprehensibly, and the director notes that even at the dawn of his career, he could create a natural flow of dialogue. The Spanish dubbing is so sophisticated that it almost seems not to be the work of actors in a sound studio but that the Israelis had been hypnotized to speak another language. No wonder the audience feels at home with the foreign characters, and little Jerusalem, in the black-and-white of the 1960s, is perceived in the province of Galicia as a familiar and likable city.
Moses recalls that this early film was awarded a prize by the city of Jerusalem, but the prize didnât help draw an audience, and after two weeks in the theater, it had to cede its place to a hard-hitting action movie. His father, who was distressed to see his wife as an actress, even more so to see her as an old lady with white hair, was unabashedly delighted that the film was no longer playing, but his mother was upset that not everyone she knew had seen her. She, who never shied from self-criticism, had become a fan of her fictional character, and repeatedly praised her son for the quality of his direction, perhaps to hint she was ready for another role.
Even had he wanted to find her another part in later films, it was not possible. Two years after the filming, his mother was diagnosed with the illness that forced her to struggle in reality and not just in the imagination of a writer or director. And now, in the small screening room of a former military barracks, as he watches her resurrection of sorts, so long after her deathâa brief resurrection, since she is present in the film only through the first halfâhe cannot contain himself, and in a whisper he turns to the priest on his right: âThere, that one . . . the old woman, she was my mother.â The
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