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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
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Bibliography
The Great Little Hunter
Pinspired Philippines, 2022
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
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© 2002-2021
IAN ROSALES CASOCOT
Thursday, March 20, 2008
12:55 AM |
Paul Scofield, 86
Death these days seem too much eager for harvest, isn't he? We were still reeling from the shock and taking stock of Anthony Minghella's passing (which made me seek out an old copy of
The Talented Mr. Ripley...) and then Arthur C. Clarke (which made me reread some of his old short stories, including "Rescue Party," his first one,
which also is a blueprint for most of the themes in his later works). And now, the actor
Paul Scofield, too? (The New York
Times story
here.) Most of you will probably not know him since the classically-trained actor chose his roles very sparingly. His last two films were involvements of various sorts in documentaries, and his last acting role was in
The Crucible from 1997. But those who managed to see Robert Redford's
Quiz Show (from 1994) will remember him playing Ralph Fiennes' character's father, the intellectual Mark Van Doren. That scene when son and father tries to talk to each other in the light of the controversies the film chronicles is a masterclass in acting in miniature. CNN writes: "Actor Richard Burton, once regarded as the natural heir to Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud at the summit of British theater, said it was Scofield who deserved that place. 'Of the 10 greatest moments in the theater, eight are Scofield's,' he said." (More
here.) Much too sad that we will never get to see more of that talent... I have yet to see Mr. Scofield in his Oscar-winning performance in
A Man For All Seasons, where he plays Sir Thomas More. I have a DVD copy somewhere in the shelf where all my old movies are. This is going to be a strange Holy Week. All alone at home, catching up on reading and the movies, all to bid farewell to ghosts.
UPDATE:Dusted off my DVD copy of Fred Zinnemann's
A Man for All Seasons this afternoon and watched it as day turned to dusk -- and you're right,
Ichi, Paul Scofield was brilliant. The historical Sir Thomas More was a man of principle, but also of complex compulsions: we know he isn't entirely the saint that playwright Robert Bolt painted him to be (he is said to have taken "excessively delight in torturing Lutherans and other heretics," as
this recent appraisal of Scofield's legacy in The New York
Times asserts) -- but as embodied by Scofield, the character was towering even without really trying. In that final scene where Scofield as More faces the charges of high treason and gives his final word, the camera curiously chooses to film Scofield from afar, from the distance of the spectators in the balcony: even then, Scofield's performance was overpowering. He dominated the film entirely. His Oscar win as Best Actor for the role is well-earned.
Labels: celebrity, film, obituary, people, showbiz
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