This is a reason why I qualified my comments with a "unless I
am running into a blind spot..." in my post to cover my vast
gaps of knowledge. Yes, it is likely that Cornfield was
referring to the artist Magritte (with whom I am clearly
unfamiliar). The characters and situation seem more akin to
Georges Simenon but Cornfield may have well have intended for
the bowler and umbrella to call to mind the surrealist to
alert the audience to the fact that the rapidly approaching
ending would be something other than realistic. The
pronounciation is quite indistinct. The commentary track is
so muddy and garbled that one commentor on IMDB passes along
a silly rumor that someone else besides the director recorded
the track.
Damn! I wish that museum in Brussels had been open one of the
times I passed by to educate me on the surrealists and avoid
this blushing display of ignorance.
That said, even after having the fine points illuminated, I
still believe the ending of the movie is very
unsatisfying.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, DJ-Anonyme@... wrote:
>
> Richard, could Confield have been mispronouncing
Magritte, or
conflating
> him with Simenon's detective, Maigret? Rene Magritte
was a Belgian
> surrealist who did a lot of paintings of men in
bowlers, some carrying
> umbrellas.
>
> Mark
>
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