Forms of fate: James Gray's Two Lovers

by Ryland Walker Knight

—rings, sands
Just prior to my cross-country move, that fine gentleman critic Ekkehard Knörer wrote me, asking me to contribute a text to the first print issue of Cargo, a new German film magazine and website that Ekkehard has helped launch as one of its four editors. (David Hudson generously, and gracefully, covered its inception back at GreenCine.) Unfortunately, due to my lack of a screener and/or screening possibilities, I was unable to write about, let alone see, Soderbergh's Che in time for that premiere edition. Luckily, despite the rough and tumble—to say transitional—spring season, I was able to throw together some thoughts on James Gray's Two Lovers for the magazine's second printing. Though I can tell you my essay was titled "Rückansicht eines Melodrams", which means "Rear view of a Melodrama" according to Google's (I trust far too literal) translator*, as of today, the essay is unavailable online. Soon, though, I'm told, it will be presented in its original English. I'll be sure to let you all know here (and, I imagine, @ryknight) just as soon as that happens. Also, if you live in Germany and happen to read this blog, please do go buy a copy of the magazine once it hits the stands! I got a preview of the layout the other day and, as with No.1, it's gorgeous.

For a laugh, here is the little auto-bio I wrote to accompany my text:

Ryland Walker Knight is a writer born of California now living in Brooklyn. A graduate of the Rhetoric department at UC Berkeley, his blog, VINYL IS HEAVY, tracks his perpetual education (some might say conversation) with the image.

* The title given to my piece may, also, be a play on how I term the films Gray makes "obverse melodramas," but I will have to wait for Ekkehard, or any other bilingual German-English speaker, to tell me more. (Perhaps in the comments below?)