Those old latin roots

It's a pity they dropped teaching latin roots, because they give great insight into the proper meaning of so many of our everyday words.

I am (not) surprised at how frequently today "humility" is regarded as belonging to someone of a shrinking violet personality.

The latin root is "humus", ground or earth.  Hence a humble person is one who is grounded, down to earth, feet on the ground.  Nothing shrinking violet about that!  A humble person is one who knows his(her) place in the scheme of things, who has a realistic opinion of him(her)self, and sees the world with unbiased view.

Interestingly, the word has declined in use in English.  Google tracks its peak of use in 1825.  In 2000 it was used with less than 10% of the frequency in 1825.  Clearly not a virtue of choice in today's world!

Re-makes

Went to see the re-make of The Magnificent 7 this weekend.  It was enjoyable enough, but got me wondering just why it was made (apart from the obvious financial motive).

The original movie from 1960 was itself a translation in time and space of the Japanese classic Seven Samurai.  Starring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen, the John Sturgis version has come to be regarded as a screen classic - and has stood the test of time.  The new version with Denzel Washington in the lead really adds nothing to the original and will probably gather dust on DVD shelves.

So why do so many have the urge to do re-makes?

For some there is a desire to tell the original story in a new and more contemporary setting, maybe making it more relevant to today's viewers.  John Bell does this with his versions of the Shakespeare plays, dressing them in modern clothes and settings.  West Side Story took the old Romeo and Juliet story and expressed it in terms of New York gang rivalry.  Jesus of Montreal was an attempt to tell the Jesus story in a modern setting.

For others, the desire seems to be simply to tell the story yet again with fresh actors and different interpretations of the story-line.  Shakespeare gets this treatment from the countless theatre companies that present his works year after year.  The Jesus story has been filmed many times over in its historic garb.  Each version seeks to catch our attention with some new understanding.

The for the actors there is always the challenge of portraying significant characters.  Hamlet is a role any Shakespearean actor would die for.  James Bond 007 similarly begs new interpretations.  And Jesus provides a perennial challenge.

It's not just film that is subject to the re-make phenomenon.  Music similarly sees a constant stream of performances of classic symphonies and cover versions of songs made famous by stars of the past.

There is a real sense in which the Eucharist is a cover version or re-make of the past:  the Last Supper or the life and teaching of Jesus.  It too risks being no more than a repeat of something too well known and dulled of meaning.  Somehow it has to be a re-make that has a purpose for contemporary participants.  Maybe that explains the penchant some celebrants have for staged gimmicks in an attempt to reach secular man.  But remaining faithful to the original script does not necessitate dull repetition.  Intelligent reading, good preaching, well chosen music all contribute to a fresh re-make of the age-old story with relevance to today's world.  Or so it should!

Back to The Magnificent 7.  I am not sure this re-make adds anything new to justify its 130 minutes of our time, or the big-name lineup of Hollywood stars involved.  But I do hope that our local parish can manage each Sunday to do its re-make with more success, if much less time and cost!

Equal future

The ANZ bank has teamed with award-winning film director Jane Campion (The Piano) to make a series of ads promoting women's equality.

The one that caught my eye is one in which a group of kids are given chores to do, then paid their

pocket money.  The boys get paid twice what the girls get, eliciting to-be-expected protests.  "That's the way the world is" is the facetious response from the grown-ups.  But the kids are having none of it.  One young Asian lad declares it should be 50/50 -- or 60/60 if you are into 120!!  When he grows up he declares he will make a change ("if I can!").

You can see the ad on YouTube here.

I'm not sure if ANZ pays its male and female employees equally for the same work done ... but the ad promoting an "equal future" is certainly timely -- and the use of kids to get the message over is very effective (after all, "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings"...).  One of the things that most troubles many about the cultural baggage some new arrivals bring here is the grossly inequitable treatment of women.  Not that Australian society is anywhere near perfect yet, but at least ads like the ANZ kids chores one shows we are growing in consciousness of the need for all, regardless of sex, to be treated equally.

Just not in the Catholic Church!