"Belfast, Maine"

[Carl Remick]

>[The legendary Frederick Wiseman has a new documentary on a working-class 
>community in Maine that airs tonight on PBS.

Just wanted to follow up on my posting of last week to say, yes, this 
documentary is indeed excellent.  My attention was riveted for the entire 
four-hour running time.

"Belfast, Maine" gives extraordinary impact and beauty to the messages that 
(1) life is tough, (2) work is hard, but (3) 1&2 are easier to take when 
people unobtrusively care for one another.  One of my favorite Belfast 
residents is a high school English teacher who talks about Melville to his 
class.  I thought the teacher was a bit over the top in claiming Captain 
Ahab to be a working-class tragic hero (he said that Ahab was a mere 
"fisherman from Nantucket," not royal like a classical tragic hero -- an odd 
characterization of a ship's master, especially since whaling captains were 
typically quite wealthy); however, I much admired the teacher's remarks 
about "The Confidence-Man" as an acid portrait of America as a society 
dedicated to mutual bamboozlement.

By all means see "Belfast, Maine" if you can do so.

Carl
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