Thursday, January 02, 2014

Just thinking (as one does) -
After watching "The Big Bang Theory" the last night I was wondering if the character Sheldon Cooper's behaviour was indicative of autism. I assumed that others would have considered this question, so I did a search via the net.
Apparently those who know about these matters think that Sheldon has Asperger's Syndrome, which is a particular form of autism (I'm learning). The writers claim that Sheldon is not autistic, just a narcissistic nerd, but Jim Parsons, the actor, says that he had read a book on Asperger's Syndrome and made use of what he learned in developing the Sheldon character.

Another thought: it occurred to me yesterday that all Jim Jarmusch's films have characters who don't speak English, and there is often a failure of communication in the story as a result. The opposite is true in "Ghost Dog, the Way of the Samurai". There two of the the characters, played by Forest Whitaker and Isaac de Bankolé, hold conversations with each speaking his own language but managing to instinctively know what the other is saying. M. de Bankolé is a Jarmusch regular, and always speaks French, in the films I've seen anyway.
I got to thinking about this language business when reminded of the film "Stranger Than Paradise". The main character goes to visit an aunt who insists on speaking Hungarian. All the time this fellow is saying "Speak English, Auntie". Finally he is ready to leave. As he is getting into his car his last words are "Speak English, Auntie". She continues to babble on in her own language, but as the car drives off she says "You son of a bitch!" (Fadeout).
"Down by Law", an Italian jailbreaker who can't converse with his fellow escapees.
"Mystery Train", a Japanese couple on a pilgrimage to Graceland, and an Italian widow collecting her late husband's body.
"Night on Earth", a German Taxi driver in New York, who not only can't speak English, he can't drive!
I now remember one film that may not have had any foreign languages in it, but I can't remember its name. Then again, I didn't watch it through as I found it pointless, so I may have missed something. On the whole though I am a fan of Jarmusch and his stories.

Afterthought: just looked Jim J. up on IMDb. The last film I mentioned is called "Permanent Vacation. Also I saw another film which doesn't fall into the multilingual category, unless I've forgotten something - "Broken Flowers". I also noticed "Dead Man", but there may have been some Native American speech in that.


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