Starry Night

There is this scene from  the 2004 movie, Around the World in 80 days, where Phileas Fogg sighs that they are in the wrong place. "This is isn't science, this is art"

Some time later, he declares the Monique's work is far better than those of the other amateurs. And we get this scene:

Cracks me up everytime !

The movie might have been a box-office bomb, but for me it is one of those under-appreciated treasures from that time. It is based on a classic Jules Verne book , one which I enjoyed reading as a kid. It is an adventure comedy, which never gets serious, but does get emotional. It features star actors from the time: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Jim Broadbent...and cameos from so many others..  Arnold Schwarzenegger , Kathy Bates, John Cleese, Owen Wilson. They got the start and the climax of the movie faithful to the original story, but everything else is just made up ! I don't think they were trying to make a faithful adaptation, but rather a fun, laugh in your seats movie very good just enjoy travelling the world in the 1870s.

But I find this particular scene extremely funny because that person in the last scene is supposed to be Vincent Van Gogh, who has put his famous painting "Starry Night" in the art museum. And I adore that painting.

That is probably the single painting every generation since the boomers will be able to identify today, simply because it is kind of everywhere now. There are cups, mugs ,t-shirts, pillows available in its design. 

And the reason this is not illegal is because the artwork is now in the public domain. Yes, Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) is in the public domain worldwide because the artist died in 1890, far exceeding the 70-year post-mortem copyright rule.

Now there are numerous paintings about the night sky, like Pissarro, Millet (who also painted a Starry Night), and Hopper's Nighthawks. But it is Van Gogh's interpretation that everyone knows of. He died the year after he painted his masterpiece, his wife apparently struggled to sell the rest of this work. It would take decades after his death for his work to gain recognition.

This is the joke that the scene in the movie above is trying to make; Phileas calling Van Gogh an amateur is point on, because at that point in history, Van Gogh's work  was yet unappreciated.

Now I am trying to recall where I saw this work and learnt about its doomed artist; I am going to venture a guess that it was in college. One of my roommates was an artist, he did pencil drawings, but he had books of great artists. He might have been the one who showed me the night. 

Neil degrasse Tyson is a fan of Gogh and the Starry Night.

       

And there are multiple songs titled "Starry starry night", my favourite being the cover by Lianne la Havas

And BBC's Dr Who had to have an episode only for Van Gogh, an episode that might have helped spread his fame among millenials.

It is clear that what captures everyone's attention is Van Gogh's distinct style, using those short brush strokes to create those circular patterns, which one cannot really see in a clear moon-lit sky. Its nothing special, its just the night sky. This is what he saw out of his little window that night, yet it is presented as a grand spectacle, using the simplest of strokes. Sure, anyone else could have done it, but it probably takes courage to break the conventional rules that others adhere to.

So tonight, when you get some time, look up at the stars, and try to see the beauty up there. 

...and also watch the movie. :D

Rabbit hole

Aha, fun days. Its nice getting some time to yourselves. And what's more fun than  reading ? A bit of writing. 

I went down a long rabbit hole recently. In a good way. I have always enjoyed reading, and comics and cartoons in that order. Earlier this year I read that The Tintin comics entered public domain this year. Not around the world, only the US copyright.

You see ,everything written or published by any author has a copyright, during which that work cannot be copied. The law works different in each country. But here is what google's ai summarized:

In the United States, the copyright on the original Tintin comics expires 95 years after publication. This means that the first versions of Tintin, which debuted in a Belgian newspaper in 1929, entered the public domain on January 1, 2025. Therefore, as of today (May 29, 2025), the US copyright on Tintin has already expired. 

Now does that mean one is now free to copy and use the character as one sees fit ? Beats me, I am not a lawyer.

But reading upon this news brought back memories. And a bit of time travel. You see, the Tintin comics were the first real cartoon/comic books I read. Uptil that point I only ever read the cartoons published in Indian newspapers. Most of which were political, although the Hindu published syndicated cartoons/comics from the West : Tarzan, Spiderman etc.

The school I used to attend to, one day finally decided to get brand new books; and these reignited my  love of reading. The complete works of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, many other thrillers and non-fictions, and the World Encyclopedia (remember those). It was the time before accessible , cheap internet, so folks had to find their stuff offline the hard way.

But among the acquisitions, was the complete color publication of The Tintin comics. This was soon to prove a famous among the school students. The simple, dark lines and many colors, and the humour from 60 years prior just resonated. Tintin , the young 20s something lad always found a way to travel around the world with his little dog, without having to answer questions at passport control, or booking a separate seat for his dog ! The Tintin world was a simplified but still rich snapshot in time.

My favourite book (maybe for most) was of course the Unicorn-Rackham works. Author George Remi, more famously known as Herge, found a way to get some time travel within the storyline. In the first book, the timeline shifts from the 1920s to 1670s, when captain Haddock recounts the travels of his ancestor, who was supposedly a capable captain in King Charles II's navy, the English navy. It features pirates, and wooden ships, and classic cutlass fights. I suppose pirates and sail ships have always stirred the imagination of the young reader. And of course: treasure. Cutting back to current times, the trio (musn't forget Snowy) decide to hunt for pirate Red Rackham's sunken treasure.

I came home and started reading and playing the story to my kid. And the little one got hooked.  There was a plethora of questions about pirates and life at sea at the time ; questions I was not really prepared for. 

"What's the larboard  ?"

"What's the booty?"

"Gunpowder?"

Man of man..the questions kept on coming. I had no choice but to bring in more books & movies on the topic.

We end up watching the live animated movie by Spielberg, after having watched the animations from the 90s.

..fast forward 2 days, we were now watching Treasure Island, the 1990 version starring a young Christian Bale as Hawkins.

The movie was fun but attracted more questions. Hawkins was clearly too young to be serving in a place like that, but times were different. And how does the treasure finding work ? Is it always "finders, keepers" ? Not in the real world, but law is different in adventure fiction.

Coming back to Tintin, it was fascinating reading how teachers were using the comics to teach world history. There is something about the clear drawings, and the colorful and caricaturized characters, the colorful, but still child-safe language, and references to all the cultures and countries depicted: someone actually took time and effort to work on them, and it is clearly visible. There are memes, and ai generated content ..etc..Tintin will live on in imagination and on the internet forever.

And that was quite a rabbit hole.