"Lawrence of Arabia": Sheer cinematic perfection

PARIS 

The 7 Academy Award winner
has never looked so good

Steven Spielberg was in his mid teens when Lawrence of Arabia opened and he saw it for the first time. Until then he had planned to go to medical school. After watching the movie and becoming "pulverized" by it as he said in this video, Spielberg decided to embrace a movie career. 

Watching David Lean's masterpiece for probably the 10th time last weekend on a giant screen at the Grand Rex in Paris, an Art deco marvel of a movie palace, just a 20-minute walk from my apartment, once again I fell spellbound by the magic of this  movie, whose showing is part of a series of festivities to celebrate the reopening of movie theatres after the three-month Covid-19 lockdown. 

The movie buff I am stopped going to movies a decade ago, preferring the intimacy, comfort and efficiency of watching them at home. But when I saw that "Lawrence" was going to be shown on that gigantic screen, the best way to admire the full sweep of this epic, I knew I had to go.

The lights dimmed, the curtain closed on the smaller screen, the giant screen was lowered while the music from the soundtrack played for several minutes before the famous Columbia logo appeared to wild applause from the audience. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of the crowd were people in their twenties and thirties. I would have expected an older crowd as befits  a movie made almost six decades ago. 

From that matchstick-in-Cairo-to-sunrise in Arabia transition (maybe the greatest cut in movie history, with the bone-to-spaceship cut in 2001: A Space Odyssey a close second) to the battle scenes, the constant left-to-right movement to  reflect a journey, everything in this film is superlative. (Here's a video clip of the cut which includes a piece of the score )

The intelligent script and brilliant dialogues is brought to life by the tour-de-force performance by Peter O'Toole (considered by many as one of the top 3 performances in movie history - the other two being Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice) ably supported by flawless Omar Sharif As Sharif Ali and Anthony Quinn as tribal chief  Auda Abu Tayi and an astonishing Alec Guinness whose resemblance with the real Prince Feisal had locals on the set in Jordan believe they were meeting the real one. 

Often copied by later directors (George Lucas, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone) but never surpassed is the legendary photography. The majestic shots of the desert (which I can relate to having spent several summers in my childhood in the Mauritanian desert) are by now seared into viewers' retina and further enhanced by Maurice Jarre's soaring music. If you're watching it at home, watch the scene with Lawrence on the captured Turkish train without the music and then with it - you'll see the difference. David Lean's movies fuse sights and music like no other director until then or after. With Maurice Jarre he found a soulmate - and although Jarre would go on to compose scores for many movies by other directors, he only won Oscars for the ones he made with Lean. 

The conquest of Aqaba is hard to surpass and remains unforgettable: from the moment the   Arab troops leave their camps and are seen through a beautifully shot mountain pass to the moment they enter the town, gallop through its streets, pass the giant cannon which Lawrence had rightly predicted couldn't be turned and end in the Red Sea. From one immense area (desert) to another endless one (sea).

The long-shot floating mirage of Omar Sharif is unequalled and repeated viewings of the movie can't dim its power.

What makes it an even more amazing experience is that anything you see on the screen is "real", inasmuch as anything in cinema is real. No computer gimmickry, no fake twisters or background shot added to live animation. What you see and hear is real: towns, cities, camps, oases,a cast of thousand real humans, even the soldiers are real, as they were lent by King Hussein of Jordan from his own army since most of the movie was shot on location where the action took place several decades ago. 

The giant screen at the Grand Rex. 
Do NOT think for a second to watch this
movie on any smaller screen 

 Interesting piece of trivia: King Hussein (a grand-  nephew of Prince Feisal) was a constant visitor on the set where he met a young Englishwoman who became his wife. Their son is now Jordan's King Abdullah II.

When the movie ended after 3hrs45 (including intermission) it was to rapturous applause. I looked around and felt that there is hope if the younger generation can see what true cinema is about and enjoy it. 

The Wadi Rum desert in all its splendor

I could continue to wax lyrical on this movie but I think you got the gist of it: Simply put, this is the best movie ever made, a "miracle" as Spielberg called it, a film which you can watch again and again and always appreciate and discover new things. Through the decades as you become more mature you'll appreciate different aspects of it.  But at least once in your life, do yourself a favor and watch it on a giant screen to fully appreciate the Super Panavision 70 scope: I guarantee that you'll be blown away by the experience.

This is the latest in a series of  the blogger's posts dedicated to movies. Previous blog posts include:

-Feb. 2020: Time for the Academy to honor non-English-speaking films with Korea's "Parasites"

-Dec. 2014, Happy 75th Anniversary, "Gone with the Wind"

-Nov. 2012, Woody Allen or the Vanishing of a Once-Great Filmmaker

-Feb. 2012, Meryl Streep, or how to be the world's greatest actress for three decades - and counting

-March 2011, The Unbearable Dullness of the Academy Awards 
 

Silver Lining, or How I Got to Love the Virus

PARIS

With half of mankind under house arrest and the global economy in a tailspin, not mentioning tens of thousand of deaths, it is hard to feel anything good about the invisible enemy which we are told should go by the politically correct Covid-19 or Coronavirus name, rather than by what everybody would instinctively call it: the Chinese virus, just like a century ago we referred to the Spanish flu - although back then the flu had nothing to do  with Spain whereas this one clearly originates from China.

And yet, there are quite a few unexpected positive developments from the global pandemic.

Finally, pollution is down 

With millions of cars off the roads and plants shut down in many countries, it is hardly surprising that air pollution has come down, as the two below shots reveal. Some might even think that the current pandemic is nature's way to get revenge against man's constant abuse for decades. Can't blame it, to tell you the truth.

From bad to better

Drug traffic and crime down
As some police have been forced to recognize, it is humiliating that an invisible virus, by keeping dealers and customers off the streets, has drastically  reduced the illegal drug trade, thus succeeding where governments all over the world have failed consistently for decades. Home burglaries have basically disappeared for obvious reasons. In my beloved Rio de Janeiro, street mugging, a common occurrence, has been reduced by more than 60% this month versus March 2019. 

The Wonder City is getting even more
wonderful...if a bit empty

Digital Transformation is here to stay
Your IT team? Not yet. Your Agile coach? Not really. Your HR department? Yeah, right. Your Change Management team? Who are these people, anyway? Never seen them. 

And suddenly Covid-19 lands on us and we are all working from homing, using technology at full throttle to communicate/engage/get things done. As someone whose professional life entails helping corporate clients' digital transformation, this pan(da)demic is a godsend.

Migration and tourism are halted

Now, some of you might think that the endless waves of migrants landing on Europe's shore is a blessing but many might beg to differ, and now that the EU has closed its borders to all non-Europeans and residents, the flow of millions of illegal immigrants has come to an abrupt end. Hss it? 

Another category of migrants, short-term and illegal, a.k.a. tourists, are also being rebuffed and considering the damage these hordes inflict on sites and places like long-suffering Venice, Covid-19 is definitely a blessing in that respect. Maybe we'll go back to the 1950s where mass tourism was unknown and traveling the globe was truly a unique, sometimes once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Market volatility offers great opportunities
Stock gyrations can offer great overnight gains. Some stocks go up and down several times in the same trading day. If you have some money saved which you don't need in the short term, pick a couple of stocks at the lower end of what they have been trading and a quick buck is almost a sure thing. One piece of advice: pick dividend-paying stocks so that in the unlikely case all the stocks you bought suddenly go south and stay there at least you get a steady income stream.

All that goes down ends up going back up...and vice versa!

Some jobs are coming under strong demand
 Last December's general strike in France which lasted a good month and a half (no metro, no bus, no trains) , saw some unemployed people suddenly sign up for Uber and with ride fares tripling many of them became a rags-to-riches story. Even people with a  day job took to using their car for additional income, proving the old adage that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. Now, that restaurants are closed, and many people are scared to go to crowded supermarkets UberEats, and Deliveroo delivery men are enjoying brisk business. Macy's may be shedding gallons of tears along with rivers of red ink, but Amazon is on a roll.

Quality time with your family
Those of you whose rat-race lifestyle meant spending too little time with your spouse and/or children, here's your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make things right. That is, if spending so much time at work wasn't a way to get away from your  family in the first place...

Extra reading and movie-watching time
Great time to (re)read all  those books and watch (again) those movies you always wanted to and never had time for

BOOKS

History: If you think the current pandemic is bad, read Barbara Tuchman's Distant Mirror on the Black Death, or how the plague pandemic in the Middle Ages was called: Some countries like England lost half of their population. Feels almost like a relief, doesn't it?

Literature: You may have heard of, but never read, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This is the perfect time to read this picaresque novel whose counter-hero Ignatius Reilly's adventures are simply hilarious. If you read French, Céline's Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night), L'élegance du hérisson (The Elegance of the Hedgehog), the full 6-volume set of  Les rois maudits (The Accursed King)  are a must. In Spanish, I highly recommend Mario Vargas Llosa's La tia Julia y el escribidor (Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter) and  political page-turner La fiesta del chivo (The Feast of the Goat).

For sheer comic relief, anything by P.G. Wodehouse, especially the Bertie series, is a must read. In the same vein, Frasier sitcom writer Joe Keenan's Blue Heaven and Putting on the Ritz will have you laugh uproariously.

P.G. Wodehouse at his best

If you have a soft spot for thriller/crime/spy stories: John Le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is the mother of all spy novels (I'm not crazy about most other Le Carré novels that I find a bit on the dull side). France's Pierre Lemaitre's Robe de marié and Alex are excellent, as is the unique dual-story line La caverna de las ideas, a virtuoso Spanish-language historical mystery novel published in English as The Athenian Murders. Another even more unique whodunit is perfectly titled The Daughter of Time aiming at discovering whether Richard III was the real murderer of his nephews five centuries ago. Of course, you can't say "whodunit" without mentioning the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie herself: Curtain, published posthumously, will shock you. Of course she spawned many spoofs, my favorite being The Act of Roger Murgatroyd, written in the vein of the grand dame's novels including idioms and contemporary references.

MOVIES
I'll avoid some obvious classics and focus on lesser-known films that will enchant, shock, surprise and amuse you. Starting  with the film noir genre, Laura  is as brilliant now as it was 75 years ago. Hitchcock's 1964 The Birds will still amaze you with special effects that will put current computer wizardy to shame. No Way Out's ending will shock you. French-language L'assassin habite au 21 (1942) is sheer brilliance (interestingly, I discovered in a Rio de Janeiro second-hand bookstore, or sebo, Hotel Brasil which seems to be inspired by the Clouzot film.)

Don't get distracted or you might miss
a dialogue gem

For wit, brilliant dialogue, great story line and flawless performances by the full cast, Woody Allen's Bullets over Broadway is a joy to watch again and again (I must have done so close to 20 times.) Little Miss Sunshine and A Fish Called Wanda are two other brilliant comedies. Mockumentary Thank You for Smoking may not make you kick the habit, but it will have you convulsed with laughter, as will the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty.

If you're into musicals, Victor Victoria is a gem with its fine performances, brilliant script and great score. Almost 90 years old, The Most Dangerous Game hasn't aged a bit (and no, it's not a musical, just had to wedge it somewhere.)

Feeling like a Roman epic of yore? I have little doubt you'll enjoy Quo Vadis with an amazing Peter Ustinov as the Emperor Nero, as well as Samson and Delilah starring Hedy Lamarr, the most beautiful woman ever to have graced the silver screen.

The citizen of the world I am cannot but mention great movies from Brazil (Central Station, City of God), India (Salaam Bombay), the Arab World (The Yacoubian Building which also doubles as a great novel by Egypt's best writer, Alaa Al Aswany), Germany (Goodbye Lenin, The Downfall with its companion reading piece, Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler, one of the best historical works ever written), Italy (Rocco and his brothers, I soli ignoti, Lo scopone scientifico), Japan (Spirited Away) and in Spanish little-known thriller The Hidden Face and Almodóvar's farce Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

The Yacoubian Building: Succeeding

in the jump from great literature to

great moviemaking

With this last title, I cheated on my promise to go with little-known movies, so in for a penny, in for a pound, let me add two more in the same vein: Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (picture me taking a bow, as I do every time I mention the master's name) and Mankiewicz's All About Eve: If the former is the best movie made by Hollywood on Hollywood, the latter is a sui generis tribute to Broadway


So, now that you can breathe a cleaner air, see bluer skies, made a quick buck playing Wall Street, feel safer that crime is down, enjoyed (re)discovering great reads and movies, be honest: Aren't you going to miss the big bad virus?

Middle Kingdom: Musings on Chinese HR, technology and the country

SHANGHAI

The Oriental Pearl Tower  seen from the Bund.
As spectacular as un-Chinese since, unlike Muslim
minarets and Gothic cathedrals, Chinese palaces, pagodas
and pavilions have traditionally been low-rise affairs

Surprising as it may seem for the globe-trotter I am, until this week I had never set foot in China. Although I had worked on many global projects which involved rolling out an HR system for a Chinese workforce the opportunity never arose for me to visit the ancient land known to Marco Polo as Cathay* (the name is still used by one of the most successful airlines in the world, based out of Hong Kong.)

It was therefore with great trepidation that I boarded the world's largest aircraft, the Airbus A380, for the longest trip east that I had ever taken in order to spend most of the week in Shanghai with the local subsidiary of a multinational client. This was a unique opportunity to gather business requirements face to face with HR users in their local environment, something only imperfectly done in virtual meetings, on the phone or by email.

You soon realize that if in China rules and laws may not be voted on by a democratically elected parliament, but rather handed down by the omnipotent Communist Party, they are adhered to ferociously, as I was reminded when, during one of the workshops I led, I suggested we shorten the lunch break from one hour to 45 minutes. The reaction was a categorical NO. Labor laws are labor laws: one hour's break for lunch is one hour. Can't say I was shocked since that is exactly the same rule as in France (but outside the rest period, the Chinese workforce is a hard working one and I was impressed by the quality and dedication they bring to the task.) Actually, many other aspects of China's labor laws seem to be directly inspired from France's: such as the 1-2% of a company's payroll which must be set aside for the worker union to spend on employee benefits. But then French laws are at times very socialistic, if not outright Communist (ever wondered why the Labor Code in France is a little red book?)

Replica of Xi'an Terracotta Army
soldier, gifted to the blogger
by the Chinese delegation to the
UN World Tourism Organization where
he worked in the 1990s

A rapidly changing country
As everybody knows, China has managed to bring hundreds of millions of people into middle-class wealth faster than any other country on earth: in the past 25 years income per person has risen 13 times, whereas in the rest of the world the figure is barely 3 times. I see on Shanghai overcrowded roads more SUVs  than anywhere else but the US. Beijing has more billionaires than New York.  If there ever was a national success story it is China. And yet serious problems are looming: it is still an autocratic country, unemployment is rising, especially in the poorer rural areas in the country's western half, inflation is high (Shanghai home prices rose by 20% last year), the population is greying fast as a result of the one-child policy aiming at reining in demographic pressure, pollution shows its ugly face in many places with foul air a constant irritant. Some un-Chinese traits such as individualism and Western-style consumerism are on the rise in this increasingly unequal People's Republic. (I always marvel at Chinese tourists who buy designer bags at Paris upscale department stores for a price that is higher than many workers back home make in a year)

Now, to the topic at hand, requirements to manage a Chinese workforce as part of a global HRIS. In some aspects HR law and  practice in China may be complex, even cumbersome (but is there a place  where that is not the case?) However, in many other aspects it is quite simple and even free-market based, reminiscent of the practice in the (income-tax free) Persian Gulf states. For instance, in Europe and America, there is a quite clear-cut distinction between permanent employees and contractors, HR processes apply fully to the first, not to the second. In China, there are no contractors: everybody is a permanent employee. There are also no part-time workers. In other countries, some employees may work only 30% of the normal schedule, and in some cases be paid differently, all depending on labor agreements and regulations. In China, if you're going to work for a company, you work full time. Otherwise, go somewhere else. And no labor agreements either, which makes it much easier to set up compensation plans and eligibility rules

Art Deco glory.
East meets West at the spendid
waterfront neighborhood known
as the Bund

Over lunch, when the Head of HR asked me why there were so many strikes in France (yes, that national trait has made it to the other end of the world) I replied, "For the usual reason: to get more money." She looked very surprised: "Really? But if they want more money and they are not getting it from their current employer, why don't they just move to another better-paying company?" Admirable logic, which makes sense in a fast-growing, emerging market like China, but, alas, does not apply in sclerotic European countries like France.

Language-wise (you may want to brush up on my 5 pillars of "glocalization") if you're going to roll out a global HRIS in China, make sure all self service features are available in Mandarin. Otherwise, the system won't be used. Many HR power users, even if working for a multinational company, will struggle with English, so having the whole system in Mandarin is a must.

Workflows with different levels of approvals is also a must-have in a country where deference to senior management is part and parcel of the culture. Electronic notifications have made great progress in the Middle Kingdom but some document still need to be printed out for signature and be handed out to the relevant recipient. If you ever wondered why China is referred to as the Middle Kingdom it's simply the name in Chinese: The first character for the name is a horizontal rectangle cut in half by a vertical stroke, meaning, you've guessed, Middle. Like all great societies, China sees itself as the center of the universe. Can't blame them; after all, they are the most populous nation on earth, soon to be the richest, and the one with the longest continuous civilization in the world.

It's all about Human Resources

HR rules and HR Departments are nothing new in this country. The US only got its Civil Service with its grades and steps and examinations at the end of the 19th century, but the Chinese Ming dynasty, which ruled the country until 1644, already had a Department of Personnel with a nine-grade bureaucracy and legendary examinations one had to sit for and pass before being entitled to a position. Modern China is simply the heir to a long, centuries-old  tradition.

Among the various HR domains and processes, time recording can be quite complex in many Chinese companies, especially manufacturing now that China has become the world's factory. However, soaring taxes, transportation and energy costs means that China's labor force is no longer as cheap as it was. China will increasingly have to move up the value chain, which explains the strong emphasis on training, competencies, learning and development, and executive assessment. Again, nothing surprising in this ancient Confucian culture where learning values  are rated very high.

The blogger ready to board the Shanghai
MagLev Train. At an average speed of 300 km/186 m
per hour, with a peak speed of 430 km/237 m per hour,
it is the world's fastest train.  It is also the only one that runs on
magnetic-levitation technology.  Whether it is profitable
remains to be seen as it is pricey and covers a short distance
(in a highly congested area, though)

Payroll, is of course, highly regulated like everywhere else, but China is far from being the worst offenders. And there are limits to nannying employees: for instance, salary advances, which in some countries are mandatory if requested by the employee, simply don't exist in China You are paid for the work done, not the promise of it. For any help, go to your family, is the message in a culture where family bonds are stronger than in the West, but weaker than in Mao's times (In China people don't resort to banks for their savings needs but rather to the family or peer-to-peer networks.)

Absence management is also complex, and China is rather unique in that it distinguishes between absence types mandated by law and  those awarded by a company as a benefit for a differentiated treatment. The former  have to be taken during the take period, and if the employee leaves before its end they are compensated; whereas the latter, if not taken, are lost and are not compensated. And just as part-time employees are unusual, taking an unpaid leave or a sabbatical is unheard of for most people. Note the existence of many recruiting and training agencies (such as Zhaopin or 51job.)

Benefits involve many players: government, worker union and employer. Noteworthy that if some benefits (such as birthday allowance) are not provided by the worker union then the employer will play the substitute role and provide them.

In a  country where education has long been seen as a passport  to success, small wonder that competency frameworks, training agencies and learning models are all the rage. Many companies would finance employee degrees in exchange for a guaranteed stay with the company (similar to tuition reimbursement by US companies.) For some useful training (such as languages), private enrollment would also be refunded by the employer if the employee brings evidence of the certification thus earned.


China's HRIS vendors hold their own
To meet the HRIS needs of Chinese companies, whether domestic or subsidiaries of multinationals, the array of providers is quite large. SAP's market share is largely around its on-premise offering, and Oracle's is based on PeopleSoft. Cloud vendors are represented by Workday, a distant third but growing fastest. Kronos is well-entrenched when it comes to time management. Unsurprisingly for such a highly patriotic, even nationalistic, country, Chinese vendors have, together, a majority market share. They include household names in China such as Beisen, the undisputed talent company, and other vendors such as Neusoft (or even micro-blogging firm Weibo) covering various HR processes, when not the whole gamut of functions.

The biggest challenge facing homegrown vendors is how to go global, not an easy task when some tools which we take for granted are not available in China. First-come visitors to China may be surprised, even shocked, to find that social media and internet tools like Facebook and Google are banned (unless you, or your company, are lucky to have your own VPN.) In the West, and even the rest of the world, so much HR work, actually so much business work, involves using these platforms that you may be thrown offbalance when you realize you cannot keep up with your friends (on Facebook), get your email (on Gmail), check a video on YouTube, or plan an itinerary on Google Maps. Surprisingly and erratically WhatsApp, despite being a Facebook product, is allowed to operate in China. The Chinese make do with local variants such as Baidu, Weibo or WeChat (which is integrated with LinkedIn.).

The Chinese are a justifiably proud nation, but also a pragmatic one. They will find ways to live up to their full potential and be a full member of the global business community, something they've longed for and craved for a long time.Needless to say that this post only covers the People's Republic of China (PRC) aka Mainland China. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao are completely different in terms of context, HR maturity and vendor landscape. In due course they will warrant their own blog post.

(The blogger is currently crisscrossing the globe gathering requirements for a multinational company. Next stop: Detroit, USA.)

(This is the latest in a series of wide-ranging articles focusing on a single country. Previous posts:

August 2011: Brazil Rising: Thoughts on HR, technology and an emerging giant 
December 2012: My 20-Year Affair with Spain  - with more than 9,000 views it is one of my most popular blog posts
June 2013: Thoughts on India, its HR/technology space
Nov. 2014: Of Switzerland, the country, its HR practice and technology landscape)

NOTE: All photos are the work of the blogger and copyright applies

From the blogger's library

*I strongly recommend Gary Jennings' superb novel, The Journeyer, about the great man's 13th- century travels throughout a China few  people had ever seen then. 1,000 pages which you can't put down until you reach the end. For anybody wanting to understand China's wrenching changes in a historical perspective, Jonathan Spence's In Search of Modern China is a must-read. Nobel-Prize winner Pearl Buck's novels, set in pre-Communist post-Imperial China,  have a lot to say about the Chinese soul and experience. The movie buff I am relishes Zhang Yimou's movies (especially when the incomparable Gong Li is in them): Raise the Red Lantern, Ju Dou, Red Sorghum and Flying Daggers are favorites. He is also the man behind the highly acclaimed opening and closing ceremonies at Beijing's 2008 Olympics. 

Happy 75th Anniversary, "Gone With The Wind"

PARIS

This rare 1938 one-volume French translation
was the 269th edition by publisher Gallimard
barely two years after  the book was published
in the U.S. It became the blogger's property
when he inherited it from his grandmother
who had bought it in Paris in the late 1940s

In my early teen years I tried a couple of time to read GWTW since I had heard so much about it. Every time I failed to go through the first chapters as I quickly lost interest. Then, I must have been 13 or 14, I caught a bad cold and had to stay in bed for several days. I ransacked my parents' library for reading material, and again came across the 1,400-page, two-volume set of the French-language version of Margaret Mitchell's  Autant en emporte le vent. Third time lucky! The first 100 pages were a bit tough, full of descriptions and moving slowly but, suddenly, I was hooked. Scarlett and her beaux. The Cause. Rakish Rhett. Aunt Pittypat and her smelling salts. Mummy and Prissy. Tara surviving through war. Atlanta in flames. Damn Yankees and Carpetbaggers. No sooner had I finished the first volume than I rushed to pick up the second one and stayed glued to it until I finished it. Do I need to add I was drenched in tears when I reached the end? At that very moment my mother entered my room to check on me and seeing my tears she thought my condition had worsened and would have called the doctor if I hadn't told her there was no need, pointing at the book. "Oh, you've been reading GWTW!" she exclaimed.

Then I realized the movie was even more famous than the book and couldn't wait to see it re-released at a nearby theatre. When I first saw it, I was even more transported and fell under its Technicolor charm and the beauty and talent of Vivien Leigh. How many times had I watched it in movie theatres, on video, DVD, streamlined, pirated? Lost count, but must have been more than twenty. My whole family are big fans, even the bathroom in my mother's family home in Romania had a huge poster of Leigh and Gable's famous embrace splashed on the wall under the title, Per aripile vîntului.

The blogger in the lobby of the Fox Theatre, affectionately
known to Atlantans as the Fabulous Fox, on Dec. 15, 1989
exactly 50 years after the movie's premiere in the same city

I was particularly gratified to find myself studying towards my master's at the University of Georgia in December 1989 as the movie's 50th anniversary celebrations were being held nearby in the city where the premiere took place half a century ago. Now (then) in my twenties I found myself  equally impressed by watching GWTW again at the Fabulous Fox  in Atlanta. And gawking at the cast members still alive, getting autographs and taking pictures galore.

I always laugh when I read in the press, or hear the younger generation boast, that Titanic or Star Wars or Avatar are the top box-office hits of all time. If I remember correctly, the highest-grossing of these movies has not brought in more $1.5 bn when GWTW, in inflation-adjusted dollars, has brought in more than $6.5 bn. And  remember that in the late 30s the movie market was really limited to the wealthy parts of the world, that is North America and Western Europe. and the world's population was much smaller. Actually it took more than a decade for GWTW to come to France, because of the war, something unthinkable these days when blockbusters often open on the same day around the globe. GWTW's popular success is therefore quite stunning. I think that at one point in time half of the whole US public had seen the movie which, as far as I know, is unequaled.

The blogger's' autographed copy of the
book by Herb Bridges, the world's
leading auhority on  GWTW

Among the surviving cast members at the Atlanta "re-premiere",

Butterfly McQueen is fondly remembered for her "I don't know
nothin' 'bout birthin' babies" scene. And, yes, she's
wearing the very dress from the famous scene which she
reprised on the stage for us. 

An interesting piece of trivia  is that of the four main stars, only one is, as of today, still alive. Olivia de Havilland's longevity is a nice echo of the movie's enduring appeal and how it has stood the test of time. Ironically, she is the only one of the four main characters to die in the movie.

As a more mature adult now, and being able to compare it with other great movies I had seen since, what do I make of GWTW? Would I consider it as one of the top 10 movies of all time? As a tribute  to the great picture, which celebrated last week its 75th anniversary, I decided this week, after many years without watching it, to sit again through  its four hours.

Verdict? Still terrific, especially the first part. That wide-shot of the railroad tracks with the thousands of wounded ending with a torn Confederate battle flag flapping  pitifully remains as powerful as ever. I found Vivien Leigh's performance as the feisty Southern Belle as impressive as before. Present in almost every scene of the movie, the British actress is its heart and soul. I still feel, though, that the book is clearly superior, as so often happens with literary adaptations to to the silver screen. One major flaw is, toward the end, when Bonnie Blue and Melanie die in such quick succession giving the movie a soapish air. Always found that too melodramatic. And, sure, it romanticizes the Deep South too much, although I am not one of those who criticize the movie for its depiction of slavery. After all, it was written from the perspective of the plantation owners, and at that time slavery was the norm. Can't judge a story set in the 1860s with late 20th century eyes.

The blogger's admission ticket to the event. 

But the sets are great, some of the great lines made it into the movie, I can still hum Max Steiner' s score, most of the characters (to the notable exception of Leslie Howard's Ashley Wilkes) were exactly as I had imagined them when I read the book (Vivien Leigh, of course, but also Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel). The cinematography is still brilliant in that gorgeous Technicolor, and it is impossible to believe that three different directors worked on the movie as it seems to be the work of just one single mind. Which it is, but not a director's. GWTW would, of course, not have existed without the single-minded obsession of David O.Selznick.

GWTW was not the only film masterpiece to be released in 1939, which may have marked the beginning of a dark chapter in human history, but is probably the best cinematic year ever. Audiences were regaled with an astonishing number of superb films: The Wizard of Oz (by one of the GWTW co-directors, Victor Fleming), Stagecoach, Lubitsch's Ninotchka ("Garbo Laughs" said the tagline), Wuthering Heights, Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game. Actually, there have been FULL decades where fewer quality movies were produced than in that single vintage year.


(2014 also saw two of my favorite movies celebrating a major anniversary. Both My Fair Lady -incidentally by George Cukor, one of the GWTW co-directors- and Mary Poppins turned 50. The former is undoubtedly the wittiest musical every produced, although Audrey Hepburn was miscast; the latter, the first movie appearance by Julie Andrews who had been bypassed for the My Fair Lady role which she had created onstage, is still my favorite Disney movie, and the first film to blend live animation with real movie characters. I keep watching both again and again, and never get tired or bored.)

NOTE: All the pictures were taken by the blogger except, obviously, the one he appears in (but taken with his Kodak camera). All rights reserved. No use of the photos can be made without express written agreement by the copyright holder.

Thoughts on India, its HR/technology space and the latest on Oracle

BANGALORE

Wipro's HQ in the Electronic City district of Bangalore

The last few few weeks have been hectic as I crossed half the globe to visit the center of the universe, a.k.a. Bangalore, heart of the Indian IT industry before heading back to Europe for a 10-day training on Workday in London. (Interesting how one's center of universe tends to change over time: for a decade when I worked for US software powerhouses PeopleSoft and Oracle it used to be San Francisco, now that I work for an Indian company it 's as far east as I have ever been.)

Working for a systems integrator makes me realize how imbalanced is the perception of users and other observers: an IT project is almost always called an SAP project or an Oracle project when sometimes the SI's involvement is such that it would warrant to have its name tagged to it. After all, user organizations use the same standard software, the difference and consequently success (or lack thereof) hinges on how well (or badly) it has been customized/configured, which falls within the remit of the SI.

Bangalore is a good epitome of India, encapsulating all the chaos, historical layers, mix of first and third worlds in a single place (albeit of subcontinental proportions, since the city is home to 10 million people.) Whereas other Indian cities have adopted their local names  (Madras/Chennai, Calcutta/Kolkata, Bombay/Mumbai)  Bangalore, which is locally known as Bengaluru, still retains the British-era name of Bangalore even officially. Actually, I was surprised at how much of the old Raj is still present in downtown Bangalore, with its British-style clubs, parks and inevitable statue of Queen Victoria.

The blogger doing some sightseeing at a Hindu
temple in Bangalore

One thing that India has in common with another emerging country, Brazil, (more below) is creaking infrastructure and the challenges to bring it up to global standards. And yet an impressive surprise awaited when I landed at Bangalore airport. In the five years that have elapsed since my last (and first) visit to the place, a brand-new airport has sprung up. (Let's see whether the Brazilians manage to upgrade their poor airports,especially in Rio and São Paulo on time for the World Cup and the Olympics.)  On the way to your destination a fascinating mix of thousands of years of history meets you (Hindu temples, British-era army barracks, Muslim mosques, Christian churches, sacred cows strolling about, gleaming IT campuses, maddening traffic, glitzy bars where expatriates and the local elite meet.) During my stay the monsoon started and I was caught unawares on MG Road, one of Bangalore's thoroughfares. The street soon turned into a flood and I was lucky there was a railing I could grab otherwise I would have been swept away (I still had to waddle knee deep in the water and was copiously splashed by passing cars.)

Queen Victoria, the first and last Empress of India, still stands guard in
 Cubbon Park, an oasis of peace in the hustle and bustle of Bangalore 

Some characteristics of India's HR and technology landscape:

• First you have to realize that India's 10-million-strong civil service may not be overall the most efficient in the world (there are some pockets of excellence, though) but it is one of the oldest, even predating the US Civil Service by several decades.
• Just as in Brazil, a country I know well having spent there part of the last couple of years, India's labor laws are quite complex. The federal government imposes no less than 55 labor laws and the states another 150... at least! Dismissing an employee, as in the South American giant and co-BRIC fellow, is quasi-impossible if your company is of a certain size.
• Although the buyer of any HR system remains the head of HR, s/he is often unable to justify the investment which gives some power to the CTO/CFO/CEO in the decision-making process.
• The numbers of HR players is quite astounding, with few national ones and many local ones, in addition to the global ones ("SOP") catering to multinationals' local subsidiaries. Ramco is India's best-know HR and payroll vendor with a presence in the whole Asia-Pacific region.
• HR is still not considered strategic by most Indian companies, payroll automation being the key driver for many.
• The wide availability of IT capabilities in India means that companies tend to over-customize some HR processes rather than rely on standard software.
• One trend that will affect the global IT workforce: according to ILO, a UN agency, soon three out of 10 of the world's new workers will be Indian.With labour cheap in India the impact in developed countries will be felt, especially as India's software companies move up the value chain from lowly technical work such as integration and data conversion to higher value tasks such as configuration and business process analysis.    
• Most unexpected is that India, despite its red tape, is, according to Forbes, the most tax friendly country in the world. Considering that France is at #14, maybe I should talk to my employer about relocating to Chennai, Pune, Gurgaon or the very Bangalore. 

Just when I was about to start adopting an Indian accent, local quirks of speech ("Kindly revert to me after the needful has been done"") and nodding my head quickly from left to right, it was time to cross several time zones and a half (another Indian oddity) it was time to fly to London for an 8-day product training session.

Back to the world of software, Oracle announced this week that it has missed its quarterly targets for the second time in a row which sent its shares to plummet by almost 10%. and Reuters published an article about it yesterday, largely in line with I have previously wrote in my blogs.

Some great excerpts that hit the nail on the head:

• [Oracle's CEO]  "is struggling to fit his ageing IT giant into a newly cloud-centric world - a hard scramble."
• [Oracle's] rivals have grown, winning business from corporate and government customers seeking cloud-based software that is cheaper and faster-to-deploy than traditional offerings housed in massive inhouse datacenters.
• "They [Oracle] spent the last four years focusing on engineered systems when the bigger industry trend was the cloud," JMP Securities analyst Pat Walravens said. "They now have a structural problem."
• "Emergent (sic) business software providers such as Workday started from scratch by focusing on ease of use and simpler interfaces, while old-school IT giants like Oracle have been hampered by legacy systems and software products that they were slow to re-tool." "This is causing a real disruption in Oracle's business," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer with Solaris Group."
• A great one on the futility of Oracle's cloud strategy based on faux SaaS: "The inevitable is the inevitable," Goldmacher said. "You can get as many tummy tucks and face lifts as you as want, but it doesn't make your heart and liver and kidneys any younger."
• And my favorite, a reminder of how Larry Ellison is trying to rewrite history: "What the hell is cloud computing?" Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison said during a diatribe against the whole concept at an investor Q&A in 2008... the software giant's head said he had no idea what people were talking about when they referred to cloud computing, describing it as "nonsensical" and those writing about it as "insane".  (Here is the full article.) 

Exciting times when we are witnessing the passing away of the old guard (or dinosaurs as I call them) and the emergence of a new model of corporate computing. There are few things as satisfying as seeing history unfold before your own eyes. And being part of it.


(For those interested in India and partial to great prose, some of the world's best contemporary literature has come from Indians, residing in the sub-continent or belonging to the diaspora. I would strongly recommend the following:

• Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things: this first novel, which deservedly won the Booker Prize, tells the complex story of a family by shedding layer after layer of secrets until the shocking truth is revealed.
•  Two other terrific books also tell the story of modern India but with slightly different messages: Vikas Swarup's Q&A (made into a film as Slumdog Millionnaire) seems to imply that to make it in India today you need luck while Aravind Adiga's brilliant The White Tiger (another Booker Prize winner) suggests crime will do the trick.
• Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance and Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy are two other great
  
  reads.
• If you don't have the patience to go through a book but can spare a couple of hours watching a movie, my favorite Indian films  include  Salaam Bombay (the most powerful and authentic of the lot), Lagaan and Devdas (the latter a Bollywood movie with Aishwarya Rai, India's answer to Angelina Jolie.)