Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. I see my red door, I must have it painted black.

The Deer Hunter (1978)

Watercolor on 12” x 9” watercolor paper

#26 in the 40 movies I haven’t seen from the AFI 100!

This is an interesting movie, for me. It’s one of the ‘big’ Vietnam War films, though it doesn’t glorify that conflict’s violence the way the others of that period did and instead is more about examining the effects of PTSD. The first third is about a group of friends in a steel town preparing to go off to war, thinking it’s going to be a glory-filled experience the way that WWII was sold to their parents’ generation. The second act is them in Vietnam, getting taken as POW’s and forced to play Russian Roulette. They escape and the third act is then some of them trying to acclimate back home and one staying in Vietnam, falling further and further away from himself.

As an examination of PTSD, the film serves as a moving version of Thomas Lea’s WWII painting ‘They Call it the 2000 Yard Stare’ in how accurately it captures a mental state that hadn’t been well-researched yet. That said, while the movie doesn’t glorify the violence of the war it does instead greatly embellish the conditions of the POW camps and that’s where it falls into a trap of its own devise. Those conditions were horrific enough and didn’t need the Russian Roulette aspect added for shock value. While this was a fictional story that captures PTSD well, that emotional truth sits at odds with the reality of the true experiences that soldiers had there.

I enjoyed the movie and for a three hour flick it flew right by watching it. But as its sat with me I can see why it received such a strong pushback when it came out.

For the painting, instead of zeroing in on the notable Russian Roulette scenes I wanted to capture one of the gorgeous hunting scenes, this one where Robert DeNiro’s character is back home and trying to find himself and his place in the world again. There’s this vast, gorgeous natural world around him but he’s holding this instrument of violence, just as his time with violence stays with him internally.

Next week: The intolerable Intolerance.

Here’s a preview of next week’s Okada vs Swerve painting! Big action!

Card subject to change.

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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

For my Fellini education this week I watched 8 ½ (1963) and Juliet of the Spirits (1965), which are thematically related to one another. 8 ½ is about a director coming to terms with how his past traumas have contributed to his own poor decisions and how they affect others, all in a very meta and surrealistic tale about his struggles to get his next film off the ground. It’s very honest and empathetic, though it’s still very much from the male perspective of his infidelity towards his wife. The meta aspect is that this is pretty much where Fellini was at in this point in his life and that’s what makes the next film so fascinating.

Juliet of the Spirits, which I talked about the visuals of in depth in Thursday’s newsletter, stars Fellini’s wife Giullietta Masina as her character confronts her own past and how it shapes her reaction to her husband’s infidelity. I can’t really think of anything else like this. It’s also an utter masterpiece of a film in how it utilizes surrealism to directly communicate emotion, all heightened by Masina’s empathic eyes. There’s a line from it that’s going to haunt me for a while, “It doesn’t go anywhere. It only needed to get here.” It’s a visualization of Juliet confronting her deadbeat dad as he returns on a fantastical plane, where this vehicle is also a means of illustrating her mental health journey. Just…just excellent.

In a similar vein, Don’t Look Now (1973) uses surrealist imagery but in a phantasmagorical manner to build tension around this couple (Donald Sutherland and the transcendent Julie Christie) haunted by the death of their young daughter. They’re in Venice while Sutherland’s character works on restoring a church and they both begin to think they’re being visited by the daughter’s spirit. There’s also this sense that the universe is trying to send them a message but it’s not necessarily in a language that they understand. I’ll be honest, I thought this was kind of meandering until the last ten or so minutes when everything came into focus, like rubbing my eyes clean and seeing everything for what it actually is. And in that moment of clarity I realized how brilliant this journey had been.

I’m a fan of the Richard Stark Parker books, mostly thanks to the Darwyn Cooke graphic novel adaptations. Point Blank (1967) is now my second-favorite Parker adaptation (he’s called Walker here as Stark aka Donald Westlake wouldn’t allow a studio to name the character Parker unless they committed to adapting all of the books) and a huge reason for that is this scene alone:

John Boorman directed the hell out of this thing. I want to give it another watch too, from the perspective that Walker really did die at the beginning. There’s a lot of little idiosyncrasies that make sense if he’s in some sort of purgatory/ It’s a Wonderful Life scenario.

Yesterday morning I watched Sentimental Value (2025) and gosh if this isn’t a powerful film. It’s about both generational trauma and also personal responsibility, it’s about familial responsibilities but also about holding your own truth. A young woman has become a successful stage actor and her estranged father, a legendary director, tries to reconnect with her by offering her the starring role in his next film after her mother has passed away. The plot is more a framework that allows the story to dig into the emotions of these characters and their dynamics with one another, including her younger sister who seems to have a more stable life. There’s so much left purposefully unsaid, allowing the viewer to fill it in with their own truths.

Have I become utterly unrelatable yet with the movies I’m watching? GIVE IT TIME.

I started watching and got caught up on Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, the new show starring Tatiana Maslany. Every time I think I know what’s happening in this story it veers off in another unexpected direction. At first it seems it’s about a camboy getting abducted right mid-session while Maslany’s character is watching and she’s hit with the ransom demand. And then it goes…SO MANY other directions. A very modern crime thriller. At first I thought it was going to be like the first season of Search Party, and some of that levity thankfully stays, but man it warps and twists into something fresh.

Sacred Clowns by Tony Hillerman, the eleventh in the Leaphorn and Chee series of books that the show Dark Winds is based on, shows an evolution in Hillerman’s writing that I’m enjoying. The books up to now have been very plot-driven with not much in the way of character work, let alone supporting characters. But there’s a noticeable shift towards those things and more continuity with the prior books. It’s not passing the Bechdel Test yet but it’s making the lead characters less of ciphers and more three-dimensional and lived-in. I love these stories of tribal cops solving crimes within their culture, but I’m especially loving when we see the other people in their lives, living in that culture.

I reread Camelot 3000 by Mike W Barr and Brian Bolland for the first time in over 30 years and it was not what I remembered whatsoever. Like, yeah, there’s the sci-fi future story of King Arthur returning to defend the Earth when it’s invaded by aliens. There’s the jaw-droppingly gorgeous Brian Bolland art (especially when Terry Austin starts inking him) that’s like a mix of Hal Foster and Wally Wood. But it’s the story about Sir Tristan being reincarnated as a woman and using that as a way to explore gender identity that caught my eye this time around. And that it’s told so eloquently! Normally something like this from the mid-80’s doesn’t age well even with the best of intentions but gosh, this is good stuff.

Yesterday morning I read Barrier by Brian K Vaughan and Marcos Martin and like with Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed I don’t want to talk too much about the plot because experiencing it blind and going on that journey is wonderful. At first glance it’s about a Texas rancher finding an undocumented immigrant on her land and their problems in understanding one another and then…it goes to some other places. Art by Marcos Martin is always a welcome thing and he pushes his impressive talents to the limit here.

My house plants have been outside for about a month now and they’re very happy about this fact. They’re getting plant food again and it’s been a wet spring season and hasn’t been too hot for sustained periods yet.

I’ve had several of these for over a quarter century now, which is nuts to think about. Two of them in particular have been everywhere I’ve lived since I was, like, 18 or 19 years old. One was found in my then-apartment building’s parking lot, another left by a girlfriend when she moved out. Another two were from my grandma’s funeral and Katy’s grandma’s funeral, respectively. The snake plant aka mother-in-law’s tongue in the first picutre started with just one strand on my desk at the bank I worked at in 2000 and now it’s a giant beast of a thing.

Some have weathered better than others but I think I’ve only lost two or three over the years. Not bad! I’m sure there’s a metaphor to be made about aging and life around us, but I also just like having plants around and caring for them. It’s nice.

More people read Sunday’s newsletter than Thursday’s, so I’m going to re-run this next bit in case you didn’t read it. Just so that we’re on the same page. Then it’s back to whatever business as usual is for me:

Over a decade ago when I started this newsletter it was primarily just to promote my work but it quickly evolved into a space for me to communicate about my life in an authentic way with you. Sometimes it’s cats and gardening, or books and movies I’m enjoying, or more challenging topics like managing my mental health or speaking to issues in society that I’m passionate about. Not everything is for everyone and if any part of this isn’t the right fit for someone I completely understand.

But ultimately I feel a need to be truthful about my full self. As an artist, everything influences my work and I feel that to share my art with you means also sharing my full and authentic self. Thanks for being on the journey through this thing we call life with me.

I’ll share some more flower pictures with you soon.

Love you more,
Rob

PS: Trans rights are human rights. Abolish and prosecute ICE.