1. When I started my self-education in movies and movie history at Vizio University over a month ago, I started out thinking I'd watch movies by early directors who had a great impact on movie directors who I came to admire a lot 40-50 years ago -- Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and others. So I watched movies made by John Ford, Howard Hawkes, and others and decided to bear down on movies in the film noir tradition.
One day, though, I accidentally decided not to be systematic. I decided my studies at Vizio University would proceed as the spirit of cinema moved me and that I'd explore the eclectic nature of my movie viewing pleasures. I started watching small British comedies from about seventy years ago, but, then, suddenly decided to watch a grim study of soullessness and cynicism in The Sweet Smell of Success.
More and more, I'm enjoying these movies as works of visual pleasure, especially the black and white movies.
Today was no exception.
I decided to watch Brighton Rock (1948), a movie based on a Graham Greene novel, about a teen aged small time gangster in Brighton. The young thug is played by a very young Richard Attenborough and his portrayal of the sociopathic Pinkie is chilling. For Greene, this story of violence and cruelty becomes a vehicle for examining Roman Catholic doctrines like the nature of sin, damnation, forgiveness, and the problems of despair and suicide. Much of the movie reminded me of Macbeth as Pinkie grows increasingly paranoid and murderous, but its turn toward exploring Roman Catholicism was, for me, unexpected, even though I knew the story was Greene's and he was famously Roman Catholic.
Watching this movie was a random decision. It was where the cinematic spirit moved me.
I'll continue to let this spirit move me and see what happens.
2. Over ten years ago, back in Eugene, I pushed my enjoyment of cooking forward with the simple purchase of an electric frying pan. I loved cooking all kinds of different meals with it. I gave it away when we moved to Greenbelt, but a new electric frying pan was one of my first kitchen purchases in Maryland.
I also gave away that electric frying pan rather than move it to Kellogg. I haven't purchased another one since.
I don't like having a lot of appliances (or other things) in our small house where we don't have much storage space.
Now that Debbie is working full time again, I am happy to say that I'll be planning and cooking our dinners almost every night. I enjoy having the house to myself when I cook and I like making Debbie's life a little easier by fixing food (often with leftovers she can pack for the next day's lunch) for us to eat for dinner.
This afternoon, I knew we had some ground beef thawed and I remembered back to an afternoon quite a few years ago when Shaquille O'Neal was a guest on Rachel Ray's show and Mom and I were watching it.
He demonstrated how he made ground beef patties by mixing together ground beef, egg, and Frank's hot sauce. He might have mixed in other ingredients. Today, I decided to make patties for dinner. I also decided to fry up some onions in one of our cast iron sauce pans, add frozen corn to the onion, and then top it all with rice leftover from last night.
In the EFP (Electric Frying Pan) days, I would have used the EFP.
But, tonight, I fixed this dinner on the stovetop and I enjoyed remembering the EFP days and making Debbie happy with a simple dinner she and I both enjoyed.
3. Having watched a movie featuring Richard Attenborough moved me to suddenly try to remember who directed the Up Series, that British television program that began in 1964 as 7 Up by interviewing fourteen children who represented a variety of backgrounds and rungs on the British social class ladder. Seven years later, Michael Apted resumed this project, interviewing all the subjects again in 14 Up and continued to film interviews with these people every seven years.
Today, when I looked up the Up Series to remind myself of the director, I discovered that 63 Up had been made and was available on our BritBox subscription.
I was elated.
I first started watching these programs in the mid-1980s when I saw 28 Up at Cinema 7 in Eugene and then, about seven years later, saw 35 Up at the Bijou in Eugene. These are the only two of the series I've seen in a movie theater. I either rented or streamed 42 Up, 49 Up, 56 Up, and tonight I watched 63 Up.
Watching 63 Up tonight was similar to what I experienced at my 50 year high school reunion back in July. Of course, I'm not personally acquainted with any of the subjects of the Up Series. None of them knows who I am. But, they've been with me in heart and mind for nearly forty years and I find myself caring very much about the difficulties and successes they reveal every seven years and I feel myself growing old alongside them, wizened and humbled by loss and illness and failures while at the same time uplifted by our persistence, good fortune in many things, and essential dignity.
Sociologically, I think the producers of the Up Series hoped to learn more about the realities and the impact of class division and the inequality of opportunity in England.
I haven't learned much from the series about this -- the sociology of it has never sunk in with me.
I'm much more drawn to the spirit that animates each subject's life, the essential goodness that has always resided in each of their souls and, with the passing of each seven year period, becomes more and more visible to me, more and more admirable.
The Up Series began nearly sixty years ago examining the premise, give me the child at seven and I will give you the adult. So, as we listen to these people talk about themselves and their lives at 63, do we see the 7 year old in them? I think we do. Did each subject fulfill a destiny imprinted upon them at age 7. I don't think so.
I'll tell you what I see: I see the Up Series refuting the idea that human beings are essentially fallen creatures. While, yes, each of the subjects in this documentary is imperfect and flawed, they are also, each of them, essentially good people, driven by wanting to love, be loved, serve others, and be a constructive influence in the lives of others.
That's what I saw in my classmates at our reunion in July.
I saw goodness.
I saw people I've known for most, in some cases, all, of my life who are now and have been for much of their lives, driven, shaped, and animated by kindness, love, service to others, and goodness.
I see the same in my fellow family members, my not from Kellogg friends, in the instructors I worked along side in my profession, in the people I've worshipped with over the years, and in countless other people I observe, but don't really know.
I enjoyed the way 63 Up furthered my confidence in the essential goodness of people. Yes, this goodness can become damaged and corrupted. I get that. But that damage and corruption is not, in my view, what is essential in us as human beings. Goodness is.
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