Good morning, America! Time to wake up and return to life, to make logical decisions, to prioritize properly and understand the complexities of life that we face today. But there is more to do than that and it will help place things in a more understood and understandable light.
How do we do that? How do we squeeze understanding out of chaos? How do we live life in a forever changed world without sacrificing lives? Truthfully, the answer is that there is no statement anywhere, where we are promised a trouble-free life. There is no codicil on any contract, which guarantees a life without risk. How could there be? Simply crossing the street, making a decision to turn right or left, answering a phone, texting a foolish message, and the list goes on. Everyday situations are important, more so, when we realize that as individual pages add up to a book, so do repetitive behaviors, giving us information, guidance and thought - if only we paid attention.
Too many of us have become accustomed to a life where excuses are always available. A kid misbehaves in school, as kids do. We overreact, churning life as we seek to 'understand' why. Why? Because that is what kids do. Worst of all, is that this seeking of excuses, this denial of reality, of mis-ranking priorities, continues even as the misbehaviors edge toward criminal activity, and finally cross the line. We begin to lose focus, lose the forest, as we zero in on a tree or two. We lose direction. We lose comprehension of time and space, of balance. We find ourselves spinning out of control, whirling in the opposite direction of the planet.
So why the title? What's movies got to do with misdirection, with excuse making, with losing sight and comprehension of the importance of trees adding up to create a forest? Take the movie we saw yesterday - West Side Story, remade version. It was basically the same story as the original movie, keeping the thread intact, the thread that ties it all the way back to the beginning of time. Forever, there have been feuds between competing groups. Forever is the time in which we will have to deal with this, with the utter stupidity of lack of comprehension, being blind to that historical thread.
Take that afore said movie. The subtle changes were at times not so subtle. Oh, and let me warn you, bring a box of tissues. You will need it. The changes are appropriate to our time, indeed to all times, through generations, for though the names and places have changed, the essence is the same. Tragically so. Until we feel that deep in our bodies and souls, we are condemning ourselves to tragedy.
When Rita Moreno, as Valentina, sings the song Somewhere, it is overwhelming in its power. It has the same impact as Anne Heche's version of I Had a Dream in Les Miz. It turned everything on its head. Valentina sang it, influenced by her own tragic life. It was the same old, same old. Mankind, in its blindness, finds itself fighting over the trash left to them by those in power. There appears to be no end to the despair. Will there ever be a place for us? Will there? The hope remains, weakened, but still there: "somewhere, somehow, someday".
The more things change, the more things remain the same. Sadly, oh so sadly, tragically, so. Will mankind ever, ever, learn?
Another tragic truth understood via this version is that the lovers, while important, are not as important as the other message, why Shakespeare wrote his masterful piece, Romeo and Juliet, why it appeals to people through the ages.
Mankind, and I stress the man part of the word, continues to pound chests, shout challenging words, refuse to tamp down the temperature. Inevitably, they find themselves pounding away on each other, to the point of death. When it is too late, there comes a glimmering of understanding of what they have done, but some results are immutable. Death is death, to people or to society. Deadly battles, bloody fields, the poppies of Flanders Field, so many killed, maimed, wounded in body and soul.
For what? For what! As usual there is the collateral damage of this man-kind behavior. The women, the children, are left to suffer, to bear the consequences, to pay the price. West Side Story, Romeo and Juliet, and all the versions before and since, convey the same message - if only it were caught! The Duke of Verona says, " a pox on both your houses." The lovers are not truly the issue, merely the plaything of the stubbornness of mankind: the insane, dangerous, ever-present hatred between groups that lead to a fractured society and a hit to its future.
Go to the movies. Watch a movie in its entirety, rather than stop for drinks, for bathroom, for phone, for texting, for whatever. Immerse yourself in the magic of the movies, open your hearts and heads, allow the true purpose of that movie to flow through you, to you, from that giant screen. There is much to be said for the gestalt of 'going' to the movies. We do 'go', hopefully gaining insight, feeling the impact meant for you, the viewers.
Go to the movies. It is clean, safe, and fun.
Go. Cry. Laugh. Do both at one and the same time.
Let us learn from our mistakes, the same ones we insist on making, time and time again.
Someday. Somehow. Somewhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment