What a happy coincidence that my first post is about this movie! I started recently a marathon of “best movies ever made” and this one is evidently at the top of the list. Besides the stellar performance of every single actor, this movie stirs in us the very essence of our struggles and thoughts. What do I leave behind when I’m gone, what is my legacy? Whose life and heart did I touch in such a manner that they will forever be a better version of themselves? Because our deepest fear is to be forgotten, we all want to live forever, one way or another. We can all accept death, but being forgotten is unacceptable.
We all strive to be great or touch greatness in some way. For the few gifted ones, it’s easier, they compose Bohemian Rhapsody or paint Starry Night and bam! They are set, unforgettable forever! But what about the rest of us, who are not happy to exist but die to live, those of us who stay up nights struggling to create the way out for that inner voice. It’s probably a question of daring to believe. You dream of being a writer, but you read Hemingway and you can’t imagine yourself writing anything even close to that, so you don’t even try…
I read about a famous actor who was different, saw and interpreted things differently than all his classmates, he was also dyslexic, and everyone laughed at him and even the teachers would always say to him that nothing will ever come of him. One day, a visiting professor gave them the assignment to draw something and at the sight of this bullied teen’s drawing, he exclaimed “kid, you’re a genius!” And from that day on, the child started to be one. It only took one person to stand on a desk and see things from a different perspective and believe in him.
I love this movie, like I love most things that make me cry…
I love the beauty of drawing our attention to the courage of being vulnerable.
This is the tragedy of humanity, we live forced to stand judgement, our most inner delicate dreams are always exposed to the public opinion. “Really?( Roll of eyes)… YOU want to be an actor? Seriously, you think you can make a living as a writer? Who do you think you are, Jack Kerouac??” and that’s how we slowly bury our real self in platitudes, in fear, in compromising when we shouldn’t.
Funny thing, as I grow older, I don’t seem to recognize myself in the mirror, the person I feel I am inside is more and more present in my kids. That fascinates me, the way we are born with pure feelings, pure faith, pure strength, pure joy and love and as we “grow”, we get “educated” to become just another brick in the wall…
Also, I can’t finish this without a thank you to Tom Schulman for giving us some of the greatest poetry bits in history and keeping Walt Whitman alive for many generations.
“Make your lives extraordinary!”
Let’s!
Luly- Jan.2019
