because someone wanted it to
“i think that’s the first time i realized that the world could end because someone wanted it to”
That’s what I said to my friend when describing how watching “ON THE BEACH” affected me. “ON THE BEACH” is a 1959 film about the survivors of a nuclear war who are only in Australia, and waiting to die. The wind will bring it to them in under a year and they all know it. The government actually gave all of the citizens cyanide in case they wanted to die peacefully and without radiation poisoning.
I remember watching it at a very young ago but can’t remember the circumstances. But it was before junior high and had a profound effect on me. One of the only other movies that affected me this deeply was “DEERHUNTER,” when I saw the POW scenes. I got a very distinct understanding of “TORTURE” from that. Or the very first scene in “LITTLE DORRID,” (yes, it’s Dickens and an incredibly long, boring movie in which my father somehow thought his 8 year-old daughter would be interested. And he was right.) In that very first scene, a woman was giving birth and flies were everywhere. on her water glass, for instance: The flies on everything that I thought should be sanitary. That movie created the concept “POOR” to me, or maybe “DIRT POOR.” I don’t care how little money I’ve ever had at any point in my life, but I will never be dirt poor as that movie explained it to me. The movie “QUILLS” explained “FORBIDDEN” to me. It also reinstated Joaquin Phoenix as sexy after he took such a queasy role in “GLADIATOR.” But on topic…….
It’s just a fascinating idea – when did these abstract concepts become real to us? I’d be very interested to hear what some other people remember as defining moments like this.
March 20, 2008 at 7:20 am
Defining moments from a movie? Hmm. When I grew up in Hungary it was still communist and our family was pretty poor (not dirt poor though.) But I remember two things. My grandparents went on vacation for a couple days and somehow I ended up going with them. It was in the Karpat hills, I believe, in the north of Hungary. In the evening the adults had a movie screened on a big linen that hang on the wall and chairs were lined up in front of the screen. I was watching the beginning of this movie and the music stuck with me for many years. The movie opened up with a man sitting at a train station waiting for the train as a fly buzzes by and disturbs him. The camera is on the man, who is a cowboy, his gun and the fly for quite a long time. And the music plays. Harmonica. And whistle. This music touched my heart and my soul at the age of about 8. This music followed me through the years and it never let go of me. And I’m still mesmerized and affected by this music and I will carry it with me for a very long time. Can you guess which movie this is?
The second time the screen affected me is when my sister and I watched some black & white documentary about West Germany. I knew that my mother was in West Germany, somewhere too far and out of reach. The screen was showing some bustle at a German train station. And I spotted her in the crowd. The back of her head. I saw photos of my mother, so I was looking for her and I thought I spotted her and I wanted to crawl through the tv to touch her. I was so excited! I was laughing and clapping, believing that I just saw my mother. I had proof that she was alive.