is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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The Trouble with Packing. Also: Dangers and Joys of �Movie Intimacy.�
The Trouble with Packing. Also: Dangers and Joys of �Movie Intimacy.�
I almost started crying when I couldn�t decide which boots to take to Amherst and which to leave home. All of a sudden, about five hours into today�s packing spree, it all seemed way too difficult. Crazy, but true. Adrienne was quick to point out that I can simply have any shoes I miss mailed to me. And of course she is right. But I suspect that more was going on today than a simple indecision about shoes? I�ve left town for months at a time with one suitcase many, many times, so it�s not like I�m so very high maintenance.
But I�ve never had to pack twenty boxes to leave town non-permanently. And that makes it all more complicated. (However, I love San Francisco, not to mention the people who live here, so very much that leaving permanently would be a MUCH bigger problem.)
Nonetheless, today there was the boot panic.
So I went to the movies. I saw Before Sunset, the newish Richard Linklater film, sequel to Before Sunrise. I re-viewed Before Sunrise a few years ago after having spent some inspiring time in Vienna, and I found that it didn�t hold up over time for me, so I wasn�t entirely sure that I wanted to see the sequel. Still, today it seemed like the perfect choice out of all the options I had before me. And it was.
It�s one of those movies that, while you�re watching it, you�re glad you�re there alone even though at the same time you want to make everyone you care about watch it. Because it�s one long conversation about life and love and choices and sadness, so your reactions to it are very personal, and it�s somehow safer to be there by yourself than to be there with someone you care about who doesn�t like the film, or who disagrees about which parts are good and which are bad.
It�s OK to disagree about the film LATER�much later, like a day or so, or at least a number of hours--and talk about the things that do or don�t work in it. But while you�re watching it, you need a little protection from the scary movie intimacy that happens between people sitting next to each other watching films together. It�s as if disagreement in the moment would open up a wound or something.
Do other people feel like this, or is this just evidence of my particular form of emotional retardation?
So: Before Sunset. It does a good job of capturing much of what is difficult�and also hopeful--about being single or unhappily double in one�s thirties or so, and it does so very honestly and openly. (Hence the potential �open wound� feeling.) I enjoyed the shit out of it, and I cried a bit, and I laughed, and recognized myself, and winced, and smiled, and it made me think about things. And I ate popcorn, and was happy to be there. If, like me, you are a bit of a romantic or an optimist no matter how many bad things happen, you should go see Before Sunset. What I mean by �optimist� is: the movie isn�t all happy-talk, but it does assume that people want to love and be loved, and that such things are possible. If you disagree, it isn�t the film for you. (And if you disagree, I�m not sure why you�d be reading a bunch of words written by me!)
It�s also interesting that a film like Before Sunset, that stars only two people, and which consists entirely of one long conversation, could be so interesting and engrossing. It�s really quite lovely.
One time I went to the movies with my friend Gillian. She and I didn�t know each other very well at that time, and we ended up at the movies together because out of what had been a big party of people, everyone flaked except she and I. The film was Moulin Rouge. Stylistically speaking, there couldn�t be a film less similar to Before Sunset. And yet Moulin Rouge is also one of those films that you might want to see alone, because it does that same romantic thing to you in certain of its moments, if you are one of those with a tendency to be so moved. So both Gillian and I were really uncomfortable at first being at that movie together. I was actually sitting there thinking �wow, what if she gets up and leaves? I AM STAYING.� etc. At some point she leaned over and said �I really hope you are loving this because it will hurt me if you don�t� or something like that. And then I knew everything was OK.
10:20 p.m. - August 16, 2004
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