the why and wherefore
When did it all begin? When did I stumble into this passionate love of film? It goes back nearly as far as I can remember - rainy Saturday afternoons watching Chiller Theater, Sundays with Abbott and Costello, whizzing through my homework so I could catch the 4:30 Movie with its themed weeks: Edgar Allen Poe week, featuring those deliciously lurid Vincent Price/American International horror flicks; Godzilla week, always capped spectacularly by Destroy All Monsters, the Superbowl of nuke-mutated giant creature battles; Gidget week, from which I learned, above all, that I did not want to be Gidget. There was also The Million Dollar movie, so named because it presented (mostly) true classics from Hollywood's golden years.
I was fortunate to have grown up in the New York Metro area, where there were three independent tv channels - WPIX, WOR and WNEW - all of which relied on Hollywood's vast film catalogue for significant portions of their programming. The mere presence of a variety of choices doesn't quite explain my attachment. I was a very dreamy child, an introvert, always drawn to things of the past. When I went into an old building it was as if I breathed in the soul of the place, feeling a subtle but very real connection with its former inhabitants, hearing faint echoes of the rhythms of those lives. All those old movies, then, gave shape to these flights of fancy, telling the glamorous and gritty stories of a past that had previously only lived at the edges of my imagination. I've since come to understand that it was a past that only existed on screen, flickering reflections of modern-day myths that were sometimes modest, sometimes magnificent, illuminating something of both human failing and triumph, the mundane and the transcendent, impossible suffering and pure joy, slapstick silliness and utmost seriousness.
As I grew older, I gradually became more educated in the history and art of filmmaking, courtesy of the local PBS station. (I should write to Congress. Please let PBS do their job. You might see a blog come out of it in thirty years.) There I was exposed to the great Universal horror films of the '30's, musicals of every stripe but most especially Astaire and Rogers, the delightful Charlie Chan series and the screwball comedies of the '30's and '40's. Not only did I begin to appreciate specific actors and actresses, but also directors, costume designers and art directors.
My love of film grew exponentially, spreading in many directions and encompassing an ever-larger circle of interest. I'll watch every genre of classic film, though I was late in coming around to Westerns and still don't much like war films. I can be just as thrilled by a cast of supporting actors as I am by major stars. I don't only watch movies made before 1960, nor do I limit myself to American films. Jim Jarmusch has something new coming out? I'm there. I can derive as much pleasure from a viewing of Pee Wee's Big Adventure as of The Seventh Seal. I find something new to appreciate every time I watch a well-loved film, and it is exhilarating. It's like turning a jewel over and over, discovering new facets, appreciating the ever-changing ways in which it reflects light.
To borrow a wildly famous quote from Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, film is "the stuff that dreams are made of."
I was fortunate to have grown up in the New York Metro area, where there were three independent tv channels - WPIX, WOR and WNEW - all of which relied on Hollywood's vast film catalogue for significant portions of their programming. The mere presence of a variety of choices doesn't quite explain my attachment. I was a very dreamy child, an introvert, always drawn to things of the past. When I went into an old building it was as if I breathed in the soul of the place, feeling a subtle but very real connection with its former inhabitants, hearing faint echoes of the rhythms of those lives. All those old movies, then, gave shape to these flights of fancy, telling the glamorous and gritty stories of a past that had previously only lived at the edges of my imagination. I've since come to understand that it was a past that only existed on screen, flickering reflections of modern-day myths that were sometimes modest, sometimes magnificent, illuminating something of both human failing and triumph, the mundane and the transcendent, impossible suffering and pure joy, slapstick silliness and utmost seriousness.
As I grew older, I gradually became more educated in the history and art of filmmaking, courtesy of the local PBS station. (I should write to Congress. Please let PBS do their job. You might see a blog come out of it in thirty years.) There I was exposed to the great Universal horror films of the '30's, musicals of every stripe but most especially Astaire and Rogers, the delightful Charlie Chan series and the screwball comedies of the '30's and '40's. Not only did I begin to appreciate specific actors and actresses, but also directors, costume designers and art directors.
My love of film grew exponentially, spreading in many directions and encompassing an ever-larger circle of interest. I'll watch every genre of classic film, though I was late in coming around to Westerns and still don't much like war films. I can be just as thrilled by a cast of supporting actors as I am by major stars. I don't only watch movies made before 1960, nor do I limit myself to American films. Jim Jarmusch has something new coming out? I'm there. I can derive as much pleasure from a viewing of Pee Wee's Big Adventure as of The Seventh Seal. I find something new to appreciate every time I watch a well-loved film, and it is exhilarating. It's like turning a jewel over and over, discovering new facets, appreciating the ever-changing ways in which it reflects light.
To borrow a wildly famous quote from Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, film is "the stuff that dreams are made of."
posted by Margo Channing @ 7:52 PM
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