Finding Life in a Darkened Theater

Photo credit: Lalitree’s photostream

by Guest Contributor Brian Robinson

There’s a great old joke that Woody Allen repeats at the beginning of “Annie Hall”: two elderly women are having lunch together when one turns to the other and says “The food here is just awful”, and the other woman replies , “Yeah, and such small portions!” Well for Allen’s Alvy Singer ( “Hey, its Alvy Sing-a!” as one of the “Cheechs” would bellow) that joke describes his outlook on life. For me, its movies. The majority of movies are mediocre to awful, and I just can’t get enough of them.

I go to a movie just about weekly, depending on the time of year. January, February, March, August and September are notoriously comprised of movies that studios have little to no faith in and generally are trying to get a weekend buck from before they dump it to DVD. (This is the defense I pull out whenever I admit to seeing movies like “First Sunday” or “Never Back Down” in the theater — “Hey, what was I supposed to do? It was all they offered me!”) I find movies to be the greatest, most accessible art form of the 20th Century and think films can continue to add to our lives in the Twenty-First, as long as video games don’t end up taking their place.

Art lovers say that art isn’t just about appreciation. They claim that art can change your life. Does film? Well, in my opinion outside of incidents like getting some innocent man off of death row (as Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line” did) I don’t often say movies will change your life. BUT, I think they can change the way we look at our lives, and the world we live in. Is it possible that middle America was pushed a little bit more towards the acceptance of interracial marriages by watching Spencer Tracy struggle with it in 1967′s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”? Or that not a few lawyers were born after watching “To Kill A Mockingbird”? (I know, some of you don’t see that as a benefit….until you NEED a lawyer! Imagine one as cool as Gregory Peck!) You see as many movies as I have, and you are bound to be moved by some.

Here are some movies in no particular order that did, indeed, change the way I look at the world and life:

“Defending Your Life” from Albert Brooks is one of my personal favorites that definitely affects my outlook on life. The film is a fantasy-comedy about a man who dies at the beginning of the film and is sent to “Judgment City”, which looks a lot like Irvine, CA to me – lots of business parks and strip malls. There, you are bound to defend your life on Earth as worthy to allow you to move on to the next plane. Regardless of your religious ideology, the film makes a very interesting point: the idea of this life is to conquer your fear. At a particular time in my life, when I had ventured into a new city, new career and new way of being paid (…or not) things were very scary for me. But, I got a copy of this movie and watched it at least every month. It inspired me NOT to let fear rule my life; yes, fear will always be an emotion that’s part of who we are, but it can never be allowed to be the main emotion.

“Magnolia” is a modern masterpiece for me. It has a chorus of characters where any one of them would make for an entire movie with him/her alone at the center. Its a sprawling, challenging and rewarding movie. For me, this is P.T. Anderson’s high water mark at this point for the pure humanity of it. I dare you to watch this movie and not identify with at least one of the characters. Chances are you will see yourself in a couple of them. The film touches on family, faith, regret, love, passion, yearning and death. All the unavoidable things about being human. Beautiful.

“The Apostle” is a deeply felt movie about faith and the power of redemption. Now, I should say, its not so much the entire movie that sticks with me, as it is the performance of writer/director Robert Duvall, as well as so many of the non-actors that populate the movie. There is very little plot, and a lot of character. This film focuses on the Pentecostal Christians we so often mock in our American society; so theatrical and extreme in their beliefs. But this film does something rare: it turns the camera on them with respect for them as people. There is no mocking tone here, no point of view that says “will you look at these freaks!” The movie embraces their belief as whole and worthy of respect, no matter what the viewer might believe.

“Malcolm X” is Spike Lee’s best movie, and I just don’t see how he could do anything better. Malcolm was and remains a controversial man in America. In this film, we can see just how a life can start one place, and end up someplace so different. For those who want to only hold on to the more “radical” parts of his life, pay attention to the last quarter of this movie to see who Malcolm really was at the end of his life. Can you reconcile both sides of his life in your mind? Can you hope for a journey like this in your own?

“Glengarry Glen Ross” is just so much damn fun for anyone who appreciates words and not just explosions in their movies. David Mamet’s play must be like catnip for actors. The vulgarities, the twisted wordplay and the emotional outbursts are so meticulously presented that its like watching a fine tuned group of Olympic athletes. When I saw this movie, I was in my first sales job after college. I remember being quite scared (and scarred) by not only Alec Baldwin’s viscious monologue ( “Put. That coffee. Down! Coffee is for closers.”) but the bleakness of these men’s lives in Real Estate. This isn’t what I wanted in my sales career, and I was damn sure NOT going into that industry. But upon multiple viewings, I realized its not about sales. Its about men selling their souls to industry, and to other men. That could happen to any of us, not just salespeople.

“Breaking the Waves” is one of those memorable moviegoing experiences that you just can’t predict. I recall seeing this movie in a small, intimate moviehouse in Seattle. I think there were at least two times during the movie I “threatened” to walk out (I was by myself). I know I gathered my things at least once to storm out indignently to protest the treatment of the character on screen. A FICTIONAL character! The film is about a religiously faithful, almost fanatical, woman who is an innocent. She is shown having one-way verbal conversations with God; clearly a bit insane, right? Right? Well, she falls for a man who, not long after they are married, is paralyzed in a work accident. He cannot be sexually satisfied as he feels nothing below his waist. He emplores his wife (through self-pity) to go out and find ways to sexually satisfy herself. She checks with God, who says to do whatever it takes to make him happy. And things get progressively worse from there. If you have never seen a film by director Lars Von Trier, this may be your one and only to see from him; a friend of mine calls him the Spielberg for the Dark Side and it couldn’t be more apt. The last shot of this movie necessitates that you see it with somebody. You WILL want to talk about it. I own this movie on DVD and have never been able to sit through it again, it is that affecting. Which, for me, makes it a great time at the movies. Now, who’s the insane one?!