A handful of hours after the film. And a slightly larger handful of hours after the film.
The films in question: 20th Century Women and Hidden Figures.
My problem is this: I watched these two films about women today, one certainly my kind of film, a whole lot of talk and very little plot but stuck a little in its white privilege; the other a fairly (white) audience-friendly, straightforward, historical piece about three women of colour who could use more notice. And, it seems like I should be writing today about gender and feminism and racism, or at least talking about how Michelle Williams little bit of over emotional screentime in Manchester by the Sea--thirty-four days after that film*--is getting notice and Greta Gerwig is not...
(*For the record, I rather liked Manchester by the Sea, but after early trailers were touting Williams' role as being Oscar-worthy, I expected more.)
...except I do not usually talk about awards that way, the snubs and whatnot. Instead of the obvious topic, though, I find myself stuck on a line from 20th Century Women--I am pretty sure it is in the trailer--Annette Bening's Dorothea saying to Gerwig's Abbie regarding her (Dorothea's) son: "You get to see him out in the world, as a person. I never will."
Because, as a parent that rings very true to me, especially of late. I have three kids and they are all old enough to have lives of their own. I see them when they are home, I interact with them when they deign to interact with me.
They do not even see movies with me much anymore.
I know!
The horror.
Similarly, I see my students just when they are in the classroom or bother to come to my office hours, or maybe passing in the hall. I see my siblings and parents only occasionally. I see my grad school friends rarely but for Facebook. Their lives when they are away from my sight might as well be foreign constructs, like films I will never see but only hear about third hand. Their loves, their hates, their habits and behaviors--these are things that only exist in temporary windows.
Like film characters. Like TV characters. Novel characters (though my own creations remain in my head long after I finish or abandon a bit of fiction). Even D&D characters (though my own current character is in my head quite often). A particular character, the things they do, the things they say... The things the writer and director have them do, the things the writer and director have them say... Hell, the things the actor has them do, the things the actor has them say--all of these things are all the evidence I have for who and what these characters are. I know only of their dreams inasmuch as they reference them in the short time I am with them. I know only of their love lives if their love lives are part of the plot of the film in question, or if they bother to mention it. A lazy screenwriter or director, or a bad actor might make these choices poorly and ruin my experience of the character...
But then, I must consider the fact that your experience of a particular character is not the same as mine. Your experience of a particular plot is not the same as mine. Your 20th Century Women is not my 20th Century Women. Your Hidden Figures is not my Hidden Figures. Your Manchester by the Sea is not my Manchester by the Sea. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. And, so forth.
(Sorry, I saw a production of The King and I this past week and I could not help it.)
I return to Benesh...
(Readers of that other blog of mine may remember my systematic deconstruction of and debate with Mary Ellen Benesh's dissertation regarding Groundhog Day--coming up on twenty-three years after that film, also close to nine months after that film, and many, many numbers in between.)
In particular, I return to a notion of hers that I adopted somewhere along the way. How she puts it:
...for viewers... an imprint remains as during the film the audience members "introject" or take in its psychic content including symbols, images, and narrative, as well as projecting individual personal concerns. After the film, if it is particularly "resonant," the process continues as the film "plays on" in the viewer's mind. A personal "edition" of the film is thus created and assimilated into the psyche of the viewer. (Benesh, 2011, p. 8)
She references (and I often have cited) Izod (2000) and the comparison of the experience in the movie theater, watching the film...experiencing the film, to the process of dreaming. What a film is as you watch it depends on so many outside factors. How your day is going, who is sitting nearby, what other films you have seen, what you want out of life, what you believe about the life you have, what you believe about life in general... etcetera. The black mother with her three daughters sitting to my left during Hidden Figures today, for example, saw a different film than I did. The old gay couple sitting to my right during 20th Century Women saw a different film than I did. A devout Trump supporter probably saw Rogue One--fourteen days and eight days after the film--differently than I did. A very conservative person, a parent perhaps, would have seen Mustang--just over a year after the film--very differently than I did...
Facebook recently showed me my link to my blog entry about that film as a "memory" worth sharing again. That entry is not particularly brilliant. I was in a bad mood, angry at the situation in the film, and my sinuses were bugging me a great deal. It is only three paragraphs. What really struck me reading it recently was that third paragraph:
Maybe it's because my sinuses have been angry at me all day but I don't feel like lingering and/or sugar coating. I'm tired of there being standards and traditions about actions that don't hurt anyone. You know, the whole requirement that women be pure for their husbands is just one. Gay marriage is another big one lately. I'm tired of it. If what someone else is doing offends you because of some made-up standard in your head, keep it to yourself... Better yet, get the fuck over it.
Now, in being brief, I was also just vague enough as to be proving my own standards just as worthy of being dismissed as the bullshit conservative ideals on display in Mustang, but my point here is that surely there were people who saw that film who felt no ire at all, who understood and related to the conservative parents and their efforts to rein in their daughters. Recently, I told my own daughter to not bother dating anyone then later told her not to listen to my patriarchal bullshit. You know, it is her life. I am here to make it better. And, coming back to my earlier point, it is a life to which most of the time I will not bear witness.
I suppose my point is simple. Every film is a window into a different world, into a life not my own. And, every film is also a window into my world, into my life. Life happens in these discrete little units. Seconds. Minutes. Moments. We share the ones we can. We are far from the ones we cannot.
And, sometimes, some people are just assholes who are not worthy of sharing.
Just saying.
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