I have spent my entire life in the movies. Sure, I was an actor for many years and met and worked with some wonderful people. Tom Hanks, Peter Fonda, John Heard, Bruce Willis, Gregory Harrison, Neil Patrick Harris and so many others whose names you’d never recognize. But when I say that I spent my entire life in the movies that is not what I mean. I have seen (in my estimation) roughly 3,536 films in my lifetime. And I do not mean films on tape, DVD, Blu-Ray, or television. I’m talking about watching movies where they should be watched, in a theatre. The lights fade and you sit in this large room with dozens (or hundreds) of other people and you share something. Be it joy, laughter, tears, anger, you are sharing it with your fellow human being. I believe in movies.
I believe that movies are one of the greatest art forms ever devised; painting on film, sculpting with celluloid (although celluloid is not actually used today because of its short shelf life). I believe movies have power. I have fallen in love many times at the movies. Every time Cher slaps Nicolas Cage and screams, “Snap out of it!” (Moonstruck – 1987), I am in that New York apartment. Every time Cary Grant opens the door to Deborah Kerr’s bedroom and sees that painting and suddenly realizes why she didn’t meet him at the Empire State building, (An Affair to Remember – 1957), I am as lost as he is. Lost in that moment. Yes, movies have power.
The first movie I ever saw was actually two movies. A double feature at the Isle of View Drive-In, (which to my growing ears sounded like the I Love You Drive-In), the last drive-in theatre in my hometown. My dad had loaded up the 1958 Pontiac with my mom and three of us young kids – my one and only sister was still a baby and stayed at home with my Grandma – and carted us off to see Your Cheatin’ Heart and Thunder Road. I sat in the backseat, staring through the windshield at the flickering images in front of me. The sound from the speaker box mounted on the inside of the driver side window was popping and crackling, but I followed the movies just fine. My two brothers fell asleep long before Hank Williams, looking strangely like George Hamilton, died in the back of his car at the end of the first film. But I was wide awake, and would remain so long after getting home and climbing into the upper bunk in the room I shared with my two brothers. I was hooked. And I remain hooked to this day. I believe in movies.
When I was 15 years old and working as a dishwasher from midnight until seven at a dive called The Omelet Shop, I was madly in love with the 23 year old waitress. Her name was Charlotte and she actually talked to me. The fact that, other than the cook, (who spent most of his time sleeping in the office), I was the only person she could talk to, never once crossed my mind. When my parents told me I was too young to see The Exorcist, it was Charlotte who got me in. It scared the living hell out of me. But I got to sit next to Charlotte. And her boyfriend. Life is never perfect.
As soon as I was old enough to be on my own I left my home and went to the largest city I could find. New York City. I had found my paradise. The city had more movie theaters than I had ever seen. I lived in New York for 15 years and never saw less than 3 movies a week. Sometimes I’d see three or four movies in a day. Oh, the lives those characters lead! Indiana Jones running for his life as a giant boulder bears down on him in Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ripley arming herself to the teeth to fight the mother alien who had taken her young charge (Aliens.) Meg Ryan falling in love with Tom Hanks on the radio in Sleepless in Seattle. And falling in love again with a man she hates but slowly accepts as a friend (When Harry Met Sally.) Just like Meg Ryan I too fell in love in the movies, but I fell in love with the movies.
I wish everyone could. I am reminded of the lyrics of a Shel Silverstein song:
I wish I could have made it
More like the movies for you
Some pretty Technicolor way it’s never been.
I’m sorry when I kissed you
You only heard me whisper
You never got to hear those violins.
That is my desire for you all. Listen for the violins. Believe in the movies.
I really enjoyed reading this! I remember when You would talk about movie saturdays. How you would just go and watch like 4 to 6 movies on Saturday. I need to do that someday. I would enjoy it entirely, but finding the time and honestly the money (with how expensive they are now) is my problem.
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