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The "Good News" According to the Movies
Jul. 23rd, 2009 10:42 pm “Tony, let me put it to you in two words: ‘the Blues’. That’s what it’s all about, and you knew it once. You need to get back to that time; when you used to go to the Blues Festival in Long Beach every year”.
Alex, my youngest brother, was waxing wise. It seemed that my daughter’s wedding was affecting him as much as me, but his symptoms were different. He had come over to my table during the reception to hug me again, pound me on the back numerous times, and praise me effusively for maintaining a “classy open bar”. Then he sat next to me, explaining his struggles of coming to grips with Prisa’s sudden transformation into “a married women”. I was only half listening, when his sudden detour to the Blues recaptured my attention.
“I still enjoy the Blues, Alex” I replied, not understanding what the Blues had to do with Prisa’s marriage. “They’re just not as important now as they once were. I was going to the Blues Festival during some really difficult times of my life, years of conflict and struggle. The Blues got me through those times; and the Festival let me see and hear the great Bluesmen like Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, and John Lee Hooker”.
“So, wouldn’t you want to see them again?” he countered, moving closer to me. “John Lee’s dead, you know. A whole generation of Black blues artists are fading away; don’t you want to see them one last time?”
“No thanks, Al” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll leave that to you. The blues were meant for younger men still struggling with careers and life’s injustices. I’m not in that situation right now. I’ve moved on to other things and other types of music. The Blues introduced me to Jazz. It was the portal to a whole new genre of music which I enjoy”.
“Jazz” he sneered back, making the word sound like a strangled cough. “Do you know what they say about jazz in the movie, The Commitments?”
“That’s the movie about the Irish band, right? I asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one. In the movie the old musician tells the young sax player that Jazz is the opposite of the Blues. He says that the Blues are the only honest music, the music that comes straight from the heart. The Blues grab you by the balls and lift you above the shit of life”.
“So we’re back to you favorite debating trick, aren’t we Alex?”
“What’s that?” he asked, taken by surprise.
“You know, supporting your argument by offering a movie quotation. You really stand by that notion in the movie The Grand Canyon. How does it go? All life’s truths are in the movies”.
“Oh, you mean, ‘All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies’. Yeah, I do, because they are”.
Actually, Alex misquoted the musician, Joey “The Lips” Fagin, and he confused the Blues with Soul in the movie The Commitments. Joey says, “Soul is the antithesis of Jazz”; and it is Jimmy Rabbitte, the band’s founder and manager, who said Soul “says it straight from the heart. Sure there’s a lot of different music you can get off on, but Soul is more than that. It takes you somewhere else. It grabs you by the balls and lifts you above the shite”. Alex can be forgiven these citation errors about the Blues, because it was the supporting premise to his argument that caught my attention and stayed with me after the wedding.
Are all of life’s riddles answered in the movies? I happen to agree with Alex, because I think they are too. The two movies we mentioned at the wedding are sufficient to begin my short essay on this subject. I’m not one to memorize movie lines, like my younger brothers, Eddie and Alex, or my children, Tony and Prisa. However, some lines stick with me, and stay with me for a long time (Even though my children will roll their eyes at my attempts at quoting those lines). This happened with The Grand Canyon (1992) and The Commitments (1991). These movies were very well written, and they both contain eccentric, but believable, characters who had great lines, and were excellently portrayed. The Commitments (novel by Roddy Doyle, and screenplay by Dick Clement) had Joey “The Lips” Fagin (Johnny Murphy) and Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), and The Grand Canyon (written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan) had Davis (Steve Martin), the cynical Hollywood producer who makes gratuitously violent movies, and Simon (Danny Glover), the struggling, African American tow-truck driver.
The Grand Canyon has the distinction of posing my central premise and then answering it with a dose of concrete reality.
Davis says: “That’s part of your problem – you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies”.
In another part of the movie, Simon says: “You ever been to the Grand Canyon? It’s pretty; but that’s not the thing of it. You can sit on the edge of that old thing and those rocks. The cliffs and the rocks are so old. It took so long for that thing to get like that; and it isn’t done either! It happens right there while you’re watching it. It’s happening right now as we are sitting here in this ugly town (Los Angeles). When you sit on the edge of that thing, you realize what a joke we people really are. What big heads we have thinking that what we do is going to matter all that much. Thinking that our time here means diddly to those rocks. Just a split second we have been here, the whole lot of us. That’s a piece of time so small to even get a name. Those rocks are laughing at me right now - me and my worries. Yeah, it’s real humorous, that Grand Canyon. It’s laughing at me right now. You know what I felt like? I felt like a gnat that lands on the ass of a cow chewing his cud on the side of the road that you drive by doing 70 mph”.
The Commitments offered another take on humanity’s struggle for happiness when Joey the Lips gave Jimmy Rabbitte this bit of sage advice after the band broke up in a babble of anger and bitter argument.
Joey: “Look, I know you’re hurting’ now, but in time you’ll realize what you’ve achieved”.
Jimmy: “I’ve achieved nothing!”
Joey: “You’re missin’ the point. The success of the band was irrelevant. You raised their expectations of life. You lifted their horizons. Sure we could have been famous and made albums and stuff, but that would have been predictable. This way it’s poetry.”
Joey the Lips’ suggestion that our pursuit of perfection (in relationships, careers, music, and art) is the poetry of life, is my favorite movie saying. What’s yours? I’ve never proposed any active interaction with my blog, but I’m curious. Whether or not you subscribe to the idea that “all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies”, what is your favorite movie quote or saying (no fair submitting the American Film Institute’s 100 Top Movie Quotes unless you think of one first)? I encourage you to respond by commenting on the blog or by emailing me. I hope to read your favorite piece of movie advice, or saying.
Hasta la vista, baby.
Alex, my youngest brother, was waxing wise. It seemed that my daughter’s wedding was affecting him as much as me, but his symptoms were different. He had come over to my table during the reception to hug me again, pound me on the back numerous times, and praise me effusively for maintaining a “classy open bar”. Then he sat next to me, explaining his struggles of coming to grips with Prisa’s sudden transformation into “a married women”. I was only half listening, when his sudden detour to the Blues recaptured my attention.
“I still enjoy the Blues, Alex” I replied, not understanding what the Blues had to do with Prisa’s marriage. “They’re just not as important now as they once were. I was going to the Blues Festival during some really difficult times of my life, years of conflict and struggle. The Blues got me through those times; and the Festival let me see and hear the great Bluesmen like Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, and John Lee Hooker”.
“So, wouldn’t you want to see them again?” he countered, moving closer to me. “John Lee’s dead, you know. A whole generation of Black blues artists are fading away; don’t you want to see them one last time?”
“No thanks, Al” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll leave that to you. The blues were meant for younger men still struggling with careers and life’s injustices. I’m not in that situation right now. I’ve moved on to other things and other types of music. The Blues introduced me to Jazz. It was the portal to a whole new genre of music which I enjoy”.
“Jazz” he sneered back, making the word sound like a strangled cough. “Do you know what they say about jazz in the movie, The Commitments?”
“That’s the movie about the Irish band, right? I asked.
“Yeah, that’s the one. In the movie the old musician tells the young sax player that Jazz is the opposite of the Blues. He says that the Blues are the only honest music, the music that comes straight from the heart. The Blues grab you by the balls and lift you above the shit of life”.
“So we’re back to you favorite debating trick, aren’t we Alex?”
“What’s that?” he asked, taken by surprise.
“You know, supporting your argument by offering a movie quotation. You really stand by that notion in the movie The Grand Canyon. How does it go? All life’s truths are in the movies”.
“Oh, you mean, ‘All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies’. Yeah, I do, because they are”.
Actually, Alex misquoted the musician, Joey “The Lips” Fagin, and he confused the Blues with Soul in the movie The Commitments. Joey says, “Soul is the antithesis of Jazz”; and it is Jimmy Rabbitte, the band’s founder and manager, who said Soul “says it straight from the heart. Sure there’s a lot of different music you can get off on, but Soul is more than that. It takes you somewhere else. It grabs you by the balls and lifts you above the shite”. Alex can be forgiven these citation errors about the Blues, because it was the supporting premise to his argument that caught my attention and stayed with me after the wedding.
Are all of life’s riddles answered in the movies? I happen to agree with Alex, because I think they are too. The two movies we mentioned at the wedding are sufficient to begin my short essay on this subject. I’m not one to memorize movie lines, like my younger brothers, Eddie and Alex, or my children, Tony and Prisa. However, some lines stick with me, and stay with me for a long time (Even though my children will roll their eyes at my attempts at quoting those lines). This happened with The Grand Canyon (1992) and The Commitments (1991). These movies were very well written, and they both contain eccentric, but believable, characters who had great lines, and were excellently portrayed. The Commitments (novel by Roddy Doyle, and screenplay by Dick Clement) had Joey “The Lips” Fagin (Johnny Murphy) and Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), and The Grand Canyon (written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan) had Davis (Steve Martin), the cynical Hollywood producer who makes gratuitously violent movies, and Simon (Danny Glover), the struggling, African American tow-truck driver.
The Grand Canyon has the distinction of posing my central premise and then answering it with a dose of concrete reality.
Davis says: “That’s part of your problem – you haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies”.
In another part of the movie, Simon says: “You ever been to the Grand Canyon? It’s pretty; but that’s not the thing of it. You can sit on the edge of that old thing and those rocks. The cliffs and the rocks are so old. It took so long for that thing to get like that; and it isn’t done either! It happens right there while you’re watching it. It’s happening right now as we are sitting here in this ugly town (Los Angeles). When you sit on the edge of that thing, you realize what a joke we people really are. What big heads we have thinking that what we do is going to matter all that much. Thinking that our time here means diddly to those rocks. Just a split second we have been here, the whole lot of us. That’s a piece of time so small to even get a name. Those rocks are laughing at me right now - me and my worries. Yeah, it’s real humorous, that Grand Canyon. It’s laughing at me right now. You know what I felt like? I felt like a gnat that lands on the ass of a cow chewing his cud on the side of the road that you drive by doing 70 mph”.
The Commitments offered another take on humanity’s struggle for happiness when Joey the Lips gave Jimmy Rabbitte this bit of sage advice after the band broke up in a babble of anger and bitter argument.
Joey: “Look, I know you’re hurting’ now, but in time you’ll realize what you’ve achieved”.
Jimmy: “I’ve achieved nothing!”
Joey: “You’re missin’ the point. The success of the band was irrelevant. You raised their expectations of life. You lifted their horizons. Sure we could have been famous and made albums and stuff, but that would have been predictable. This way it’s poetry.”
Joey the Lips’ suggestion that our pursuit of perfection (in relationships, careers, music, and art) is the poetry of life, is my favorite movie saying. What’s yours? I’ve never proposed any active interaction with my blog, but I’m curious. Whether or not you subscribe to the idea that “all of life’s riddles are answered in the movies”, what is your favorite movie quote or saying (no fair submitting the American Film Institute’s 100 Top Movie Quotes unless you think of one first)? I encourage you to respond by commenting on the blog or by emailing me. I hope to read your favorite piece of movie advice, or saying.
Hasta la vista, baby.
