Recently, I found a cassette tape of me around age five or six talking about movies. The tape was actually marked "Eric talks about movies." Films shaped my inner world back then. Images and moments were powerful.
I watched The Godfather with my dad around that age. As a kid, all the darkness and Marlon Brando looking sinister made it look like a horror movie. It was explained to me Michael started out as a good guy but made choices that made him into a bad guy. That was usually my question about the characters, "Is he a good guy or a bad guy?" And the horse's head in the bed scene shocked me. I wonder if anyone ever explored the Gothic undertones of the saga.
Many of these films I watched on the RCA video disc system, vinyl records encased in plastic you slid in a player. A local appliance store rented out these machines, and they had a collection of movies. A brief niche in time in the mid-1980s before VHS became the dominant technology for home entertainment.
To me, those discs were fascinating objects, an entire universe encased inside. Even televisions carried a mystique into the 1980s. Department stores like Sears devoted lots of space to them. It was like the most mysterious appliance in the house. Poltergeist, another formative movie for me, tapped into that notion wonderfully. Every child stared into the void of white noise at some point.
Raiders of the Lost Ark was also intense. The opening in the cave with all the spiders and traps, it looked like a nightmare in real time. But I kept watching. And Temple of Doom equally unnerving with its heart ripping scenes and blood rituals. But they were anchored by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and the stunning action. Watching those films were almost akin to learning a language.
It was on video disc I first watched Star Wars. It was the sounds and images. At their basic level, the Star Wars movies provided a sensory experience unlike any other films up until that point. I think that's why people kept coming back. It would be a few years more before my mania for Star Wars kicked in fully, by that point watching them on low-quality dubbed VHS copies.
Rocky movies played repeatedly. My dad had recorded Rocky II on a cassette tape from a television broadcast, so I would often listen to it as a radio play. Even on a recording the movie was magnetic from the music, the heavy-handed dialogue, and the sounds of the fights. For me, the Rocky movies were more real than real. They existed in some heightened reality.
James Bond also held a fascination for the younger me. I'll often hear people say, "someday I'm going to watch all those movies." I had that done by age 8." Once again, it was all about moments and images. Dr. No fascinated me, the nemesis played by Joseph Wiseman. His exotic underground lair and proto- cyborg appearance left an impression. Live and Let Die brought more fantastical imagery, stereotypical and culturally problematic today, but a surreal adventure for a kid. And the Paul McCartney theme, playful and bombastic, pure adventure and mystery.
The French Connection, way beyond my comprehension, but the gray streets, swooping of the subways, looked like another planet. I'd rewatch the car chase repeatedly. Watching a scene over and over, not thinking about shot compositions or editing, just repeating the visceral experience.
The Muppets also connected in a major way. They were funny, strange, approachable. Gonzo especially fascinated me, always with the zany schemes and dramatic mishaps. Five-year-old me talking about why Gonzo was my favorite, he made me laugh. All the anarchic energy - and always scheming something.
Anyway, movies clearly had a hold on me at a young age. I have the evidence! They could be fun, dangerous, unpredictable, and always pushing the boundaries of reality. As I got older, all these movies would be viewed differently and go through various iterations in my mind. Yet in its purest form, above all the schools of analysis and sophisticated vocabulary now available to explain them, movies are ultimately about the power of moving images and capturing moments.
No comments:
Post a Comment