I have never forgotten some of my first movie experiences, movies like the fantasy “Tom Thumb” and Walt Disney’s “Swiss Family Robinson. Next to books, cinema art has played a major part in opening up to me the world of ideas, and the almost infinite possibilities in life as told through stories. Here are my thoughts on specific theatre and cinema presentations.
“For the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” George Eliot
So ends the last frame of Terrence Malick’s newest release “A Hidden LIfe”–the story of Fanz Jägerstätter.
Everyone wants to imagine themselves the hero in a movie about heroes. Not everyone wants to consider what it would take to do what’s right when nobody may ever know — when their actions will be hidden.
This afternoon my wife and I attended a performance of “The Man From La Mancha” at the Fifth Avenue Theatre.
The musical is based on the novel “Don Quixote“, by Miguel de Cervantes .
This novel is considered the first modern novel written (and one of the greatest). It casts a sprawling net over 16th century Spain–a grand and panoramic meditation on life and death, of suffering, failure, and dreams.( MORE>>>The Man of La Mancha
“How do you tell the story of Christian faith? The difficulty, the crisis, of believing? How do you describe the struggle? There have been many great twentieth-century novelists drawn to the subject – Graham Greene, of course, and François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos and, from his own very particular perspective, Shusaku Endo.”
This was written by Martin Scorsese in the introduction to Shasaku Endo’s fascinating tale “Silence”, now a motion picture created by Scorsese. ( more..thoughts on Martin Scorsese’s “Silence” -When to stand, when to bend, and when to break
The mere exercise of attention—eyes wide, ears pricked, heart open—is not a bad way to move through the world.” Mary Karr
Paterson is a movie by a writer/poet, about a poet, for poets, artists, and lovers of poetry.
It is also for anyone who holds onto dreams and aspirations while plodding through what seems to be a mundane, monotonous, and maybe even meaningless life.
The movie is written and directed by Jim Jarmusch (Coffee & Cigarettes/ Broken Flowers) and features an amazingly nuanced performance by Adam Driver (Star-wars: The Force Awakens/ Silence)
(MORE>>>Paterson Movie Review: Seeing the Extraordinary in the Ordinary