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Some people might think that this is petty, but it's just my own damn opinion, and whether it's deluded and artless or not, I'll leave to others to decide. And maybe I just got forced to sit through one too many of these during elementary school during the 90s: I am not claiming to be the mythical Objective Audience here.
But, basically, I understand that this is what it was like during the 60s. (But you don't understand! Well, I can sure recognize this being the 60s-- is that good enough?) But I also thought that it was too damn long.... And, to be honest, even though I wouldn't mind watching a women's flick-- I don't like to flaunt literary nonsense, but I have read "The L-Shaped Room"-- but I don't like it when I'm supposed to dislike a large proportion of the ladies in the cast because of the whole ugly *race* issue.... And, to be honest, I don't like being implicitly disliked by our little heroine here! (Sorry, but that's actually how I feel!)
So, no! this is not going on my list of favorite films.
But, since everybody likes to hear about irrational biases, let me open up and share some of mine:
I had to watch it with my family, and whenever my (rude, white) family likes something, I take that as a good rule of thumb for something to avoid liking-- call me crazy.
And, call me a self-hater, but I have a sort of auto-suspicion that flares up whenever I'm asked to lionize an intellectual at the expense of the socialites.... It's just so damn *common* these days, and it's almost stupidly easy to figure out how easy it would be to use this movie to demonize everyone who plays cards.... (And, unfortunately, I'm a well-educated twenty-three year old man, (unemployed), who knows well enough that he ought to suppress his real feelings about life, feelings, and the universe, but.... I don't know. I guess it's not so unfortunate after all, because I guess that I'm suppressing my desire to suppress all this-- aren't I?)
And, I mean, it's not a *terrible* movie.... It certainly has lots of *drama* and *accuracy*.... If you're into that kind of thing....
But, I don't know-- 'Sometimes I am in need of other pleasures, of little joys, of reasons for living, or even, of existing.'
*shrugs* So, you can go save the world; I'll hang back here and try to get a seat at the card table....
Yeah, even though it would be stupidly easy to use this movie to demonize everyone who plays cards.
{Do you prefer books to cards, I say that that is singular, said Mr Hurst....}
{*smiles* And now it's your turn to be honest about something-- *why* don't you like the white socialites-- really? Is it because you don't like Kim Kardashian?}
{*laughs* I mean, she's actually sitting there, actually reading the actual literal text of the race laws of the State of Alabama, or wherever-- and when is the last time that *you* sat down and read the actual literal text of some Law passed by Congess-- the 9000 pages of lawyer's prattle, which can usually be summarized in four sentences or less-- and it's like.... 'Do you have fun?' (You don't like Kim Kardashian, do you? You do realize that this is the 1964 equivalent of *People*, right?') '(imagine her doing it with a Southern drawl) Is that important?' ('Oh no, I would rather read the text of a law, than read about Kim Kardashian....') And I'm sitting there, trying to figure who hates Kim more-- the Alabama State Legislator, ('Would *Moses* have been reading trashy magazines, instead of giving Laws to God's People!?'), or the Ism girl, who must needs be at war with the It girl-- i.e. Edie Sedgwick, for example. (A white girl, born in Santa Barbara California, whose kinsmen had been illustrious hardboiled Civil War (Northern) generals, who were probably scandalized as fuck to hear that she ended up being a slutty socialite, instead of sitting in church to hear about the Laws that God gave to Moses!}
{*laughs*}
{And, I don't know how to explain it really.... In some ways, 'historical fiction' is way more useful than (political!) 'history', and you know what I mean, even if this is still within living memory, and therefore (semi!) contemporary.... It's just that people were *very* hardboiled back in the 60s.... Not everybody was like Edie Sedgwick, no.}
{I mean, I've read a short history of Mexico, so I know all about all of the racist white Mexican intellectual elites who wanted to promote European immigration during the 19th century to further impoverish, &c., the native Indian masses.... but that doesn't mean that you could drop me off in Mexico City and expect me to be able to figure out how to order myself some tacos.... That's the thing. *Really* understanding a period comes from understanding *what it was like*, and that comes from fiction-- not from the 'non-fiction' of politics-- because it comes from *people* and even the bare biographical details-- born 1911-- a time of political unrest in general, including suffragette stuff, but obviously one does not participate in political rallies as an infant-- yet another example of how often the knowledge of political history *simply isn't relevant*, biography trumps history, really, but even bare biographical bones do not quite equate to the living flesh of fiction, if the *setting* is more important than the *characters*.... *laughs* And that is the surest way to misplace the setting, too! }
{*laughs* God! I'm just such a locquacious mick, well, I guess that I have my father to blame for that! And much else besides, maybe! I mean, do you know how men like him acted back in the 70s! *laughs*}
{And my mom, in the pitch-black midnight ignorance of her knowledge of me, thinks that *I* would have fancied the *writer*-- as though *I* were like *HER, herself*!!!.... And how annoying it is, when that 70s speech of hers seeps into our life today-- 'Close the door, Teddy.... We're negotiating cold air.'}
{*laughs*}
{But anyway, she's almost like Atticus Finch.... *or Patrick Stewart*.... hero-as-caricature, you know? Unconscious caricature, I mean!}
{*laughs*}
[Seriously, though....
Some people are always stepping into--or perhaps *backing into*-- the future, facing the other way.
But there comes a time when you have to just....
Turn around.]
.......
Because nobody's ever made this movie before, because I'm Rip Van Winkle-- I've been asleep for twenty years.
And I never read about Atticus Finch, because I have a vendetta against my elementary school librarian lady.
And no one has ever done this before, and I'm so original, and I'm the hero, and I don't have to do anything to be the hero except to get weird with people when they try to talk to me, and it will go on for twenty hours, because I can do whatever I want, because I'm the hypocrite....
And just to prove I'm the hypocrite, I'll....
*gets bitter* What, can't I dream?
*stamps foot* I am the hypocrite!
*storms out*
(7/10)
