MovieChat Forums > Owlwise > Replies
Owlwise's Replies
Different takes on it, I guess. One key phrase in the film is "small steps" -- plenty of people believed her, and humanity must come to grips with the knowledge of other races across the Universe. That doesn't happen overnight. Humanity must change & grow to be ready to join the community of those other races in peace. "Small steps."
They shared the knowledge that humanity is not alone in the Universe, which seems pretty substantial to me. The philosophical underpinnings of this film are what make it work so well.
In the 1970s, people weren't obsessed with or embarrassed by normal, natural bodies. Unlike today, with its impossibly sculpted, plastic-looking bodies that require constant maintenance. A natural & perfectly attractive body gave people time to do more with their lives than live in the gym 24/7—you know, things like enjoying life, actually thinking about things, rather than living for the approval & Likes & Upvotes & Favorites of countless strangers.
The Beatles, with the Stones very close behind. Led Zeppelin is a fine band, gifted & deservedly popular, but not quite in the same league musically/culturally as the Beatles & the Stones.
As Justin Playfair/"Sherlock Holmes" in the underrated They Might Be Giants.
I recall Robin's line in that final scene, as he pauses & realizes, "I'd never have another day like this one, would I?" And he knows that to try dragging out his life for increasingly futile attempts at adventure & rebellion would be a long, slow, diminishing death for him. But he does have these last moments with Marian, where their undying love through the years is supreme & nothing else matters ... and he knows it. And welcomes & cherishes it.
15 years later, do you feel any differently about this film?
I liked it a lot when it came out, when I was in my 20s ... but now that I'm in my 60s & married to the love of my life for so many years, the film moves me in a way that it couldn't move my 20something self. Everything it's saying about the profound & redemptive power of love & acceptance of the end of life, is true. It's one of the most honest & beautiful films about growing older & realizing what really matters that I've ever seen, in fact.
It's indeed a masterpiece, at times surprisingly harrowing & dark, with absolutely lush color & animation that constantly delights the eye. And what happens to Lampwick? Brrrrrr!
Field of Dreams
If LoA were being made today, of course we'd expect Arab characters to be played by Arab actors; we'd take that for granted. The point is that times & attitudes were indeed different 60 years ago, and a film made then must be taken in the context of those times & attitudes. Does the film work on its own terms? In the case of this one, most definitely!
I'm a great supporter of more diversity in casting today. But how can I dismiss superlative work from the past for not being aware of 2020 attitudes & cultural changes? Yes, we can note that it would be more convincing to modern audiences with truly diverse casting; I can't & won't argue about that. But dismissing past masterpieces because they reflect the times in which they were made, rather than current times, pretty much means junking nearly all of our cultural heritage, and ignoring the richness, humanity, complexity & depth of that work at its best.
Do I sometimes wince at ugly racial portrayals in older films? Oh, yes! But presumably we're all adult enough & intelligent enough to recognize them, and to understand that even highly gifted & deeply humane creators of the past had their cultural blind spots. An ideological purity test for culture is never a good thing for culture, whether it comes from the right or the left.
Awareness & a conscious choice to do better going forward? A rediscovery of neglected diverse voices from the past? Being aware of cultural blind spots in great art from the past? Yes, to all of that. But let's be mature enough to appreciate what makes that art great & lasting, despite its flaws.
Thank you, Carl Reiner, for decades of wonderful entertainment.
I like that description!
I agree.
And one of the things I've enjoyed about this conversation is the civility, which isn't too common online, as we know. It's a pleasure!
A wonderful, thoughtful reply. :)
I agree, the difference between Lewis & Tolkien is the difference between the zeal of the convert & being born into a faith, not having to emphasize what comes as naturally as breathing to one born into it. I'm not a practicing Catholic now, but I retain that sense of the sacred, which as you say is found in so much great art—Bach & Brahms, most definitely! For me, also the work of the English Romantic poets. And I'm sure that we both have & could name many other personal examples.
Martin began as a fine science-fiction writer in the 1970s; ironically, those early writings deal with myth & metaphor at a much more subtle & complex manner than GoT. When I read that he faulted Tolkien for neglecting the practical details of worldbuilding (economics, politics, etc.), I realize that he was missing the very nature of Tolkien's work, always described by Tolkien himself as not being a novel, but rather a Romance, in the original sense of the word.
You're right in referencing the spiritual aspect of LotR. (I especially like your referencing Dante & Virgil above.) I was raised Catholic; and even without knowing that Tolkien was Catholic, when I first read LotR at the age of 14, in December of 1967, I <b>felt</b> that Catholicism in my bones, as it were. In the same way that C. S. Lewis described a sense of Holiness in first reading George McDonald, I got a sense of something rich & deep & somehow touching on the sacred, something with transcendent meaning. Of course, as a very callow 14-year old, I lacked both the vocabulary & the extensive background to really understand why I felt what I did. I only knew that I did.
Being an (admittedly quite amateur) a student of both Tolkien & Carl Jung, I was always struck by the similar look of the trees they painted, at roughly the same period of time. And I always felt that Tolkien's work ran very deeply into the roots of the psyche, as did Jung's (and William Blake's before either of them).
So everyone involved in this discussion might enjoy this longish post about those similarities between the two men & their work:
https://beccatarnas.com/2014/05/16/the-red-book-and-the-red-book-jung-tolkien-and-the-convergence-of-images-2/
For me, it touches on & reinforces feelings I've long had about the true power of Tolkien's writing, the power that puts him in the ranks of so many great, visionary creators who came before him, and makes him far more than just a superb genre writer.
Would that more people in our own world felt that way!
Yes, that sense of bittersweet loss is a powerful thread winding through & binding together the entire epic, isn't it? That gives the story its lasting & deep emotional resonance.
I also think spending a fair amount of time amongst the simple pleasures of the Shire, tells us much about the ability of both Bilbo & Frodo to endure the Ring for so long. Hobbits aren't particularly interested in power & glory & splendor for themselves; the little joys of everyday life are more than enough for them. They can appreciate & admire glory & splendor when they see it in the Elves & in Men like Aragorn; but they see it as being the rightful portion of those people, not something that they themselves crave desperately. A comfortable home, good food, good company, a mug of beer ... all of that is the world's plenty in itself for them.
Just from memory, wasn't Faramir described by Gandalf as being more like the ancient Numenoreans than many of his people? And of course he was Gandalf's pupil, disliked as such by his father, who saw Gandalf as more of a rival or interloper than an ally & advisor?
I also look to Tolkien's devout Catholicism as a possible answer, in that Faramir's goodness was essentially a gift of grace—not fated programming or anything like that, but the potential for that goodness, which in his case was fulfilled because of the choices he made of his own free will. And if Bilbo had the strength to give up the Ring after possessing it for long, then there's precedent for Faramir, someone of sufficient moral & spiritual character, to willingly refuse the temptation of it, I would think.
All of this being an example of the subtlety & complexity that some critics of Tolkien just don't seem to see. :)
I like that, very well said! :)