Movies and a Life-Synopsis
Its been awhile again, don’t want these entries to be motley, even though they are anonymous. Today was, what? Warm here in Winnipeg. I watched three very old war movies on Turner Classics today. Each was very unconventional in its way. I don’t usually regard war movies, especially post-World War II, as being in the top level of quality, but today’s bunch were. At least they were not your typical fare. Each was a different take from the usual excuse for a lot of excitement about gunplay and not adventure movies in the sense. In fact only one concerned battle for the most part, "Pork Chop Hill" which would rate up there with "Das Boot" and several post-Vietnam as amongst the most realistic and intelligently constructed. The other ones "The Desert Fox" and another an immediate post-war one by William Wyler I forget the name of right now, though more melodramatic and in the case of the former, very liberal with the fiction and stylized depiction, were completely different than I expected.
I can’t imagine any or the three being made much less being appreciated at all in the present day. The patience demanded would be far too much. I tend to look back on hollywood stuff made prior to the sixties with some allowance for tackiness and limitation, though I am almost always charmed, no matter how bad.
Today’s selection has made me wonder though. Every one of them had some powerful scenes and importance, even though limited in visceral realism. The Mason/Rommel movie did not even have much in the way of special effects or weapons paraded, relying mostly on stock footage of the North African conflict. Enjoyed ’em each a great deal and if I get the name of the Wyler movie I will edit it in here. Suppose I should add that, though the most melodramatic or the three, it featured an actual disabled veteran in his first, perhaps only, role. He features in the most emotional and powerful scene in the movie.
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My daughter was over for most of the day, watching and enjoying along with me. My daughter, as I’ll mention, if I haven’t before, suffers from mentall illness and exhibits her psychosis mainly when nobody is paying attention to her. She was quiet throughout and expressed her enjoyment later. Hey, i could go on for hours about it, as I could for most aspects of my messed up life, but I have a hard time evoking much in a few words. I guess you could say that about me about everything generally. Less I was intoxicated, which I am very rarely anymore. The wit and speed-on-the-feet has been known to come out in those circumstances, though even then not always.
I’m supposed to talk about the tough issues on here. It is not always opportune to do so tho. I could say my life feels at the edge of a point tho when hasn’t it been? It is getting nearer to the end than the beginning and a sense of immanence isn’t everpresent as when I was young. Wonderous expectations of transcending this mortal veil in some unforseeable way don’t happen, seem ridiculous. Here I am doing it again in a sense tho. It must still be a way of escaping the things that are inevitable about life, formost death.
Anyhow my life is pretty messed-up and how to go about talking about it in a way that will put in perspective and not lead to improvisational digression, emotionally potent as the subject matter is.
A short summary, my previous relationships were broken by circumstances that were partly already set in motion, partly by outside forces that were unanticipated. I still haven’t figured, perhaps haven’t even sought to, figure out what the proportion of each was.
Life wasn’t exactly easy up to that point. There is a great deal that was unrealized throughout my young and mature-middle adult life even in the most basic commonplace terms.
Since the break which occured over a period between ten and fifteen years ago I have been put-upon with other extreme bad breaks. Thankfully I have something of a new life in my current relationship with a new family. I am grateful for it and my current partner, it definitely kept me from being swept back again as I was apt to do. It is not without its problems tho. We have had so many setbacks and the remnants of previous life and relationships still haunt me. Add to all this the struggle to become a functioning member of society is finally beginning to take a irretrievable toll on me physically.
On the plus side, my grandaughter is doing well and I see her fairly often, though not as much as I should.
So I have finally writ the synopsis of my life here. Maybe, having done so, I can begin to be a bit more candid and spontaneous about what is going on with me.
I’d say today was a moderate-low which is not too bad as I am rarely much above that. It was ok though I am feeling a bit of recurrence of the depression which plagued me throughout my twenties. It will always be with me, I have accepted, but it doesn’t recurr so often anymore. I keep looking for things that may have triggered it tho I know there needn’t be.
i hope you can continue to write the things that are at the top of your heart. it’s more recent, but i found the miniseries “band of brothers” a very compelling depiction of young people in war.
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I enjoyed the trilogy by Oliver Stone.
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