 I
was embarrassed for myself the other night while watching the 1946 MGM musical extravaganza Till the Clouds Roll By
on video. I was hypnotized by the Technicolor awfulness of this long
movie biography of the songwriter Jerome Kern. You know how you sit
there sometimes, stupefied, feeling the sand in the hourglass run out
as the TV picture washes over you in its junk glow? That's how I was:
sprawled on the couch, watching Jerome Kern - and myself - move slowly,
but inexorably, towards the grave. The clock ticking away along with
the counter on the VCR. Time being chipped off my earthly stay in 90 to
120 minute chunks.
As you may have guessed, I've
been watching too many videos lately - old movies from the 1930s and
‘40s, specifically. Stuff like The Jolson Story, Ball of Fire, Angels over Broadway, My Man Godfrey, After the Thin Man, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle and Girl Crazy.
Not very heavy or demanding films. Movies where people crack wise and
chase each other and have zany misunderstandings. I love them, don't
get me wrong. But I think you can overdose on them.
I
can tell I have already. The worlds in these old movies are so
artificial, reality is actually becoming more interesting. Probably
most people feel that way already, but they're not movie crazy like me.
They can't imagine how a false, Hollywood depiction of anything could
be more compelling than the thing depicted.
I envy those people. They can see the value and interest of any setting
they're in. I don't believe there are a lot of people like that though.
Do most people even notice where they are?
I do. But my problem is that when I'm in a locale that's not quite to
my liking, it bothers me too much and I want to leave pronto. It's not
very realistic or very attractive. For instance, put me in the more
obscure Western states, say Utah, Wyoming or the Dakotas. I'd really
want to get out of those states. And don't even ask about the places
like India or Vietnam or Central America. Big old lonesome plains, or
steaming jungles with guerrillas creeping around in them, hunting you
down. I wish I was more open-minded about it, but I'm not. I don't even
like to see movies about these places.
So I see movies about places I would like to be in, like New York in
the 1930s. Maybe it's foolish. I'm fascinated, though, by those
buildings and the cars and the clothes people wore. How about those
hats? Yet the more I see, the more I want to see how it really was,
instead of the crisp and sunny MGM view. The people in those movies
seem to be in sharper contrast to their surroundings than people in
real life, thanks to the lighting, and this is starting to seem bizarre
to me. I've been seeing so many old movies that I welcome the fuzziness
of reality. A steady diet of old movies and you begin to feel you're on
another planet, maybe in a parallel universe, but off the orbit of the
things you know to be true. It can give you the willies.
And it can give you ideas, ideas about how life should be, how places
and people should look, how they should behave. When they don't live up
to these movies' ideals, it's disappointing. I'm no dumber than
average, but I have been affected by Hollywood in these ways. And
that's embarrassing in itself.
So I'm going to get off it for a while, away from the Gay Divorcee's and the Father of the Bride's and the Topper's
- or at least not watch them so obsessively. They are great movies, but
there are items off-screen to be tended to. As for the trash like Till the Clouds Roll By
and other duds too numerous to mention, life's too short. If you're
going to spend time in dreamland, it might as well be with a good movie.
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