A Decade in Love with Movies (or I am the Proust of the Silver Screen) - 2000 – 2002 – Puppy Love

I have been a film geek since childhood. I was read to from a very early age and I credit that with my love of narrative. Even in given presentations as an adult in my graduate studies, I feel more comfortable presenting representative anecdotes that dry data or broad theory. I am a big believer that all of our lives are parallels to the myriad of master plots presented by Misters Jung and Campbell.

My earliest memories of film are attached to three things: The Wizard of Oz, Superman The Movie, and Ghostbusters. On contemplating my memories of Ghostbusters, I surprised myself, realizing that the film came out in 1984 and my parents rented the VHS tape before 1986 (we were still living in Illinois at the time), making me around four years old when I first encountered the picture. The Ivan Reitman directed film obviously had a profound impact on my early psyche and years later when the sequel was released I remember putting together a makeshift proton pack (backpack + yarn + cardboard paper towel tube) and ghost trap (shoebox + yarn).

For the longest time, my love of film was relegated to the mainstream cinema, and in particular films rated PG-13 or lower. My only exposure to an unedited R-rated film came when my father rented the original Die Hard without checking the box. That stands as my earliest memory of hearing the word “fuck” on film. As a teenager, I could feel my curiosity spurned on by a notion that there were movies out there that was life-altering yet I had not had access to them yet. Large tomes from the public library that outlined cinema from its inception in the late 19th century on through the late 1990s gave me production still glances of films that were like mysteries to me; forbidden but attainable eventually.

My first weekend of college (August 1999) I ended up at the theater with a cluster of people whom I would remain friends with till the end of college, some did of course fall by the wayside. The film we saw was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. For the rest of the decade, I would see each of Mr. Shyamalan’s pictures in the theater, with wavering levels of enjoyment. Months later I would see David Fincher’s Fight Club, a film that while I still appreciate it, has lost its magic for me in the following years.

For the first third of 2000, I can recall only seeing Pitch Black in the theater. It’s a film whose craftsmanship I can still appreciate, but will probably never end up on any favorite lists of mine. The majority of film I was seeing occurred in dorm rooms and dorm lobbies. I remember watching the The Matrix with a group of friends in the lobby of a girls’ dorm and having one young lady, whom I did think was very cute, sidle up closer and lay her head on my shoulder. I distinctively remember looking across to the other couch, to my roommate whom was cracking up at my nervous naïveté. This is another recurring theme in my love of cinema, emotional moments connected to specific films.

My summer between terms in 2000, I saw X-Men in the theaters. And upon returning to college in the fall, I remember a film that stands as the moment where I began to develop a true taste in film. It was a Friday evening and, as most Friday evenings, the debate was underway in the cafeteria on what to do for entertainment. The group settled on movies but that it when the true debate began. Looking back, it seems strange that the majority of girls in our group would lobby to go see the hackneyed Urban Legend slasher flick, while the boys pushed for Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. The middle ground that was decided on was The Watcher, an epically forgettable Keanu Reeves/James Spader flick. As if by fate, the audio in the film was atrocious and the entire audience became very frustrated. Someone complained so, that after the film was over, an employee of the Regal 27 stood at the door handing out apologetic free passes. My friend Brent and I immediately turned to our cohorts and announced we would be going to see Almost Famous, right then and there. I have loved the film ever since.

The next key moment in my growth was to come in November, after returning from Thanksgiving break and seeing Shyamalan’s Unbreakable and being amazed. I literally cried in the final ten minutes of the film, an act I don’t do often now attributable to “overexposure” to cinema, at the beauty of the comic book story being told in such a human and quiet way. I was hooked. During the following spring, I would begin my treks to the nearby theater on Saturdays, seeing movies on my own and theater hopping.

I had a physical thirst for something the films provided, possibly experiences so beyond on my and, most likely, a closer examination of things I felt were somehow true, yet was unable to verbalize or communicate in any tangible way. I would fall in love Amelie, wish to explore the Tenebaums’ home, weep at the pain of David the android, obsess on the mystery of the tragic Darko family, and experience a multitude of emotions. It was first love, new and fresh and exciting, yet also heart wrenching when reality sets in, and a process of learning about myself more than anyone or thing else. As my maturity in understanding love developed, so too did my maturity in understanding film.