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Thursday, November 28, 2002 Man, it's been years since I've experienced a genuinely cold, wintry Thanksgiving. And snow -- I literally can't remember my last white Thanksgiving. The day slipped by at a startlingly rapid pace, in part due to lack-of-sleep bleariness on my part (getting to bed too damn late, getting up too damn early), and here I find myself at the end of it feeling the need to attempt a wrap-up of some kind. Why? Well. A short time ago I watched Don't Look Back, the nearly free-form documentary filmed by D.A. Pennebaker during the course of Dylan's 1965 solo tour of England. An outrageously influential, iconic piece, which left me feeling a mix of emotions and thoughts that I'd be hard-pressed to express clearly. It's a bizarre work, a strange, slippery, powerful, exasperating bit of filmmaking, which somehow drew for me a starkly clear picture of the limited value of words. An odd place to be considering that I deal in words to an extent. There is so much blabber in the film, and it never clarifies anything, at least to my eyes and ears. It deals in smoke and fog, in obfuscation and a sharply aggressive brand of elusiveness. Standing in drastic contrast to the words of Dylan's lyrics, which the film's brief concert segments showcase as potent, dynamic expressions of thought and emotion, expressing with a clarity that seems strange to me considering how dense those lyrics are, how excessively packed with words. Blah blah blah. And right here, four miserable paragraphs into this entry, I find myelf hyperaware of my inability to express simply and clearly because I have to toss together a continually swelling accumulation of words, sentences, paragraphs to get at things having to do with feelings and perception, not with intellectual hooha. I rely on my feelings more and more as this life of mine wears on, and I talk less. I trust my feelings. They lead me to clearer experience, clearer understanding, both nonverbal states that get served in pitiful fashion when I try to cram them into verbal form. It's a curious, hilariously subjective thing, perception and all that. Example: take a look at some of the wildly varying takes on the film, beginning with the hyperlink in the second paragraph of this entry, and then here, here, here and here. The writers have distinct takes, all different in different ways and, apart from some factual goof-ups (i.e., Roger Ebert writes that "...Pennebaker's 1967 film... is a time capsule from the period when Sgt. Pepper was steamrolling Mr. Tambourine Man" -- the tour took place in '65; Sgt. Pepper didn't show up until two years later), who's to say that one is more valid than any of the others? It's a provocative film of a provocative artist carrying on in messy, provocative ways. And provocative is good. Just uncomfortable at times. ****************** I've been thinking about this life of mine a lot lately, this being Thanksgiving and all, a good time to assess and appreciate. Which led me to a thought I've had before, one which might sound silly though it's true: I'm grateful to every person who has passed through my life. Every single one, whether they played a featured role, a supporting part or a cameo. They've all contributed to this wacky existence I've stumbled my way through, and it's been a great existence. Hope you had a good holiday, whether you shared it with friends, family or no one but your worthy self. rws 11:12 PM [+]
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