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Of Font and Film: October 2010
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Friday, October 15, 2010. Life is but a Dream. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s sweet, sad, sublime, “Jack Goes Boating” is a small film about the biggest of things—things like love and loneliness and relationships and dreams and imagination and fear and betrayal and unforgiveness and life and death. It deals delicately with the beginning of one relationship and the deterioration and death of another. Jack seems simple, even slow, but he is guileless and deliberate. He, no less than Connie, Clyde, and Lucy, ...
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Of Font and Film: June 2010
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Wednesday, June 23, 2010. The act of creation is often chaotic. As Marilyn Ferguson said, “The creative process requires chaos before form emerges.”. Artists work with chaos—a truth embodied in Sharon Hubbard’s observation that “The creation of true art requires some mysterious innate ability to thrive in chaos.”. Art is an attempt at creating order out of chaos—or at the very least a way of searching for and assigning meaning to the chaos itself. Like everything else, there are counterfeits for chaos, a...
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Of Font and Film: December 2010
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Thursday, December 30, 2010. The Tao of George. There’s a reason why “It’s A Wonderful Life” is such an enduring film—and it’s probably not what you think. It’s not just that it’s sweet or sentimental or so called Capracorn. It’s not just that it’s an exceptionally written, perfectly acted and directed, inspiring and entertaining movie. It’s the Taoist-like balance it achieves, the yin-yang of its light and darkness, the truth of human existence it captures and conveys. The Tao is the way or path (a term...
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Of Font and Film: July 2010
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Friday, July 9, 2010. Where Do Broken Hearts Go? What do you do when your heart hurts? As someone who attempts to live with a certain mindfulness, I try not to bypass a broken heart, try not to short-circuit the process no matter how painful, no matter how long. There’s much to be gained from sitting with the saturnine experiences of existence. It’s true, books are better, but there’s something so immediate about movies. Like fast-acting medicine, an old familiar film provides nearly inst...I’m not...
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Of Font and Film: September 2010
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Tuesday, September 28, 2010. Alone With All That Can Happen. The morning after watching “Solitary Man,” I woke up feeling utterly and completely alone. I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with the movie—I often experience an intense sense of isolation—but the timing was interesting and thought-provoking. And yet. And yet. Even as we have truly deep and intensely intimate connections, we remain, in a very real and certain sense, alone. And it’s out of that aloneness, that sometimes painful expe...Solitar...
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Of Font and Film: March 2010
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Wednesday, March 31, 2010. 8220;The Russia House” is a romance—of rhetoric as much as relationship, with ideas as much as individuals. It’s about a scientist with the soul of a poet, a heroic drunk who finds it in himself to become a decent human being, and the bewitchingly beautiful woman who makes them both better men. The events of “The Russia House” are set into motion because of these words by Barley at a writers retreat in Russia during the Cold War:. Barley: I believe in the new Russia. You ma...
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Of Font and Film: Arise My Love
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Thursday, March 10, 2011. 8220;The Adjustment Bureau,” which has moments reminiscent of “The Matrix” and “Dark City,” is at heart a romance far more than sci-fi flick. In fact, its use science fiction and fantasy elements only serve as obstacles for its lovers and as catalysts for philosophical explorations of fate and free will, ambition and amorousness. The world is hostile to love and lovers. It has been ever thus. In The Song, the lover calls to her beloved saying:. Arise, my love,. But he is gone.
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Of Font and Film: The New Obstacles
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Thursday, May 26, 2011. All you need to make a romance is a guy, a girl, and some obstacles. Obviously, there’s a bit more to it than that, particularly if it is to be done well, but I’m playing off of Jean-Luc Godard’s famous comment that “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun,”. I began thinking about true love’s obstacles after watching “Bright Star” and “Romeo and Juliet” on the same day. I found “Bright Star” moving and passionate, smart and romantic. Jane Campion is a fan...This was the ...
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Of Font and Film: The Pursuit of Happiness
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Tuesday, April 19, 2011. The Pursuit of Happiness. 8220;All happiness is in the mind.”. I found this bit of wisdom in my fortune cookie as I was contemplating the elusiveness and evanescence of happiness—partially because of certain circumstances and situations in my own life and partly because of the thought-provoking second act of “Into the Woods,” which I had the privilege of seeing at Gulf Coast State College this weekend. The prince was far happier pursuing perfection than possessing it. Cindere...
