| 2/22 one |
one for Monster's Ball. one for In the Bedroom. one for The Man Who Wasn't There. just one, please. lately i've been going to movies by myself. but it's not really a new thing. long ago in milwaukee i slumped down into the fourth row from the screen, gazed up at Women in Love. three shows in a row. a seven hour marathon. audiences filed in and out behind me. i didn't care. the varsity was kind of seedy back then - still may be today. i liked the movie well enough, but i was practicing my solitude in public. telling the world that i was alone. of course the world didn't notice or care. but i was full of myself, romantic and serious. and so. ridiculous. i hadn't gotten over it some years later in washington when i played hookey, wandered into georgetown and splurged on a matinee of Children of Paradise. some tiny theater on m street. i'd read about it in the papers. french. Les Enfants du Paradis. and very long. almost long enough. i was pretending to be trying to forget something painful or confusing that had just happened. i wanted to be alone again. in public. just tonight i crept back over to my classroom to watch that film one more time, just out on dvd (one current measure of our practice of poverty is that we do not have dvd in the house). it's an old movie, somewhat restored (though the sound was out of synch - maybe my machine's fault), largely delightful and sad. but i couldn't finish it. the room was cold. my teacher's chair uncomfortable. and this little rat - all these papers i collected today - kept nibbling at my conscience (pointless. no way was i going to work tonight). my stupid romantic youth is done. and the lonely game is very hard to play at our antiseptic local multiplex. that's fine. i don't want or need to play it anymore. now i go to movies alone when there's no one to go with me. or when i wouldn't care to inflict my taste in movies on a friend. i just want to see it. that's all. my most recent ventures - at the recently re-opened rivertree - have been fairly grim films - and two of them feature billy bob. i like billy bob. and i like to sit on the aisle with an empty seat beside me. my old eyes prefer distance. close to the back. and now i'd rather watch the crowd than perform for it. the crowd at these movies invariably consisted of couples. last week at Monster's Ball i got into the theater a little late. most of the prime seats were taken, but i did find one a little too close to the screen. after a few minutes a fella appears in the aisle beside me, reaches over me, and says "i'll take my coat." yes. his coat was there beside me. i had taken his seat. i guess. but he moved down a few rows and was soon joined by his companion. well. i felt justified enough. i hadn't seen his coat. a single guy should be able to sit in what looks like a single seat. some people have told me that they would never ever think of going to a movie by themselves. i find this odd. if not downright neurotic. this fear of.... what? being judged (by strangers) to be alone, friendless, or unsociable? being considered a threat? potentially dangerous? i suppose. a pair offers a reassurance of some kind of social bond. here we are, we two. disarmed. talking laughing looking at each other. a man alone cannot do any of that. and so the general public suspects that he might. i don't know where this is headed. i don't have a point, but find it curious that we can't really avoid a performance of some kind whenever we step out... and that stepping out to a movie, for me, has never ever been as simple as it seems. |
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