.gif)
I saw, I bought, I wept…
Our favorite movies change through the years. When I was a child I always said it was Bambi. Lovely as that film truly is, I am struck now that, at the ripe old age of eight, I would passionately identify with a male protagonist with feminine qualities so pronounced that many people remember the character as a girl.
At eighteen I would have picked To Kill A Mockingbird, a film about a young person reckoning with the fact that the world is far less innocent than she.
At twenty-eight, I’d have said my favorite was Meet Me in St. Louis. My Poppa had died the year before and my nostalgia for “happy family/difficult father/all will be well” movies was in full swing.
I am forty-eight. In very little time I shall be fifty. My favorite movie was re-released this week on DVD in a glorious new digital transfer.
An Affair To Remember.
It has it all. Shipboard romance. Delightful repartee. The unexpected poignant moment (“We’ve already missed the Spring”). Unforeseen tragedy. Supreme sacrifice. And then there’s that last scene. Total ambiguity and total promise. “It was the closest thing to Heaven… you were there.”
An Affair to Remember is an embarrassment of riches: the studio system in top form, an amazingly smart script, glorious locations, and Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr (!!!) giving the performances of their careers. As love stories go, Titanic and Shakespeare In Love and The Way We Were (all movies that make me swoon) bow down to it.
In 2006, my lover of several years, playwright David Johnston, and I split. It wasn’t my choice. It was certainly an affair to remember. Does the film, with its message that lost love may find its way again, move me more now that it might have otherwise?
Oh god. I don’t know. Probably. Who cares? It’s a lovely, sophisticated, adult romance and I adore it.
In a sideline, the title number, sung over the credits in the film, is exquisite. I crave a good lyric:
“Our love affair
is a wondrous thing
that we’ll rejoice
in remembering.
Our love was born
of our first embrace,
and a page was torn
out of time and space.
Our love affair,
may it always be
a flame to burn
through eternity.
So take my hand
with a fervent prayer
that we may live
and we may share
a love affair
to remember.”
Our favorite movies change through the years. When I was a child I always said it was Bambi. Lovely as that film truly is, I am struck now that, at the ripe old age of eight, I would passionately identify with a male protagonist with feminine qualities so pronounced that many people remember the character as a girl.
At eighteen I would have picked To Kill A Mockingbird, a film about a young person reckoning with the fact that the world is far less innocent than she.
At twenty-eight, I’d have said my favorite was Meet Me in St. Louis. My Poppa had died the year before and my nostalgia for “happy family/difficult father/all will be well” movies was in full swing.
I am forty-eight. In very little time I shall be fifty. My favorite movie was re-released this week on DVD in a glorious new digital transfer.
An Affair To Remember.
It has it all. Shipboard romance. Delightful repartee. The unexpected poignant moment (“We’ve already missed the Spring”). Unforeseen tragedy. Supreme sacrifice. And then there’s that last scene. Total ambiguity and total promise. “It was the closest thing to Heaven… you were there.”
An Affair to Remember is an embarrassment of riches: the studio system in top form, an amazingly smart script, glorious locations, and Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr (!!!) giving the performances of their careers. As love stories go, Titanic and Shakespeare In Love and The Way We Were (all movies that make me swoon) bow down to it.
In 2006, my lover of several years, playwright David Johnston, and I split. It wasn’t my choice. It was certainly an affair to remember. Does the film, with its message that lost love may find its way again, move me more now that it might have otherwise?
Oh god. I don’t know. Probably. Who cares? It’s a lovely, sophisticated, adult romance and I adore it.
In a sideline, the title number, sung over the credits in the film, is exquisite. I crave a good lyric:
“Our love affair
is a wondrous thing
that we’ll rejoice
in remembering.
Our love was born
of our first embrace,
and a page was torn
out of time and space.
Our love affair,
may it always be
a flame to burn
through eternity.
So take my hand
with a fervent prayer
that we may live
and we may share
a love affair
to remember.”
2 comments:
God Tim you are a hopeless romantic. Hopefull? Things would be different if we hadmet some other time..............
You know what tim. Scroo David. Be opn/ There are people who woukd like to love you
Post a Comment