6 degrees of separation
Lagusta P. Yearwood (ly001f@uhura.cc.rochester.edu)
Sun, 20 Jul 1997 23:29:00 -0400 (EDT)
> From: ejrespess@juno.com (Elizabeth J Respess)
> To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu
> Message-ID: <19970715.102838.8359.2.ejrespess@juno.com>
>
> anybody seen six degrees of separation?
one of my all-time favorites. i think it's the kind of movie that's
impossible to explain because a big part of it's charm and magic is pure
atmosphere. also, to describe the best parts you have ruin the movie, so
you are left with little to talk about. but i'll try. basically, it gives
you the perfect glimpse of a wealthy nyc baby boomer couple and how their
lives are shaken up by an intruder.
the character of the wife, ouisa kittridge, and her dramatic changes
throughout the film is amazing. she's dynamic and sensitive, and as you
watch her life become transformed you realize that her growth trancends
class, age, sex, and race and by the end of the film you've been changed
as well, which is what i think a film should do, shake you up and make you
think differently about things. it's the kind of movie that you think
about for days and days afterwards.
the music is extremely powerful and evocative, too. the soundtrack
has some of the great music, as well as speeches from the film.
the thing that i love about it so much (well, one of them) is how powerful
it makes words seem. this movie makes you get into words and swim around
in them, think about what they mean and how dangerous they can be, or how
beautiful they can be.
there is also a part about CITR in it, which is pretty cool, too.
since i have the screenplay right here (by john guare), since it's
sunday morning, and since (amazingly) no one has to use the phone, i guess
i'll copy some of it down. what does everyone think about the ideas he
raises?
"the book is primarily about paralysis. the boy can't function. and at the end,
before he can run away and start a new life, it starts to rain and he
folds. ...but the aura around this book of salinger's...is this: it
mirrors like a funhouse mirror and amplifies like a distorted speaker one
of the great tragedies of our times -- the death of the imagination.
"because what else is paralysis?
"the imagination has become so debased that the imagination...rather than
being the lynchpin of our existence now stands as a synomym for something
outside ourselves like science fiction...the imagination has moved out of the
realm of being our most personal link with our inner world and the world
outside that world -- this world we share. what is schitzophrenia but a
horrifying state where what's in here doesn't match up with what's out
there?
"why has imagination become a synomym for style? i believe that
imagination is the passport we create to take us into the real world.
i believe that imagination is merely another phrase for what is most
uniquely _us_.
"jung says the greatest sin is to be unconscious. our boy holden says
'what scares me most is the other guy's face. it wouldn't be so bad if you
could be blindfolded -- most of the time the faces that we face are not
the other guy's but our own faces. and it's the worst kind of yellowness
to be so scared of yourself that you put blindfolds on rather than deal
with yourself...'
"to face ourselves. that's the hard thing. the imagination. that's god's
gift to make the act of self-examination bearable."
lagusta