I thought for a moment and then came to a conclusion. If we’re being honest, I’d reached it quite some time ago.
What’s the last film you’d want to watch? The answer was quite simple, really.
I walked into the theater and sat down.
Fourth row from the back, third seat from the right. This was our spot all through our college years.
“OK. Roll ’em!”
Her voice rings out from the projection room. The show begins. Light is projected onto the screen. But there’s nothing there but a blank space, a rectangle of white light illuminating the screen.
I had chosen nothing.
As I gazed at the blank screen I remembered a photograph I once saw. It was a picture of the inside of a movie theater. It was taken from the projection room and showed the seats and the screen. The photograph captured one entire film, and was taken by opening the shutter at the beginning of the film, and then closing it when the film ended. In other words, the photograph recorded one entire two-hour-long film. The result of absorbing the light from every scene in the movie was that the picture shows nothing but a white rectangle.
I suppose you could say that my life is like that photograph. A movie that shows my whole life, the comedy and the tragedy. But if you put that all into one still photo, all that would be left is a blank screen. All the joy, anger, and sorrow I’ve been through, and the result is that my life shows up as nothing more than a blank movie screen. There’s nothing there, nothing left. Only an empty blank space.
Sometimes, when you rewatch a film after a long time, it makes a totally different impression than it did the first time you saw it. Of course, the movie hasn’t changed. It’s you that’s changed, and seeing the same film again makes that impossible to forget.
If my life were a film, it would have to find a way of showing my changing perspective. That’s to say, how I see my own life has changed over time. I would feel affection for scenes that I’d hated before, and laugh during scenes where I’d originally cried. The past love interest is now long forgotten.
What I’m remembering now are all the good times I had with my mother and father. Only the good times…
When I was three years old, my parents took me to the movies for the first time. We saw E.T. It was pitch black inside the theater, and the sound was so loud. The theater was filled with the buttery salty smell of popcorn.
On my right sat my father, and on my left was my mother. Sandwiched between my parents in the dark theater, I couldn’t have escaped even if I’d wanted to. I just looked up at the huge screen and watched. But I remember almost nothing about the movie.
The only thing I remember is that scene where the boy, Elliott, rides through the sky with E.T. on his bike. It’s a powerful memory. It made me want to shout, or cry, or something… It seems to me that that’s what movies are all about. I can still remember the impression it made on me—it was overwhelming. I held on tight to my father’s hand and he held mine tightly in return.
A few years ago a digitally re-mastered version of E.T. was showing on late-night television. I hate watching movies on TV, with the constant interruptions from adverts, so was about to turn it off, but once I started watching I was gripped.
About twenty-five years had gone by since I first saw the film, but I still found myself as moved by the same scenes as I had been as a child. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. But that still doesn’t mean that the experience was exactly the same as it had been when I was three.
For one thing, twenty-five years later I knew I’d never fly through the air like they do in the movie. And it’s been years since I spoke to my father, who back then was sitting next to me holding my hand tightly. Meanwhile, my mother, who sat on my left in the theater, is no longer of this world. So I suppose I know two things I didn’t know then. I can’t fly, and what I had then has gone forever.
What did I gain by growing up, and what did I lose? I can never resurrect the thoughts and feelings I had in the past. When I think about that, I feel a wave of sadness so strong that the tears won’t stop.
Sitting alone in the movie theater staring at the blank screen I started to think.
If my life were a movie, what kind of a movie would it be? Would it be a comedy, a thriller, or maybe more of a drama? Whatever it would be, it definitely wouldn’t be a romantic comedy!
Toward the end of his life, Charlie Chaplin said something along the lines of:
“I may not have been able to produce a masterpiece, but I made people laugh. That can’t be all that bad, can it?”
And Fellini said:
“Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams.”
They created masterpieces, made people laugh, gave them dreams and memories.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my life just didn’t lend itself to being adapted for the big screen.
As I stared at the blank screen, I tried to imagine what it would be like.
I am the director.
Then there is the film crew and the cast, made up of my family, friends, and former lovers.
The opening scene is set thirty years ago, when I am born. There is my infant self and my parents smiling down at me. Relatives gather around and all take turns holding the new baby, squeezing its hands and pinching its cheeks. Soon the new baby learns to turn over, crawl, then stand up on its own, and before you know it begins to walk. Subject to all the same hopes and fears of all new parents, my mother and father take to their roles with gusto, feeding, clothing, and frantically playing with the baby.
Is it possible to imagine a healthier and more normal start in life? Our opening scene couldn’t be happier.
Then, as anger, tears, and laughter flit across the screen, I gradually grow up. I talk less and less to my father. Who knows why, after all the time we’d spent together? I’ve never figured it out.
Then one day a cat arrives in our home. Its name is Lettuce. There are lots of happy times, between Mom, Lettuce, and me. But Lettuce eventually grows old and dies. And then my mother dies. Cut to the most tragic scene in the film.
So Cabbage and I are left behind. We decide to go on living together. My father is out of the picture at this point. I start working as a postman, and normal everyday life goes on.
Could this be more boring! Scene after scene of mundane detail, line after line of trivial dialogue. What a low-budget movie! And on top of all that, the star of the show (me!) doesn’t show any sign of having a goal in life, or values of any kind. He’s an apathetic guy, completely without any spirit, who is of no interest at all to the audience.
Obviously the film would never work if it showed my life exactly as it is. The script would have to be written in a hyper-real, in-your-face kind of style, with more of a sense of theater. A dramatization. Sets can be simple, pared back, but they’d have to have a certain flavor to them. Props are picked out to add to the sense of atmosphere, and costumes would come in black and white.
And what about editing? The scenes are all pretty boring so they’ll need some fairly major editing. But if it goes too far we’ll only be left with like five minutes of film. That’s no good. It would be a good idea to start by taking a careful look back through the script. Completely unnecessary scenes run way too long. And the scenes we really want to see are cut right at the point where they’re getting good. But that’s pretty much what my life has been like.
And what about the soundtrack? Let’s see, maybe a nice melody played on piano, or on the other hand perhaps something grand and stately, with a full orchestra? No, let’s try something more relaxed, like an acoustic guitar. But whatever we go for, I have only one request—that during the sad scenes, up-beat music should play in the background.