A Recent Viewing That Mattered

Yowza! Tonight was one of those nights. This was a night thirteen years in the making, actually. I saw a picture that I'd first heard of when it was just the idea of a college professor whose enthusiasm for the actor Brad Douriff and fascination with myth inspired him to write a script with Douriff in mind for the lead role. The thought excited me because as a college sophomore and soon-to-be film major here was a man, lecturing me and my classmates, who was on his way to making himself a real filmmaker. Hot dog, was I excited! Little did I know then of the vagaries and trials of landing a production deal and securing interested collaborators, cast and crew and the pocketfull of miracles that it takes to turn a script into a movie. Yup, just a thirteen year wait.

And the movie wasn't all that good. It was memorable. The whole piece is not something I will ever forget that I have seen. While its content might be shifted to the back recesses of my mind from this day on if I hear "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" I'll recall the whole movie. I just wish I liked it more. I just wish there was more powerful material to make me want to recommend the movie for being great. Of course I still want you to see "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" because I want the filmmakers to make more. (By this I mean the writer and co-producer since the director you can look up and see that he'll be just fine.) This movie was fascinating not because of what it was but because of what it could have been. Because of what I had expected from it, namely, a richly layered examination of mythic themes of death, drama, matricide and the glory of crazy and weakness brought about by hubris. Instead was a long feeling movie that wasn't that long and a thing that didn't feel like it was what it could have been.
But I was able to see this movie with two friends who were as ready to see it as I was. And one of them had already seen it and was more than ready to see it again with me and our friend Sean.

Following the movie we spent the drive home talking about the movie and praised the successes and examined all the ways in which we thought it failed. Not because was loved the failure but because we really, really wanted this to be a success. To paraphrase "Swingers" we hoped this movie would be the here of the PG-13 movie. We were reeeeeally rooting for this one. And yet the experience was enriched because the viewing was so perfectly cast and attended by the writer himself. Everything about this evening made the experience of seeing it and responding to it afterward perfect. I'll never forget it because in the long run, this helped me appreciate previous movies much better and will help me think critically about future movies. And I shared both the viewing and the analysis with friends.

This is not to say that just seeing a movie with friends equates a good viewing experience. Nor, I would argue, does just seeing a great movie in the theater equal a great viewing experience. The best movie experiences in my life have occasionally had nothing to do with the quality of the picture but rested in the analysis afterward or the people who were there and what and how we deal with what we see with who we see it with.

I'm going to refrain at this time from commenting more about "My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?" because it is so new to me and because I have not set out here to review it, but to touch upon the experience of seeing it. I hope that I have made clearer some of my feelings about the experience of dealing with it. (And I have mentioned a few of my thoughts about the work, but with any piece art, regardless of the piece's success, I think feelings are the most immediate response to the work. I can't think anything about it if I don't first feel something. And yes, this means I don't equate a number of movies with art since they don't create any true feelings in my gut and create nothing lasting more than the thought "Oh, I've seen that."*)

"My Son, My Son..." is not a successful work of art, but if you have a chance to see it I beg you to do so. I don't predict that it will rock your world though parts of it might weird you out. But I do know that I provided me with a great night of discussion about the nature of drama and what makes great- and even good drama. This is the treat of making the effort to see those attempts and to see them with people whose opinions and ability to think freely and critically. This is why nobody should ever forsake going to the theater, no matter how big your television screen and no matter how busy you and your friends are. Get together. Watch, think, talk, think some more and reflect. You'll come out wanting to see more movies so that you can more fully examine all the theories borne of that latest experience.

*I do not consider artistic movies that create automatic feeling such as oh, say, "Transformers", which make me feel the desire to never see anything so terrible ever again. And I'll admit that I know that despite my best intentions I'll feel the desire to again see a terrible movie, if only for an hour or two of escapist pablum that won't do anything other than remind me of the works of art that I truly cherish.)