From the nearly perfect Synecdoche, New York, which I finally saw last night:
"Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won't know for twenty years. And you'll never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it's what you create. Even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but doesn't really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope for something good to come along. Something to make you feel connected, to make you feel whole, to make you feel loved. And the truth is I'm so angry and the truth is I'm so fucking sad, and the truth is I've been so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long have been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own, and their own is too overwhelming to allow them to listen to or care about mine. Well, fuck everybody. Amen."
Amen.
8 comments:
I am all about the first half of this. I've been arguing with someone about it for the past few weeks.
This is amazing. I am looking this movie up.
I'm with Eric on this one... I was right in line with the wonder of it all till about the halfway line where it suddenly falls off the edge of the map and goes straight down hill.
The myraid choices that we make every single second of every single day affect us, affect everyone who comes in contact with us and by that ripple effect, also affect everyone who comes in contact with them. It's tremendously mind boggling.
I too have been discussing this incredulous tangle of realities and truths with friends, of late.
Fascinating stuff.
Scarlett & Viaggiatore
For someone who tends to obsess about every choice and has been trying to get herself not to do so, this quotation is tremendously depressing! But thanks for sharing anyway.... :)
Yeah, Eric. That first bit pretty much mirrors my own world view. Bits of rock orbiting Saturn, colliding, finding new orbits, nudged out of orbit by passing object, etc. All that.
It is a truly wonderful movie, Bliss. Nearly flawless.
I kinda like that hairpin turn it takes form the abstract to the personal, Scarlett. Anchors it, makes it real. But yeah, it goes real dark real quick.
Didn't mean to depress you, Sarah. It's only a movie. :)
I'm with it the whole way through. That's my timeline of life. Sitting in college wondering what's at the outer edge of the universe, are we sitting on Horton's flower?, how do choices cascade, etc.
And then all those choices led me to here. Where I look back, not with regret, but wondering where/what if I'd chosen differently. And here I am, coping and dealing and fully aware that so is everyone else. That's the nature of Life.
Okay, I'll see you one Synedoche and raise you one closing monologue in "American Beauty":
I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time... For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars... And yellow leaves, from the maple trees, that lined my street... Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper... And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird... And Janie... And Janie... And... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me... but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry... you will someday.
I love that monologue.
And that long shot of the plastic bag dancing in the wind.
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