On the screen

The nominations for Oscar came out today.  This last year was a bonanza in film.  It seems to have been a long time of drought but the year 2010 brought so many magnificent and entertaining films.  Usually I see many of the films nominated and I've started to catch up on films I missed - True Grit being the first.  Glad I did.

I grew up in a family involved in entertainment - live theater and early television.  I've come to have quite discriminating tastes when it comes to film.  The films I like most would be called intelligent first, and entertaining.  What still holds true for me is that I like to feel that I am in a different world when I sit in the darkened theater.  I want to be transported.

Yesterday, I have to say, was the event of a lifetime.  To watch such fine filmmaking unfold before my eyes was like a gift from heaven.  I was witness to greatness like I've rarely seen.  Well, correction, only seen a few times in my life.  I was transported to a world of words, of characters, of feeling so intense that it was palpable.  Mr. Jeff Bridges transformed before my eyes into a character that rose from the words in the book to become the real character, breathing, blood flowing, curmudgeonly, bellowing Rooster Cogburn.  And it was my honor, my privilege, one of a lifetime, that I got to see him rise out and be this character who is as real to me as the hand in front of my face.  It is an event that touched me to the core, and I don't think I will ever forget that moment in the theater when the truth of what I was watching became apparent.  This man who I grew up with watching, from his first appearance with his father on television, to his fabulous Baker Boy, to the Fisher King, the charming murderer in Jagged Edge, the mender of things broken in The Morning After, the survivor in Fearless, and the president giving the most compelling speech in the Contender.  He has bedazzled us but not standing out as the giant he is, this amazing actor.  He could be on a pedestal with the likes of Pacino and DeNiro, idols whom we are in awe of, this man, actor deserves the same admiration.

That moment in True Grit, listening, watching, I was awestruck when it hit me, that I was witnessing greatness such as I've never seen before.  It was a wonder to behold.  And it made me realize that we all have this within us, being able to give ourselves over the allow greatness to flow into and through us.  I'm thankful for that lesson, for that experience and am humbled by the knowledge of the greatness one person can rise to.  He succumbed to it, gave himself over to it.  A lesson for us all.



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