From Here to Eternity
What is it about the former boxer that is so gripping to the American imagination, not to mention my personal heart? Prewitt makes it number 3, at least: Camino Real's Kilroy, On the Waterfront's Marlon Brando, and now From Here to Eternity's Beautiful Montgomery Clift. And I am certain there are serveral other compelling incarnations besides those three.
Note to self: when writing my great American novel, write in the self-abnegating boxer, who could be a champ if he went for it, but for whatever reason he's retiring himself and is willing to endure all manner of degradation if only he can stay true to his principle - and not, in a moment that ironically becomes weakness, submit to fighting.
How much harder it is to walk away than to fight for what is yours! Cf also that powerful scene when Deborah Kerr says her farewell to Burt Lancaster.
The thing I like about this movie is how painfully it captures the no exit feeling you get when all the people on top are evil, slimey, or lame - and worst of all, their toolishness is exactly what lands them in the peculiar position in life where they have near despotic control over your immediate fate. And you can wait and wait for the good guys (who in a just world are even higher up than they sadistic ones - not always so in our reality) to step in and set things right...but you just might die first! And yet, I like to think that there are some of us out there - yes, even the beautiful ones, who COULD get every slimey thing they ever wanted at the snap of their fingers - who would rather die than compromise.
Not to say that I can convince myself that this is true, as much as I want it to be. I can't help but feel so awestruck every time at Monty's beauty (yes, even with all his sensitivity and depth and intelligence, so incompatible with beauty) that it shocks me utterly to think that people are NOT falling at his feet and worshipping him as a god. Things should be so easy for him, I imagine - and I have to remind myself that they were not.
Well, nothing wins over my devotion so much as disappointment and acute suffering. Perhaps Monty wouldn't look a tenth as beautiful as he does to me if his characters always got their way.
Note to self: when writing my great American novel, write in the self-abnegating boxer, who could be a champ if he went for it, but for whatever reason he's retiring himself and is willing to endure all manner of degradation if only he can stay true to his principle - and not, in a moment that ironically becomes weakness, submit to fighting.
How much harder it is to walk away than to fight for what is yours! Cf also that powerful scene when Deborah Kerr says her farewell to Burt Lancaster.
The thing I like about this movie is how painfully it captures the no exit feeling you get when all the people on top are evil, slimey, or lame - and worst of all, their toolishness is exactly what lands them in the peculiar position in life where they have near despotic control over your immediate fate. And you can wait and wait for the good guys (who in a just world are even higher up than they sadistic ones - not always so in our reality) to step in and set things right...but you just might die first! And yet, I like to think that there are some of us out there - yes, even the beautiful ones, who COULD get every slimey thing they ever wanted at the snap of their fingers - who would rather die than compromise.
Not to say that I can convince myself that this is true, as much as I want it to be. I can't help but feel so awestruck every time at Monty's beauty (yes, even with all his sensitivity and depth and intelligence, so incompatible with beauty) that it shocks me utterly to think that people are NOT falling at his feet and worshipping him as a god. Things should be so easy for him, I imagine - and I have to remind myself that they were not.
Well, nothing wins over my devotion so much as disappointment and acute suffering. Perhaps Monty wouldn't look a tenth as beautiful as he does to me if his characters always got their way.
posted by Rex at 7:17 PM
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