My earliest memory is at the movies. I’m laying with my sister on a blanket on the hood of my grandfather’s brown Pontiac, and we’re with our parents at the Fair Park Drive-In in Birmingham. There is a boy in a white robe on the mile high screen of the drive-in, swinging a blade of blue light.
The Fair Park was torn down over thirty years ago, but I still remember fragments of that night. And when I see one her of cousins, like the King below, I always stop in tribute.
Russellville, Alabama, Polaroid 600 (2019)
I wrote last weekend about a dozen movies which meant something to me. Some of them I’ll rewatch, but others I might just experience once. I don’t know if I care to endure the honest but harrowing Oslo, August 31st again, and there are literally a dozen more Bergman films I have never seen before I return to Wild Strawberries. I think you can experience a film once and be changed and perhaps even ennobled by it—like seeing a concern from a band now broken up.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018, directed by Jon Chu). This spectacle of beauty and wealth was completely enjoyable because . . . well, beauty and wealth. Forget the story, the point is pretty people in cool cars and heartbreak. Great pop songs and a stirring reminder for this American that the world is much bigger and richer (ba-bomp) than I know. Michelle Yeoh is a standout as the steely CEO of the family, as is the Mahjong battle at the end. A stranger to the game, I was technically lost—but due to the skill of the film-making, I completely understood what was happening (like the trio of Texas Hold’em battles in Casino Royale).
Le Bonheur (1965, Agnès Varda). I’m new to the maestro Varda as of last year, but have found the art she wove to be some of the most memorable I’ve ever felt. This gorgeously shot tragedy (is it a tragedy?) is no different. The film is suffused with color and flora; many times flowers cover the edges of the frame, sometimes more, a jungle growing from a Monet or Van Gogh. What happens when you gorge on happiness and pleasure? Not content with his beautiful wife, adorable children, job he loves, and modest home, the young carpenter reaches for another apple. The garden collapses, but—because he is a man—stabilizes without too much damage to him. The beautiful wife is gone, but another immediately takes her place. Was she ever really there at all? Does he even feel her loss?
Greenwich Village, Polaroid 600 (2019)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965, Otto Preminger). As I might say after a solo on the new Carcass EP, this thing rips. Like many graphic design fans, I knew the incredible poster and titles for this movie, designed by the titan Saul Bass. I didn’t know the movie was a dizzying mix of gaslighting, terror, and loss. What happens to you when everyone says you’re crazy—even though you know you’re telling the truth? Not only does it not let off the gas, it keeps mashing down on it until you’re banging against the guard rail. Dropping videos by the Zombies into it is annoying but helps me stop mythologizing the past—there’s been TVs jammed into the corner of pubs and diners since they made screws and wood.
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933, Mervyn LeRoy, with musical scenes by Busby Berkeley). In which I become enchanted with a quartet of tough as nails actresses who just want to put on a new theater show in the middle of the Great Depression. Like many movies I’ve enjoyed from the ‘30s, I remain entranced with how magical and glamorous and ultimately strange it all seems—especially the vast glories of stage shows and complicated hotel ecosystems. My favorite parts are undeniably the snobby brother accidentally falling for Joan Blondell; God, who wouldn’t, she’s astonishing. And I howled as old Peabody falls deeper and deeper. Yet it was the showstopper of “Remember My Forgotten Man” which left the deepest impression.
It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra). Like Gold Diggers, in part I had a blast with this movie because of its wonderful view of cross-country travel—by train, bus, foot, thumb, and car. Hopping off the bus at a late night stop to grab a sandwich? It’s meant to be achingly humble in the movie, but it seems absolutely magical now—as magical as grabbing a bunch of wild carrots and fluffing up some hay in a barn in a pinch. And what I wouldn’t give to stay in one of those motor court cabins; I paused and stared into each like it was scene at Versailles. Gable’s a little too cruel for my liking; he even seems to know he’s being too cruel, which rubs off a bit of the romance. Still you root for ink-fingered true love over top-hatted daredevils. Let the walls of Jericho topple, indeed.
Until the End of the World (1991, Wim Wenders). There is a particular electricity when you feel a piece of art has changed you. After 4 hours and 47 minutes, I’m not sure what is different, but something is. Certainly this massive tapestry—a joyful depiction of the world supposedly falling apart—is flawed. But the indefatigable, enchanting Solveig Dommartin is the calm center. Her steadfast Claire is determined to get her man, the homme fatale Trevor, who in my view is bland as half-melted vanilla ice cream. Not to Claire, though. She’s game to finish his quest along with hers, and the movie loses me as it shifts from her journey to his family’s scientific pursuit of dreamwalking. Still there is Claire at the end, claiming herself, watching us spin from far above, as if perched on a trapeze.
Winchester Tennessee, Polaroid 600 (2020)
Hotel Monterey (1973, Chantal Akerman). I abandoned this silent film, a deliberate journey through the core of a hotel, the first time I tried to watch. I was baffled by the deep soundlessness, the murky shots of surprised but elegant people hurrying the lobby; I had no way to enter the film. Then, deep into winter, I resolved to finish it again, this time allowing myself an ambient soundtrack (a method I encourage—I listed to Pastoral). Something changed.
I sat calmly in the dark, appreciated the small changes, appreciated the lack of change. When the view moves up a floor, it seemed like a seismic shift. I realized the movie is a meditation, or perhaps a poem, and you have to be quiet in order to engage with it—or observe it, at least. It reminded me of a horror movie at times, with the dingy walls almost breathing, recursive. Then there’s daylight, freedom on the roof. I found myself wondering how long it took to make one of the bricks on the roof, how long a rod of iron for the railing, or one of the blurry cars below. Then glimpses of blues and greens, backgrounds in a monotone blue with vegetation sprinkled here and there. A few times I said “well I love that,” or “I think that’s beautiful.” I would have liked to have gone there.Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders). It’s beautiful there, in nowhere. I’ve never seen a more broken person onscreen than Harry Dean Stanton. He can’t even talk. Then slowly—safe with his brother and sister-in-law and his lost son—he begins to tiptoe back from the abyss. It’s not a fast recovery. He is in many ways like a child, and clearly not close to whatever he was before.
This is a film about love and how it can heal. What could be better than that? Well, place it in the blasted Texas moonscape amongst neon-lit diners, wooden motor courts, and the all-seeing desert. It’s stunning, alluring—a world where you can be lost. Somewhere you can disappear to, untraceable, sins not absolved but forgotten. It’s not that simple, though, because the world keeps going without you.Stillwell, Oklahoma, Polaroid SX-70 (2020)
There were more, but this is the second piece of pie so we’ll call it square.
AS ALWAYS I am gorjusjxn on Instagram and you can see more of my photography at McCartyPolaroids. I keep a “cinema 2020” highlight section on Instagram with the posters of what I’ve watched if you want to catch up.