Movie: "Pay It Forward"

[frugalfurguy]

I got to watch this movie for the first time today. It was a worthwhile experience because of the vividness it gave to an imagined family situation of domestic violence and alcoholism. I was the only man in the room, and I cried and sniffled my way through it with the rest of 'em.

 

What most got to me was that adult characters seemed to have their support groups. But here was this kid in their care, and he had none. His dad's an absent, abusive drunk, and his mom's a drunk working two jobs including a waitress in a strip bar. So I kept asking where's ala-teen for this stressed and neglected child? I felt so sad with how it seemed his elders required him to take care of their needs but weren't there for his.

 

At the same time, he has a heartbreaking desire to connect with people and make their lives worthwhile, and he expresses it in ways that make big and blessed waves near and far.

 

They showed it to us at work as part of the current motivational campaign. It had a personal significance because today's the sixth anniversary since I started working my current job three employers ago. (Buyouts, mergers, administrative changes--different writers of paychecks but same job site and description.) I can see so much growth in how I was able to relate to the movie today. And at the same time I can see I've still got such a long way to go.

 

This job has been a day at a time deal for me. I'm not entirely pleased with it; I'm sure I've got more valuable skills than it requires of me. But there must be some reason I've been stuck there all these years. I'm glad for the opportunity to look back. I've found what I needed to make it through six years, maybe I'll find what I need to get through day one of year seven tomorrow.

 

frugalfurguy

[Worker 11811]

I remember it well!

 

I presented that movie, on its first release, back when I was a lowly projection operator at the local megaplex.

 

The things you are talking about sound just like the story of my life! Except that the father is an unrepentant alcoholic who owns a bar, the mother is a codependent enabler who runs the business while the husband drinks away the profit and the whole family lives in a house attached to the business.

 

The kid grows up in an atmosphere of adults who smoke, drink, swear and cheat on their spouses. He learns to tend bar and tap beer kegs by the time he is 10 years old.

 

When you are a kid growing up in an atmosphere like that, you quickly learn that adults come first and kids come last. You learn to live on the periphery and you never learn to effectively socialize with kids your own age.

 

It's pretty damn tough. I don't know how I got through it. I just did. But I can tell you that I try not to let those bad times bother me. Those days are over, now. The business is sold and I live in a new house.

 

All those people are gone, now. They can't hurt me anymore. I am free to live my life, now.

 

There are some good memories there but I am free to take the good and leave the bad.

 

I've got better things to do with my life than worry about a bunch of old "alkies".

 

The lesson I took from the movie was that, no matter what the adults said or did, the kid was still a good person.

 

I know it is a fictional story but I wish I had that kid's ability to see through the adults around me when I was growing up.

[Joe]

I loved the movie. Brought a tear to my eye; I saw it the first time with my Aunt, the kindest and most "forward-paying" woman I've ever known. She's currently got stage two thyroid cancer and continues to be the most selfless soul.

 

And...

 

Worker, your story is a real inspiration during this really difficult month. Sharing it with us here in the Pub means a great deal...

 

Thank you.

[frugalfurguy]

Hey Worker, Joe!

 

Thanks. I'm glad to've found others that found that movie meaningful.

 

Joe, sorry to hear about your aunt. I've got an aunt myself in hospice care, nice enough an aunt, though not a likely one to introduce me to a movie other than ones they showed in church. She and my parents all had the notion that cinemas were among Satan's workshops. So I'm not planning to share with her about this movie unless it's without telling her it was a real movie.

 

Worker, I was a bit farther removed from the alcoholic in my childhood. I've never heard my dad say his dad (who died before I was born) was an alcoholic. But he does talk about his dad's drinking and about the miracle when he quit and found a tee-total religion to take its place. I've no question he was doing the best he could. It's not as if at that time AA was widely available. My dad would have been quite the case if my granddad had drunk himself dead a decade or two earlier than the heart problems that ultimately took him.

 

So my dad's an adult child who so far hasn't owned that. That means the good news for me is the dysfunction I experienced was less severe than that I've heard from so many others. The bad news (trade offs) is that it becomes a bit harder to figure out what was dysfunctional. It was, but I waste my time trying to compare my experience with others'.

 

frugalfurguy

[Worker 11811]

She and my parents all had the notion that cinemas were among Satan's workshops.

 

Your family would LOVE me! I'm one of Satan's little helpers!

 

There are a lot of reasons people dislike the movies.

Depression-era adults see sitting in a theater as a waste of time when they should be out working.

Social conservatives don't like the "decadent" Hollywood lifestyle.

Political conservatives see Hollywood as spreading a "Socialist" agenda.

Fundamentalists view anything that doesn't fit their narrowly defined world view as evil.

There is STILL a certain segment of the population who perceive the cinema as being a "Jewish" business, owning to the high profile of some "big wigs" in Hollywood studios who are/were Jewish.

 

The truth is that movies are just an illusion. Nothing is real. Everything... and I mean EVERYTHING is fake. Even the concept of "motion pictures" is just a technical trick we play on our own brains. When we see a movie on the screen, we THINK we're seeing real people but, in reality, we're only seeing a quickly changing series of still pictures.

 

It's ALL smoke and mirrors!

 

I see so many people who come into the movie theater business with romantic ideas of "bright lights and movie stars" who are quickly disillusioned when they are confronted with the mundane realites of it.

 

Movie theaters are just big, dark rooms with lots of chairs and one wall painted white.

 

More people need to get that through their heads. Once they do they'll understand that, in a strange way, movies really ARE like real life...

 

You take what you like and leave the rest.

 

That's pretty much how I cope.

[frugalfurguy]

Yeah Worker!

 

At the same time, all that illusion can stir up some mighty real emotional responses. If you don't give any room for creative genius, any old art could be laid bare. What's poetry but ink scratches on macerated wood pulp or other fiber? What's painting but splotches of suspended pigment on taut cloth? What's music but vibrating strings, vocal cords, membranes, reeds, lips? But under the right conditions, someone with talent and commitment can transform these media into stunning encounters with ourselves, our universe, our predicament.

 

Seeing you started in the projection booth, I wonder what you thought of Cinema Paradiso. I found plenty there to warm the heart while at the same time deeply wistful.

 

frugalfurguy

[Worker 11811]

Cinema Paradiso is one of my all-time most favorite movies!

 

I own very few movies on DVD and that is one of them.

(Metropolis being the other notable.)

 

You are right. We can deconstruct just about any form of art down to its mundane fundimentals. However, it is a sense of willing suspension of disbelief that lets us express emotion through art.

 

What the unwashed masses seem to forget is that art is only a proxy for an idea and not the idea itself. The letters "C-A-T" are only a symbol which stands for a small, four-legged, furry creature that goes "meow". The word "cat" written on a piece of paper or even a picture of a cat, drawn on a piece of paper are NOT the cat, itself, only a symbol.

 

People who vilify "the movies" because some of them show symbols for ideas they don't like is technically the same as somebody who would tear up a picture of a cat because he doesn't like those four-legged, furry creatures. There is a disconnect there. The symbolism in movies only holds up because we willingly suspend disbelief and we willingly agree not to deconstruct the physical manifestation of the artform so that we may enjoy it.

 

The thing is, nobody's forcing you to watch those movies. If you don't like the symbolism in a movie or if you just think the movie is crap, you are not being forced to watch it.

 

The same goes for ideas that you don't agree with.

Nobody's forcing you!