Amarcord

I remember

Dear Readers,

I’m posting a Snap I wrote last year mainly because I haven’t finished my new one, but also because I learned recently about 2 documentaries that are coming out, as well as a few other movies that look great, and it just made me think of that time I went to Sundance. One of the new documentaries is called Dancing in A-Yard by Manuela Dalle, and is about a choreographer, Dmitri Chamblas, who went to a maximum security prison, taught dance, and put on a show. The other is called Separated which is a documentary by Errol Morris based on a book by Jacob Soboroff about migrant families being torn apart and the 1300 children still separated from their parents. This policy is about to get worse, so it’s a good time to learn what is happening. It’s a good time for both of these stories, for stories period, real and fictional, though maybe it’s always a good time.

I also wanted to say hello and welcome to all the new subscribers, thank you so much for checking in.

And love and apologies to those of you who read this before. (Read it again!)

-dl

Amarcord

I have no patience for movies that aren’t good. I think, Oh God. I groan and shift in my seat, uncross my legs, sigh, turn, recross. I am not proud of this. I’m not even sure I can explain why I am this way. But once the lights go down I’m not going to leave and maybe this is how I handle resentment.

I am not like this with people. Around this time a couple years ago I went to a film festival and on the last night, we went to a movie and then to a party afterwards and I forced myself to talk to people. I’m better at it when I have a little less enthusiasm. The director of the movie was French and most of the people there were not American, which is a plus, especially in the movie world.

I met a woman from Turkey, a heavy smoker with bulging eyes. She was very well put together, black hair pulled tightly back off her face, cheek bones, eyebrows drawn dark, tall boots. She gave the appearance of beauty. She made me wish I had makeup on too. She told me she hadn’t been out in almost 3 years because she had been taking care of her husband who had just died a few months ago. His name was Ozan. She said he was obsessed with watching shows about prisoners, in particular one about death row inmates. He used to tell her, “They are like me”. She smoked constantly while telling me this. She offered me a cigarette and lit it for me while holding hers’ between her teeth. Everything she did was sexy. I couldn’t say no. She said that she went through the whole death experience, and it was exhausting and made her die a little too. I told her I felt that way about the movie we just watched, and she laughed with her head back. When she finished, she wiped tears from her eyes. “That was good,” she said.

She stood up and tilted her head for me to follow her and we walked outside to see the mountains and snow. It was instantly quiet. We watched some people night ski-ing. I’m not a skier and I hate the cold, but it looked beautiful and fun, especially the ride up in the ski-lift. I told her that. She told me she had a new boyfriend and she wished he was there. She said she met him in a staircase in a department store, as though it explained the quick transition from dead husband to new guy, which in a way it did.

She linked her arm in mine and we walked across the way, her boots crunching in the ice/snow. She told me both her parents were actors and I said mine too and she said we’re sisters then. It felt that way. Ryan Coogler was speaking at a theater and we decided to try to get in. He mostly directs huge movies now, but he’s a great story-teller and I’ll always love him because of his first movie Fruitvale Station. You know the horrible ending at the start but you are riveted the whole way through anyway.

The theater was packed but we squeezed in. I couldn’t believe we were so lucky. People were already asking him questions. I wanted to raise my hand and tell him I had seen Black Panther 3 times in the theater with my son and there was always something electrifying about all his movies but I didn’t. It just felt like too much.

Whatever it was that I felt watching his work, I felt again listening to him speak. He listened to each question and paused sometimes for 15 seconds before responding, really digesting it and not delivering some pat answer. He spoke slowly as well, a little awkwardly, nothing promotional or look at me. I am usually drawn to people who talk fast and have a charge about them in some ways, but this was another level. There was something pure about it. It is hard to get to that. We shout and dance and sing and wave our hands to get our points across but when we just sit and speak from our hearts, it radiates in a way. It takes you somewhere else.

On the way out we met the woman who had directed the movie I had seen the day before about lifers in a prison who took care of rescued mustangs somewhere out west. This is a real thing that happens. She was French and it was hard to understand her in the noisy crowd, but she was saying that the prisoners lives had improved because they were able to experience love from these animals who were otherwise wild and untamable. The movie was a little sentimental, but now I loved it, and I loved her too for communicating all of that in language that wasn’t her own while walking through a huge mob.

When the crowd thinned we found ourselves at the bottom of hill and we said good-bye to the French director and turned and walked away from the main street. In about 100 yards we walked straight into the ski lift area and we both looked at each other and silently said oh hell yes we are going. We got onto a chair like it had been waiting right there for us, and I couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculous and incredible it was, one person dressed up in party clothes and smoking a cigarette and the other one terrified of heights who hates the cold. I laughed all the way to the top until the view took my breath away.

She said something about the mustang prison movie and I said well it must have been better than the prison show her husband watched, and she said no, that one had been directed by Werner Herzog, and then we laughed all over again. When we died down she cried again, but for real this time. “Ozan,” she said, “I wish he was here.” I put my hand over hers and we sat that way til the chair lurched forward.

I don’t even remember her name.

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