Escaping into the Movies

In an that everything he learned in life came from three sources:

The Beatles, Ms. Pac Man, and, of course, the movies.

This suggestion would have been more accurate, however, had he added two additional sources: his travels and his readings.

Let’s talk...

Having recently been to Barcelona, PJ saw first-hand the architecture of Gaudi and the art of Dali, Picasso, and Miro. Prior to the trip pretty much everything he knew about this magical city was learned from Vicki Cristina Barcelona. In fact, it was Woody Allen’s movie that made the trip necessary in the first place.

Well, sort of.  It was also The Shadow of the Wind, a gothic novel about post Spanish Civil War Barcelona. A novel of "dark and stormy nights" if PJ may quote Snoopy. Of literature, and of the cemetery of forgotten books.

Just think. Gaudi, Dali, Picasso, and Miro. All with Barcelonan roots. What a place.

Anyway, let PJ continue...

It is show time, Friday afternoon, at 1:00. PJ is doing a balancing act. He’s loaded up with won-ton soup, popcorn, and chocolate almonds. Careful not to drop or spill anything, he gingerly eases into his seat for the opening matinee of X-Men.

He would have preferred to avoid this super-hero flick because he is a movie snob.  But then again the people do ask, and, of course, he must respond somewhat intelligently about the content of the movies. So, see them he must. And he’s got to concede that he was actually pleasantly surprised.

X-Men is pretty good stuff. Fans will love it. It is even somewhat relevant containing all kinds of clever references to today’s news. Don’t ask, don’t tell. The question of whether security is more important than liberty. Race relations. The ethics of inter-mutational physical contact. And more.

But ultimately, as so often happens these days, the movie took PJ elsewhere. Not to sleep, but to that “place” he often visits during a movie. To the wanderings inside his head. To war-torn Europe of the 1930’s and 40’s. To art, architecture, and super-hero comic books. To literature. And even to Mothra.

It was those opening sequences of X-Men that got him going.

He was in a Nazi concentration camp. And there was a smiling, sadistic Kevin Bacon. A Dr. Mengele of sorts. Mr. Bacon was inflicting acts of horror upon a young boy. He knew that by placing him under great emotional stress, the boy’s inner super powers would burst from within. And burst they did.  And thus, a super-powered hero was created. The Nazi doctor made it happen.

It was about at this time that PJ’s mind went a wandering at top speed.

One of his favorite books, Kavalier and Clay, flashed into his head.

This book spins the marvelous tale of 1940’s super-hero comic book‘s golden era, and even contains, coincidentally, some wonderful vignettes featuring Barcelona’s Salvador Dali, mustache and all.

Kavalier and Clay tells of a pair of cousins. One already an American. The other barely surviving in the maelstrom of 1930’s Europe. The European cousin manages to escape to America, New York City to be precise.

And it is there, in the teeming streets, that he, along with his American cousin, develops the genre of the super-hero comic book. It was Nazi brutality from which he fled, and it was Nazi brutality that gave way to his art. Just like the boy in X-Men.

Then PJ’s mind drifted to moments from Pete Hammil’s Snow in August, yet another escapee’s tale of the coming to America from war-torn Europe. The great freedom of America, was not taken for granted by its main character who had had it stripped during the war. Read it.

But PJ digresses. Let’s get back to the comics.

Many of the original super-hero comic books, you see, sprung from the minds of Jewish artists who saw what was to come or what had already transpired in Europe during those tumultuous years. Their minds spawned heroes of super powers who would confront fascist evil. It could not happen in real life, but at least the helpless could be saved on the pages of their comic books.

And, even further related, PJ was reminded of the just recently booked Midnight in Paris.

This new Woody Allen movie which opens at on June 10, also visits early 20th Century Europe. Paris to be exact.

It is a fantasy. Owen Wilson “travels” back in time to Paris of the 1920’s where several of the earlier mentioned characters, the Barcelonans, appear along with famous others, as well.  Some are ex-patriots, some "Bohemians." Call them what you may, they all managed to find their way to Paris in the 20’s where the shrapnel of artistic explosions enriched their lives and gave way to great art. Art which was spawned by those who saw what was to come in a decade or two, and art which was spawned by what they had lived through earlier during World War I, the war which was supposed to end all wars.

Dali, Picasso, Leo and Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Cole Porter, and, Matisse to name just a few. They are all there. They network. They make art. And love. Don’t we wish we could observe? PJ does. Owen Wilson gets to. But we better be careful.  Horror lies ahead.

And then PJ’s “travels” drifted to Michener’s The Drifters (he doesn’t read him anymore--his books are just too long.) wherein another group of ex-patriots each coming from a different far reach of the world settled upon one another in the small Spanish town of Torremolinos. Similar dynamics. Different eras. Different place.  People driven by social and political winds of the times–here the 60‘s. Just as the artful had descended upon Paris two generations before, these drifters were similarly motivated by the times and found one another.

And, yet another column was conceived while “watching” a movie.

PJ remembers years ago discussing whether it is the times that make great political leaders, or if it is the leaders who make the times. He’s not sure, but it is certainly more clear that it is the times, the social/political/economic climate, that produce, that spawn, if you will, great art. And great music. (Just think of the 60’s.) And great friends.

Hey, even the Japanese horror movies of the 50’s and 60’s were spawned by nuclear horror. Whether or not PJ considers Mothra, Gojira (the Japanese pronunciation of Godzilla), or Rodan great art is a story for another column, however.

And by the way, getting back to the original premise.

Even if we can’t really travel back to 1920’s Paris with Owen Wilson, or jet to Barcelona, we can at least make these trips while in the friendly and darkened confines of the cinema.

It is there that we may learn what motivates greatness.

And it is there that we may learn more about ourselves.

That’s quite a bit for five bucks, don’t you think?