Movies Are America

John Wayne would have had a cow over \”Brokeback Mountain.\”
Gay cowboys? He, too, would have missed the message, the love, not to mention
the heartbreak. He wouldn't have cared. Maybe that's why this year's Oscars
have caused such a stir and ignited that red state phobia. As for Felicity Huffman's
performance in \”TransAmerica,\” it would have blown the Duke's head
clean off.

I was born in red state Missouri and raised on John Wayne. I've
lived the rest of my life much happier in blue states, New York and California,
until I hit the purple state of Nevada. But the movies of John Wayne were a
huge part of my movie going experience as a kid.

Old Hollywood, that's what I remember come Oscar time, as we celebrate
the brilliance, the magnificence and the creation and splendor of what movies
have evolved to today.

As for all the trumped up controversy, a sort of revisiting of O'Reilly's
war against Christmas mania, substituting movies instead, well, it's obvious
that conservatives don't have much respect for the American people or the resiliency of the human spirit. There's not a person of independent movie going age that
can't distinguish crap from cinema brilliance without the right-wing distinguishing
the difference for them. Why Republicans hate, no let me rephrase that… Why conservatives
are afraid of movies I'll never understand. It's got to be their basic disrespect
and doubt, their distrust of the American spirit itself.

John F. Kennedy trumpeted the arts, and so did Ronald Reagan. George
W. Bush and his bunch cower in the corner at anything remotely creative. It
threatens their dogma, the ideology of group think and status quo. Kennedy would
have thought George W. Bush a cretin.

One of my all-time favorite movies is \”In Harm's Way,\”
with Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Patricia Neil, Burgess Meredith, the
cast list is endless. Directed by Otto Preminger, it is an amazing look into
war, soldiers, humanity and tragedy. But could it have gotten made today?

\”Rock\” is safe enough, John Wayne playing the solid
star, taking his lumps after Pearl Harbor, ending up back in the center of the
war. Neil, the ballsy nurse who makes the first move on \”the Rock,\”
because he's just too busy to think about broads, especially since the first
one he loved got away. A wayward son, now running PT boats enters, but on the
political side of the Navy, with things eventually turning into a big time military
soap opera.

Of course, Preminger's exit music and visuals are just as important
as the ending of the movie, but he was the best of the best, so you'd expect
that in 1965.

The rub comes when Kirk Douglas' character rapes the fiance of
Rock's son, she ends up getting pregnant, then kills herself.

Can you just imagine a studio releasing that today, with the sensitivities
of everyone, Rush, Sean and right-wing radio, not to mention the ultra-political
military propaganda wing of the Republican Party having a conniption about the image of the U.S. soldiers?
Back in 1965 we trusted people to be able to separate the story lines, with
Rock the good guy, Kirk the bad boy, without having it brush the entire military
as villains ready to rape an unsuspecting Navy nurse. Today conservatives don't
trust the American public to know, let alone distinguish the difference.

Conservatives are basically afraid of anything that challenges
their world view, while liberals aren't afraid of anything, except maybe fear
itself or the installation of that fear by powers who have decided Big Brother
knows best.

It's interesting how raping a woman, who becomes pregnant and
commits suicide, infuriates the Duke's character, Rock, but gay cowboys would
have freaked the film star out to the point he likely wouldn't have been attached to the movie at all. Of course, I'm guessing here, but it's a very
educated guess. Manly violence towards a woman is damnable, but acceptable,
while love between two men beyond the pale. If the Duke would have been aware of all the gay
men right under his nose he would have lost his mind. Burt Lancaster a bisexual?
NEVER.

The opening and contracting of the culture war goes on, with the
through line being that movies touch a thread in our soul that is meant to connect
to our prejudices and fears, touch that place we each have inside us that sometimes not even our
loved ones can tap. The best of movies release the pressure, if only slightly,
making us open, if only for a darkened two hours inside a movie house, to
possibilities our little brains can't accept in the light of day.

Movies can absolutely work miracles.

Movies mean everything, they are America.

Maybe it's because I started out in the performing arts, but I believe movies give people a way to believe you can get out of where
you're stuck. They take you into worlds you'll never see or think you won't,
give you insight into people you'll never meet or think you can't. But around
Oscar time, we're usually treated to a step back in time so we can remember
where movies started, the history, the glamour, the glory.

It starts every year and when it does I can't wait. The month-long Oscar fest
at Turner Classic Movies, as the station rolls out every top rated film in the
vault.

You've got to wonder if many of them would have gotten made today. \”Gone
with the Wind\” wouldn't have a chance. There's \”The Bad and the Beautiful,\”
a favorite of mine… but aren't they all? \”The Joker is Wild,\” \”Lawrence
of Arabia,\” there are so many in their vault. Then there is \”The Godfather,\”
available elsewhere, and all the sequels, Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in
\”Chinatown,\” with \”Network\” having particular meaning this
year. There's \”Out of Africa,\” which you knew in a moment would win. Vintage Woody Allen is rolled out as well. The list goes on… there's Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, and all those glorious musicals, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Ginger, Debbie… okay, I'll stop now.

In the end it all gets down to your personal favorites, most of which hit
you somewhere in your soul, or your imagination, or even where you live, a private
part of yourself that no one knows, places where you dream that you can't share and no one else has the key.

Many performances blew me away this year, Seymour Hoffman in \”Capote\”
was a revelation. Felicity Hoffman, another side to the character played with
genius by Hilary Swank. \”Brokeback Mountain\” was a beautiful film,
as was \”Memoirs of a Geisha.\” \”Goodnight, and Good Luck\”
beyond words, thinking about the courage of Murrow and how far we've fallen away
from real journalism. \”Crash\” an amazing film, likely to be best picture,
say the odds makers. You already know what I think about \”Munich.\”

But it was \”Syrianna,\” a roller coaster ride and a half, that proved unequivocally that conservatives
are afraid of movies. For my money, George Clooney's portrayal of Bob
Baer is the thing that makes movies great, because it grinds deeply inside a
movie that actually matters. A movie you can see again and again and come away
with something new, something political, national, geopolitical and important.
Why else would Charles
Krauthammer choose to let fly on that film? It's a testament that must have
made Clooney's year. It's not every day you get the neocons in a full on flip
out. Fantastic. Mission accomplished, as they say, only this time it
actually was.

Then there are the smaller movies that leap movie mountains and beg for multiple viewings. It's when movies become intensely personal, something no critic
could understand on the printed page, but every movie goer has experienced.
When a film jumps off the screen to seem part of your very life. That movie
for me this year was \”Hustle and Flow.\” The down and out dreamer never
giving up, never giving in and refusing to surrender to what's in his head,
his heart, his very soul. The music that keeps him from going mad in a world
that has no place for him. \”Hustle and Flow\” was it for me this year.

Living in St. Louis, Missouri, dreaming of a better life, a way to fulfill
my artistry, the greatest adventure of my life, \”Rocky\” hit me one
fine Saturday afternoon in the same way. It struck something in my soul that
said, you too can get out and find a spot that is yours. In the end, it became
as much about how Sylvester Stallone got his hit made as anything the movie
showed me on screen.

The American dreamer giving everything time and time again to achieve that
which makes her heart beat, her mind thrill and her soul soar.

That's what movies are all about at their best. Reaching inside the viewer's
soul and stirring the individual to action in her or his own life. That's where
movies work their real magic, a change so profound as to alter someone's life.

Anything is possible in the movies. The characters can overcome anything to
win against great odds. Movies aren't simply the story of America and
Americans. Movies are America itself. Dream big, live the dream, make it happen.
When watching a movie you believe you can do anything and sometimes it even
turns out you can.