Long Day, deep thoughts
Jul. 13th, 2007 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threadwalkerWork: the meeting started at 10 am. I just got out at 4:15 pm. I snagged a cookie and 1/2 rice crispie treat to take to my boss. We meet at 5pm. sigh.
So much for getting a work out in before road trip.
Deep thoughts:
Anyway, I watched "Saving Private Ryan" last night. Probably for the 2nd time in a month since it's running on HBO. I should have been in bed because it started at 1 am-ish, but I always get hooked on that scene where they are writing the condolence letters and the typist starts to scurry around and gather up the Ryan boys' letters.
I get watery-eyed when they show the shot of the mom doing dishes and include the penant with the four stars for each son in the service. And I always always cry my eyes out when the mom sees the car come up and she sits down in a collapse-like motion on the porch as the military officers get out of the car. You see the military officers lean down to sit by her. Everyone is moving so slow with dread and while undeniably having to move forward to the moment when they tell her that her fears are reality.
That scene just captures so much dread, pain and disbelief. I'm right there with her. And as I'm watching that scene (at 2 am this morning ... gah! Ishould have been in bed but got totally hooked), I was flashing back to kissing Nicholas good night and him saying "mama" and wrapping his arms around my neck and kissing me on the cheek.
There are so many scenes in that movie where I'm horrified by what is happening to the individuals, but I'm also reacting like a mom. I think the other big wrencher for me is when Giovani Ribbisi (?)/Wade dies and they pump him full of morphine. He cries that he doesn't want to die (he just had them administer enough morphine to kill him) and then as he's going under he starts crying that he wants to go home and he cries out for his mom. I've heard my kids cry for me like that and it send this stabbing echo inside me to see and hear this in the movie. It makes me want to run up stairs to the kids and give them a kiss.
The whole movie is so powerful and whatever awards it got are fully deserved. The actors were amazing. The filming was done in such a way that I felt like I was there. The editting was smooth and it didn't lag or have "useless" scenes. It blows me away that the actors and director and whole team of support can create a movie, the nature of which is that it is artificial, but it's done so well that it looks like a reflection of life and in looking at it, I see reflections of my emotions and then I'm drawn in it.
My follow up thought for that movie is that it makes me think of the parents of american troops over seas right now. There was a radio-broadcast of a town-hall meeting about 2-1/2 years ago - it was winter and I was driving to the ski slopes either very late at night or very early in the morning. I listened to the parents talk about their loss. Some were proud; some were devastated. I can see both sides.
The letter from Lincoln that is read aloud in "S-P-R" was very powerful. I think that letter summed up both the pride of sacrafice and the emotional devastation of losing your child to combat. I hope I never have to experience it and I am very grateful that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about terrorist bombings at my preschool or my local market on a daily basis.
So much for getting a work out in before road trip.
Deep thoughts:
Anyway, I watched "Saving Private Ryan" last night. Probably for the 2nd time in a month since it's running on HBO. I should have been in bed because it started at 1 am-ish, but I always get hooked on that scene where they are writing the condolence letters and the typist starts to scurry around and gather up the Ryan boys' letters.
I get watery-eyed when they show the shot of the mom doing dishes and include the penant with the four stars for each son in the service. And I always always cry my eyes out when the mom sees the car come up and she sits down in a collapse-like motion on the porch as the military officers get out of the car. You see the military officers lean down to sit by her. Everyone is moving so slow with dread and while undeniably having to move forward to the moment when they tell her that her fears are reality.
That scene just captures so much dread, pain and disbelief. I'm right there with her. And as I'm watching that scene (at 2 am this morning ... gah! Ishould have been in bed but got totally hooked), I was flashing back to kissing Nicholas good night and him saying "mama" and wrapping his arms around my neck and kissing me on the cheek.
There are so many scenes in that movie where I'm horrified by what is happening to the individuals, but I'm also reacting like a mom. I think the other big wrencher for me is when Giovani Ribbisi (?)/Wade dies and they pump him full of morphine. He cries that he doesn't want to die (he just had them administer enough morphine to kill him) and then as he's going under he starts crying that he wants to go home and he cries out for his mom. I've heard my kids cry for me like that and it send this stabbing echo inside me to see and hear this in the movie. It makes me want to run up stairs to the kids and give them a kiss.
The whole movie is so powerful and whatever awards it got are fully deserved. The actors were amazing. The filming was done in such a way that I felt like I was there. The editting was smooth and it didn't lag or have "useless" scenes. It blows me away that the actors and director and whole team of support can create a movie, the nature of which is that it is artificial, but it's done so well that it looks like a reflection of life and in looking at it, I see reflections of my emotions and then I'm drawn in it.
My follow up thought for that movie is that it makes me think of the parents of american troops over seas right now. There was a radio-broadcast of a town-hall meeting about 2-1/2 years ago - it was winter and I was driving to the ski slopes either very late at night or very early in the morning. I listened to the parents talk about their loss. Some were proud; some were devastated. I can see both sides.
The letter from Lincoln that is read aloud in "S-P-R" was very powerful. I think that letter summed up both the pride of sacrafice and the emotional devastation of losing your child to combat. I hope I never have to experience it and I am very grateful that I live in a country where I don't have to worry about terrorist bombings at my preschool or my local market on a daily basis.
