if you hold onto the past...

I've seen Cape Fear once. The remake, I mean. Also, the original once. I have no idea where today's blog entry will be going. Play by play? Like, that was an awkward way of not starting with voiceover, for example. Juliette Lewis staring at the camera, and is that a blackboard behind her? Is this a report she's doing for school like Lidia in The War? How young is Lewis supposed to be here?

Are they watching Problem Child?

In other news, according to the trivia section of this movie's IMDb page, supposedly Steven Spielberg was attached to direct this remake at some point and he planned on casting Bill Murray as Max Cady--DeNiro's role.

Scorsese is really liking his rack focus--that's when two sides of the scene, that should not be in focus at the same time, are.

In other other news, I may have to finish up my final paper for this writing class early so I can share it in this blog next week. It relates to Groundhog Day and next week is the 2nd.

That also means that this month is coming to an end. I can't just keep randomizing my movie choices--which is not what I've been doing--and writing here and there about the Oscars. (For example, both Robert DeNiro and Juliette Lewis were nominated for Oscars for this film.) It is Oscar month and I've been obsessing about them longer than Max Cady has been obsessing about Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte).

Nothing wrong with obsessing about things, of course. As long as you don't go biting women's faces, or watching the same movie every day for a year. (I've done one of those things. DeNiro just did the other.)

That the Bowden family has some problems is, of course, not a coincidence. (Lori (Illeana Douglas), the woman who Kady bit--Sam's having an emotional, if not sexual, affair with her.) Kady is not just some psycho out of prison, he's the corruption of domesticity incarnate. He's a memory come back to haunt them. The past picking away at the present.

 

 

 

 

 

My teacher--Steve Lopez, mind you, Los Angeles Times columnist, published novelists and author of non-fiction--said my writing has clarity but said the one thing missing was Why Groundhog Day? What makes me connect with it? But, I'm writing about when I went to Woodstock, six months into this blog and I'm writing it now, another 25 months on. And, I'm not sure if there's a clear answer up front to that question. But, I think there may be a clearer answer in retrospect. Maybe only in retrospect. Because the past--or a look back at it, anyway--offers up insight we can never have in the present. Like Max Kady stirring up old hurts. It occurred to me tonight--and this will be in my upcoming paper (which I will be sure to share in this blog this coming 2nd of March)--I know why Groundhog Day.

Just like I know why movies.

I know why school.

I know why teaching.

The big idea that runs through my master's thesis--one of the big ideas, anyway--is how writing regularly can help you invent (or reinvent) your self. I think I forgot lately that I know very much who I am, and my self is doing pretty well. It's one of the points I need to make in my thesis, it's very much a point I made throughout the first year of this blog, but sometimes I still forget it.

The past isn't always more powerful than the present.