A Walker in the Suburbs

Yesterday’s post was a warmup. One of the best reasons to like 7×7 is the “Up” film series. It begins in 1964, a documentary about 14 seven-year-olds in Britain. “Show me a child of seven,” the announcer intones, “and I’ll show you the man.” (Yes, “man” not “person.” This was 1964, after all.) Every seven years since then, the director Michael Apted has made a film.

Forty-nine years later, all of the 14 are alive and only one chose not to participate. A man who had dropped out of the series after “28” returned this time, in part to publicize his band. The “kids” have grown up, gone to university (or not), taken jobs, married, had children and grandchildren, moved, divorced, grieved over lost parents, prospered, gone on disability, wandered and arrived.

In honor of Oscar weekend, a mini-review: This is the best
of the series (apart from the first), I think, and that may have nothing to
do with film making and everything to do with the age, 56. Maybe it’s
just a happy accident, but most of these folks have a good attitude
about living and aging, about learning from their mistakes. What
else can you do but go on, they say. And there’s not just
resignation in their voices but happy expectation. Even Neil, who is homeless and suffering from some sort of mental illness or mood disorder earlier in the series, seems to have righted himself, is on the town council of
the little village where he lives and also a deacon
in his church.

What’s the best thing in life, he was asked.
Friends, he said. Talking with them, walking with them. What this
film doesn’t tell you (but an earlier one does) is
that other people in the series came to Neil’s aid
when he was homeless. Bruce took him in, gave him a home;  others helped, too. There are so many lovely
stories-within-a-story in this series. And seeing the people age
is not depressing. Their expressions stay the same, their smiles,
too. And their attitudes improve.

I saw the film with a good friend, and as we left the theater a woman overheard us talking and joined our conversation. She was 56 too, she said, and the film affected her deeply. We talked like we’d known her forever, and then we parted. “I’m going home to change my life,” she said. 

Seven times eight. “56 Up.” It was that kind of film.

It’s Oscar Season! Nominees were announced yesterday, and I’ve seen four of the films nominated for Best Picture. That’s better than usual. Most years I would have seen none by this date.

In the old days, of course, seeing four would mean I’d almost seen them all. But this year, with nine pictures up for the top spot, I have five more to go. Or maybe not. This year proxy viewing is allowed, and a trusted assistant is doing some of the “work” for me. (“I don’t think you’d like ‘Django,’ Mom,” my daughter says. “Too violent.”)

So that leaves four: Two films that only start today and I’d planned to see anyway, and two “about animals” (I know there’s more to them than that) that I might palm off to my trusted assistant. And this is not even including the Best Actor/Actress performances.

What can I say … most of the time, reality is enough for me. But not during Oscar Season.

Saturday night I watched the new movie “My Week with Marilyn,” and, after it was over, had a hankering to watch a real Marilyn Monroe movie. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was the one I could find in my Netflix instant queue.

It was a good choice. Not the kind of film I usually watch, foreign or independent, deep and ponderous. This was silly and frothy and fun. Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell strut their stuff, shake their ample bottoms and seem so strikingly different from today’s stick-thin beauties as to be another gender entirely.

It made me think about how seriously we take ourselves these days — and how that wasn’t always the case. Once you could sing “diamonds are a girl’s best friend” and not be taken to task for your retrograde lack of feminism or support of corrupt African warlords. There I go again, romanticizing the past. It’s a nasty habit, I know.

Photo: Wikipedia from “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” screenshot

While most people watched the HBO miniseries “John Adams” four years ago — or read the book by David McCullough on which it is based — I’m just now catching the show. While I marvel at Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of Adams, “the forgotten founder,” and at the philosophical conversations between Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, what strikes me most about the series is how difficult life was 200-plus years ago.

Fire, pestilence, perilous travel — these people were not coddled. To what extent did the circumstances of our ancestors’ lives forge in them the character and ardor to build a nation? Life then was shorter, harder, more intense. I feel fat and shallow in comparison.

Tonight is the premiere of “Mad Men.” It’s the fourth season of a show I’ve usually watched on DVD; this will be the first episode I’ve seen in real time. So we have the excitement of a premiere (even though a television premiere), the glamor of New York City in the 1960s, and for me, wondering about the popularity of this show and what it means about us. The characters are compelling, the time period just out of reach enough to be strange and wondrous, and the style is divine. We like “Mad Men” because it’s a good show. But we also like it because it reminds us of the way we used to be. We smoked, we drank, we were not kind to women and minorities. But we were not as plugged in, we were not as politically correct; we were, I think, more human.