There was before. And there was after.
Before was a bright, warm Tuesday morning where, by the grace of God, my eyes opened early to a quiet, comfortable dorm room. Before was a hot shower, and a leisurely preparation for a day of classes and meetings and work. Before was the television on in the background, a quietness before the ringing telephones, chiming instant messages, and the shout and gasp of voices in shock.
I can remember the feeling of my wet hair on the back of my neck as I heard the newscasters making announcements on the television, and I remember stopping to watch the images, frozen where I stood, wrapped in a towel, unable to move forward into a day where everything changed.
After was forcing my feet to move, forcing my mind to choose clothes, forcing myself to prepare for classes and meetings and work. As the ten o'clock hour approached, I walked, in a daze, to the chapel at the center of campus. I know now that I went to Daily Chapel in hopes that someone would have an answer, or information that they weren't telling us on television. That wasn't the case. After were the questions we all had: Why? When would it happen again? What had happened to the safety of our little "bubble on a hill" that was supposed to protect us from all the bad things that happened "out there"?
For many Millenials, the events of 9/11 dragged us into adulthood; we kicked and screamed and fought like hell to hold onto our childhoods. I was halfway through my 19th year and had just begun my sophomore year in college; I would have liked to stay a "kid" a little bit longer. But the terrorist acts that crash-landed in the lives of all Americans forced us to realize that we live in a world where people are capable of terrible, destructive acts of hatred and anger. (So many of us at my Lutheran college grew up in a world where the worst one could experience was passive-aggressiveness, terrorism was as foreign a concept to us as a steam train might be to a caveman.) I was fortunate to be in a place where even though I was away from my parents, I was surrounded by adults who exemplified patience, forgiveness, grace, faith, and community in those dark days.
For most of America, the events of 9/11 are defined by collective memory. We recount to each other the stories of where we were when we heard the news, and of the days and weeks that followed. We listen to each other's shock, pain and confusion of those days. But so many of us did not lose a loved one or friend in those terrorist acts, so all we have are those shared memories. Perhaps friends and family members are woven into our memories; in that way, we have "loomed" together a great tapestry of memory. (In my mind, voices that stand out that day include my mom, my friend Rachel who lived across the hall from me, one of the campus chaplains, and, strangely, my geography professor.) In the creation of this tapestry of shared memory, we can be certain that we will never forget the fear we first felt when we heard the news, but, even more strongly, how our communities came together in the hours and days that followed. We hugged, we cried on each other's shoulders, we held hands in circles of prayer, song, and solidarity, we gave blood and money and supplies, we talked in classrooms, in offices, in dorm rooms, and in the chapel of our anger, our thoughts, our sadness, and of the power of forgiveness.
And on this day, ten years later, we still struggle with the sadness, the anger, and the power of forgiveness. Like the bright blue sky on September 11, 2001, our lives contain occasional clouds. Yet between these clouds, we glimpse the boundless beauty of the sky, and it is in those moments of beauty that we find the grace to carry on.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Movie Review: The Soloist
The Soloist, 2009. Directed by Joe Wright. Starring Robert Downey, Jr., Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener.
In the "Making of The Soloist" special feature on the DVD, director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) remarks on his initial hesitation to direct the film: as a native Brit, he'd only ever filmed movies about England in England. He was unsure he would be successful at directing a film set in Los Angeles dealing with homelessness in that city. Wright needn't have doubted himself one iota.
With The Soloist, Wright cements himself as one of my top five favorite directors. Even when the subject is gritty (such as homelessness in The Soloist), violent (Atonement), or hopelessly romantic (Pride & Prejudice), Wright executes his directorial vision with clear elegance. [I'm omitting here his film Hanna, which I have not yet seen. However, I'm adding it to my NetFlix queue likenow.] I imagine that on set, Wright likes to "let the camera run" on a scene and then edits those little tidbits and moments into the film--moments where we catch an actor sighing, scanning the setting with their eyes, or moving their hands in a way that adds both verisimilitude to the scene and depth to the character.
Wright, however, juxtaposes the toughness of life on the street and the feeling of hopelessness often associated with mental illness with the grace of music and art, and the human capacity for friendship that transforms lives. Elements such as Seamus McGarvey's thoughtful cinematography, Susannah Grant's screenplay (based on real-life newspaper columnist Steve Lopez's book The Soloist), and Sarah Greenwood's fitting art direction all enhance the overall feeling of the film. (Greenwood and Wright are frequent co-collaborators and have produced some amazingly lasting images in the past ten years of film; I think no better example of this the movie Atonement, especially the first two "parts".)
Foxx provides another carefully crafted, excellent performance as a musician in this film (see also: Ray, obviously). His innate sense of musicality as an actual musician provides for a freedom in acting as a man who plays multiple instruments in the film, including violin and cello. Foxx plays Nathaniel Ayers, a Julliard-trained cellist who loses everything when schizophrenia takes over his life. There is a great risk in playing someone with a mental illness, especially one as unpredictable as schizophrenia, yet Foxx accomplishes this with a sense of quiet power that almost makes the viewer forget that Ayers does suffer from a mental illness over which he has no control. In that sense, it's easy to see why Ayers embraces the beauty of the music he makes--because he can control it, and because he's creating something everyone loves.
Downey, Jr. acts as Foxx's foil as Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez. Lopez is one of those guys who's all business, constantly searching for his next great story; he doesn't have time for "human interest" even though that's what he writes about. To be honest, I think Downey didn't have to act much as Lopez; I think he often found a great deal of similarity between his own personality and Lopez's. Still, the strides Lopez makes throughout the film are not insignificant, especially when it seems like all the hard work he's put into helping Ayers might be for naught. The scenes where Downey and Foxx are acting together--and against each other--are the most energetic and interesting of the film.
At times, I found the plot a bit slow, but the film is punctuated with such moments of beauty--in the music, the cinematography, and in the acting--that it's easy to forgive a languid moment in passing.
My review: 8/10
In the "Making of The Soloist" special feature on the DVD, director Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) remarks on his initial hesitation to direct the film: as a native Brit, he'd only ever filmed movies about England in England. He was unsure he would be successful at directing a film set in Los Angeles dealing with homelessness in that city. Wright needn't have doubted himself one iota.
With The Soloist, Wright cements himself as one of my top five favorite directors. Even when the subject is gritty (such as homelessness in The Soloist), violent (Atonement), or hopelessly romantic (Pride & Prejudice), Wright executes his directorial vision with clear elegance. [I'm omitting here his film Hanna, which I have not yet seen. However, I'm adding it to my NetFlix queue likenow.] I imagine that on set, Wright likes to "let the camera run" on a scene and then edits those little tidbits and moments into the film--moments where we catch an actor sighing, scanning the setting with their eyes, or moving their hands in a way that adds both verisimilitude to the scene and depth to the character.
Wright, however, juxtaposes the toughness of life on the street and the feeling of hopelessness often associated with mental illness with the grace of music and art, and the human capacity for friendship that transforms lives. Elements such as Seamus McGarvey's thoughtful cinematography, Susannah Grant's screenplay (based on real-life newspaper columnist Steve Lopez's book The Soloist), and Sarah Greenwood's fitting art direction all enhance the overall feeling of the film. (Greenwood and Wright are frequent co-collaborators and have produced some amazingly lasting images in the past ten years of film; I think no better example of this the movie Atonement, especially the first two "parts".)
Foxx provides another carefully crafted, excellent performance as a musician in this film (see also: Ray, obviously). His innate sense of musicality as an actual musician provides for a freedom in acting as a man who plays multiple instruments in the film, including violin and cello. Foxx plays Nathaniel Ayers, a Julliard-trained cellist who loses everything when schizophrenia takes over his life. There is a great risk in playing someone with a mental illness, especially one as unpredictable as schizophrenia, yet Foxx accomplishes this with a sense of quiet power that almost makes the viewer forget that Ayers does suffer from a mental illness over which he has no control. In that sense, it's easy to see why Ayers embraces the beauty of the music he makes--because he can control it, and because he's creating something everyone loves.
Downey, Jr. acts as Foxx's foil as Los Angeles Times writer Steve Lopez. Lopez is one of those guys who's all business, constantly searching for his next great story; he doesn't have time for "human interest" even though that's what he writes about. To be honest, I think Downey didn't have to act much as Lopez; I think he often found a great deal of similarity between his own personality and Lopez's. Still, the strides Lopez makes throughout the film are not insignificant, especially when it seems like all the hard work he's put into helping Ayers might be for naught. The scenes where Downey and Foxx are acting together--and against each other--are the most energetic and interesting of the film.
At times, I found the plot a bit slow, but the film is punctuated with such moments of beauty--in the music, the cinematography, and in the acting--that it's easy to forgive a languid moment in passing.
My review: 8/10
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