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It Makes Me Wonder Movies. There was a time when I went to a lot of movies, maybe three, four or more in a week, and during my days in San Francisco 
from '69 through '81, so did
most of my friends. On any given night in one of the smaller theaters
running some rediscovered artsy flick or in one of the first run
"big movie" theater chains, I'd run into friends. Particularly on weekday
afternoons. I knew people who didn't run on 9 to 5. There were a whole lot
of years that I didn't run on 9 to 5 and if a new movie was opening by a
director or an actor or a whomever I liked, I'd run into friends spilling out
onto the street after the show at 3:00 in the afternoon. It was one of the
few things that smacked me in the face at the time, a definition perhaps
of the elusive "good life": Going to a movie on a weekday afternoon.
It began in college. Not everybody I knew was a movie freak, but it was considered hip in my crowd to go to the art houses and watch the current crop of Italian - Scandinavian - Japanese "masterpieces". We liked all of them, of course, since we were young and in favor of "masterpieces". It was in college that I saw my first Japanese films: The Seven Samurai, for example and Yojimbo. Toshiro Mifune has always been as much a star to me as any English speaking actor. I have both movies sitting under the VCR. The York Theater in San Francisco had week long festivals where they'd show a single director's films, a different double feature every night and you could see ten or more of their films in a week. All of the Fasbinder films, many of the Japanese films such as The Samurai Trilogy and Woman of the Dunes. Remember Woman of the Dunes? Wow.
In San Francisco our tastes ran the gamut. We went to all the
Peckinpah films, of course, those were the hippie days. I remember seeing a
Philippa and I would go to the Market Street triple features for a buck. One dollar for three films. We went a lot. Those were good times. Philippa loved all the Bronson stuff, the black exploitation stuff: "Hog shit, mutha fuckah!" as she emptied the submachine gun into the face of some particularly rude and insensitive male. A woman who liked to go to B movies on Market Street. God was kind. I just didn't know how much so at the time.
Since those days in San Francisco my movie going has been a solo trip.
I'd go to as many as I could in Napa (thank god for video rentals), but
Anyway, some of the journals have been talking about movies recently and it rang a bell, but a fainter bell than it might have in the past. It makes me wonder. |
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double bill on Market Street: The Wild Bunch and Performance.
I hadn't seen either before. The Wild Bunch, when it was released, had a lot
of impact; blood and gore, but still very much in the romantic western mode.
Performance with Mick Jagger and James Fox directed by Nicholas Roeg
was the first video I ever bought at full price, some $60 when I lived in
Napa and finally had some money to spend. "Didn't I see you down in
San Antone on a hot and dusty night? You were eating eggs at Sammy's when
a black man there drew his knife. Come now, gentlemen ...." Ah yes,
Mr. Jagger in Performance. I still play the soundtrack.
I didn't know anyone who liked them in the same way. I really haven't known anyone
since those days who's into movies other than the science fiction stuff, but that's
a different trip. I appreciate the passion, but I prefer a more catholic
selection in my films. I still go more than most, but less and less now as
time passes. Isn't that the way its supposed to be? I don't know, there
are fewer films that appeal. I've mentioned the music the same way. I
don't listen any more. I don't know if this changing of interests has to
do with hormones or depression or getting stale or hanging out with the
wrong crowd. Does it just happen as you grow older? Not to worry, I guess,
but still....