My favorite was definitely the WWII veteran in the bar. It was perfectly emotionally pitched. You get a perfect sense of the decades-long cost of war for these men, the way the events of 60 years ago continue to affect who they are. And they are matter-of-fact and soft-spoken and the devastation they feel is quiet and smothering. Great scene.
Is it cheating to say the last one, with his brother? That made me teary-eyed. There was so much going on in that scene with so little dialogue. Just a sense of peace and a casting aside of so much garbage -- pride, anger, ego -- for family.
I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, but I echo the comments of both of you. And the few times I’ve heard real war veterans talking about war, they’ve sometimes sounded exactly like the conversation in the bar.
I'm totally with you, cl. I found all of the encounters moving. The pregnant girl, the swarm of cyclists (The hardest thing about being old is remembering being young), the farm family. But I was totally blown away by the last scene (I was so thrilled to see his brother was Harry Dean Stanton!) when the two of them just beheld each other and the overwhelming feeling that it wasn't too late, that whatever had gone on before was over and done and now they were just grateful to be together, like the two little boys they still were down in the untouchable innocence of their aging souls. His brother said did you come all the way here on that thing to see me? And Alvin replied I did, Lyle. It's so simple and spare; everything inessential has been stripped away, all the small talk, all the intervening time and pain, everything. I did.
The war scene was stunning, Erin. The friendly fire incident, of course, which is shockingly common in war, but also the shame and bafflement and helplessness. Alvin talks about killing "moon-faced boys." And there's a sense that no matter how justified or patriotic a war is, in the end, on the front, for the individuals involved, it is immediately about boys killing boys, and no flag-waving or battle-glorification ever reduces that mystery or makes a decent mind feel less haunted.
I liked the scene with the cyclists, too. When he told the guy When you're young, you don't think about getting old ... and you shouldn't, I sort of wrote it off as a movie platitude, but then it became very poignant later on. You can't let fears of aging and impermanence and dying paralyze you in life. But there's also a sense of regret, which I realized later. Alvin says he was mean and heedless when he was young — he gave no thought to being old and having to live with his misdeeds, of reaping what he sowed. He could just have a falling-out with someone and not speak to him for years and years.
The thoughtlessness of youth, the folly of youth, is as much a curse as a blessing.
6 comments:
My favorite was definitely the WWII veteran in the bar. It was perfectly emotionally pitched. You get a perfect sense of the decades-long cost of war for these men, the way the events of 60 years ago continue to affect who they are. And they are matter-of-fact and soft-spoken and the devastation they feel is quiet and smothering. Great scene.
Is it cheating to say the last one, with his brother? That made me teary-eyed. There was so much going on in that scene with so little dialogue. Just a sense of peace and a casting aside of so much garbage -- pride, anger, ego -- for family.
I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, but I echo the comments of both of you. And the few times I’ve heard real war veterans talking about war, they’ve sometimes sounded exactly like the conversation in the bar.
I'm totally with you, cl. I found all of the encounters moving. The pregnant girl, the swarm of cyclists (The hardest thing about being old is remembering being young), the farm family. But I was totally blown away by the last scene (I was so thrilled to see his brother was Harry Dean Stanton!) when the two of them just beheld each other and the overwhelming feeling that it wasn't too late, that whatever had gone on before was over and done and now they were just grateful to be together, like the two little boys they still were down in the untouchable innocence of their aging souls. His brother said did you come all the way here on that thing to see me? And Alvin replied I did, Lyle. It's so simple and spare; everything inessential has been stripped away, all the small talk, all the intervening time and pain, everything. I did.
The war scene was stunning, Erin. The friendly fire incident, of course, which is shockingly common in war, but also the shame and bafflement and helplessness. Alvin talks about killing "moon-faced boys." And there's a sense that no matter how justified or patriotic a war is, in the end, on the front, for the individuals involved, it is immediately about boys killing boys, and no flag-waving or battle-glorification ever reduces that mystery or makes a decent mind feel less haunted.
I liked the scene with the cyclists, too. When he told the guy When you're young, you don't think about getting old ... and you shouldn't, I sort of wrote it off as a movie platitude, but then it became very poignant later on. You can't let fears of aging and impermanence and dying paralyze you in life. But there's also a sense of regret, which I realized later. Alvin says he was mean and heedless when he was young — he gave no thought to being old and having to live with his misdeeds, of reaping what he sowed. He could just have a falling-out with someone and not speak to him for years and years.
The thoughtlessness of youth, the folly of youth, is as much a curse as a blessing.
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