 |
| Peter Weller, "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai." |
 |
| Donald Sutherland, photo by Bardo Fabiani for Getty Images. |
What I love about movies is a story almost too long to tell. This will be a tiny sub-section, the idea shamelessly borrowed from one of my son's friends. The two of them - as do I - take great pleasure in burrowing into older movies, no era excluded. The 70s and 80s are particularly rich. She has found those pictures to be full of tasty morsels for what she has proclaimed her Boyfriend Vision Board. In short and on a rotating basis, it is the imaginary wall-covering eye candy of actors as they were. Recent inhabitants included the bearded Sterling Hayden from Robert Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE and James Garner as seen in THE ROCKFORD FILES.
When my son discovered a remastered Blu-ray of THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI had been released by Shout Factory, well, things were looking up. The title conjured an image of Peter Weller as that young actor and my boyfriend board began to take shape.
Film, like amber, has the ability to seal time. I try to understand how it must feel to be an actor, held forever at 27 or 38 or 49, to be swooned over by succeeding generations of fans, while enduring ordinary human aging, as though one had traded that face for this. It is not different for us regular types, the mirror, gravity and all that constantly catching us by surprise. But an actor's face, once upon a time only seen so much larger than life on a theater screen, has truly been the stuff of dreams for billions of us since Hollywood began to sweep humanity under its spell.
Take a reflective moment. Who is on your vision board today? Young Donald Sutherland, as seen above, is there with Mr. Weller, both of whom I still delight in seeing. My son's friend limits her choices to four at a time, no easy task. I'll stop at two for now and lose myself in the fantasy of who else will make the team this week.
4 comments:
Oh, this is a delight, Marylinn! Oh, the dewy nights I've spent watching my favorite dreamboats on screen, forever beautiful, causing the heart to ripple with pleasure year after year. A Boyfriend Vision Board! And absorbing those glorious young men in the fullness of their bright virility and Byronic darkness allows us to be revivified, sexually, emotionally. Of course, being women of a certain age, those banked fires are supposed to have been tamped down to embers by now. But I know, whatever the mirror says, inside I am 15 or 22 or 30, in the prime of my vitality and ever in the process of opening like a rose. So once again, we get to have playmates like these through the genius of film. Thank you, Jesus! xo
Melissa - Thank you (and thank you, Jesus). Dreamboats, heartthrobs, beautiful men. There is so much joy, quiet, private joy to be found in being a big, old swoonypants. The so-muchness of movies, stories, scenery, song, sweethearts. I really could, if somehow everything else in life would just take care of itself, do nothing but watch movies all day. That aspects of us get to remain young as do their images is such a gift. Embers, my ass. A girl and her fantasies and no time limit. Ahhh. xo
For years, the only actor on my imaginary vision board was Yul Brenner. I found him frighteningly sexy. As I matured, my idol was Alan Arkin, but only as the character he portrayed in "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" because he didn't speak, another of my visionary preferences in boyfriends.
Kass - Your comment made me laugh out loud about your preferences in boyfriends. The pictures of pretty men in magazines are lovely but a skilled actor brings so much more than his looks, he convinces us of the qualities he portrays. Your Yul Brenner also makes me think of Omar Sharif for some reason. It is a full, full life. xo
Post a Comment