Posts Tagged ‘movie scenes’
Filling Gaps
Last night our internet connection was down so I did some reading in the most recent book I bought from the Pierce County Historical Association, “Log Buildings and Logging in Early Pierce County, Wisconsin.” In excerpts from journals and newspaper accounts dated in the early to mid-1800s, bits and pieces of what life was like in this specific locale materialize in my head where they mix with cinematic versions I’ve seen from movies depicting the same period.
A name, a date, and basic details of clearing several acres to build a log cabin leave a lot of gaps in my perception of what life was really like. One person’s father arrived some time later. How were they communicating prior to that? Another man is described rather superficially as having “opened a road from River Falls” through the wilderness to a mill and later, one to Prescott for a mail route.
How did one send mail to a pioneer living in the wilderness? How does one man build a road? I struggle to compare my activity managing our 20 acres in the present with the activities and accomplishments of people who were just arriving at this place 200 years ago.
For reference, we rely on what people chose to write about their experiences. If my chronicles survive for a couple of centuries, will readers think that all we did was mow grass and whine about the weather?
Will they get a clue about what life was like when the internet goes down for a few hours?
I am curious about the specific indigenous people who were living here when immigrants started claiming land and building cabins. Not the general story of being forced onto reservations, but the equivalence of a “journal” account describing the experiences of one individual that would depict what it was like.
I am also curious about my specific ancestors who intermingled in these valleys, cutting trees, building wagons, going to schools, and living lives at that particular period of history. It’s easy for me to fill the gaps with versions of pioneers depicted in movies I’ve seen throughout my life.
How accurate a portrayal was “Jeremiah Johnson?”
Life today can hardly compare but when I listen to the birdsongs echoing through our trees in moments when no modern-day traffic, lawnmowers, or airplane noise is occurring, the sound may easily be the very same chorus that played two centuries ago.
I wonder who was standing right here listening to it way back when.
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For Sibs
This one is for my siblings. First of all, if any of you have seen the movie, “The Meddler” and not told me about it, I will be very surprised. Second, I am tempted to urge you to watch the flick, but Cyndie and I both experienced such conflicted reactions to it that I’m inclined to suggest you use the hundred and three minutes of your time for something more constructive.
Our general reaction was along the lines of, “Meh.” We like Susan Sarandon and J.K. Simmons a lot, so their acting was a reward. We chose to add this to our Netflix queue after the trailer for it caught our attention in the previews segment on another movie we had rented. The premise wasn’t particularly gripping for either of us, but we thought it looked like a light and funny flick.
The movie was okay, but we didn’t love it, except for this: a bullseye.
Not just the bullseye, but for us, it’s also what led up to the penultimate scene that had us so gobsmacked over what we were seeing that we couldn’t contain ourselves.
We were basically tolerating how the movie was plodding along for us until J.K. Simmons’ character mentions his chickens. He pulls an egg out of his pocket to show Marnie (Susan Sarandon). They go back to his place and walk in the chicken run where he introduces his hens by name.
Eventually, he offers her a half-carton of eggs to take home. This resonated because Cyndie has cut cartons in half like that to facilitate picking the four to six eggs at a time that show up in our nest boxes throughout the day.
We were tickled by all this, but had no clue what writer Lorene Scafaria had in store next. In this case, the slow development of scenes which had underwhelmed us in the first part of the movie made us sit up in awe over what we were witnessing.
Now alone at home and contemplating this new “friend” Marnie has met, she opens the little carton of eggs and pulls out the blue one. Cyndie and I already know what this is all about, but we had no idea it was going to be conveyed so brilliantly.
Butter in a frying pan. A slice of bread. She picks up a glass and presses it on the bread to cut out a hole. She fries up a perfect version of what our family called a bullseye.
Then she stands at the counter and takes the first bite. Obviously, this is an egg like no other she has ever tasted before in her life. Lorene Scafaria directed a perfect depiction of savoring every bite. Susan Sarandon knocks it out of the park, sopping up every last drop of that egg with the fried bread.
Now that I write this, I think the whole movie is worth that one scene.
You guys should check it out.
p.s.: Guess what we had for breakfast this morning.
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Relative Something 