Movies of Days Past

College, movies, and VHS tapes

Photo by Sean Benesh on Unsplash

Recently, two different friends mentioned that I was a bigger fan of movies than they were. They liked movies, they said, but didn’t follow specific directors or spend time discussing films the way I did.

It got me thinking about my penchant towards movies. Until my friends mentioned it, I wouldn’t have described myself as a film buff. I am almost never at the movie theater and have no interest in the making of movies. But I do have a great love of watching movies and often follow a director or screenwriter’s work with intention. To me, it’s simply an extension of what makes me a reader-I love a good story so of course I love movies.

I think my first deep connection with movies was in college. My undergraduate degree is in Comparative Literature, and I took a class in literary theory but instead of using books to apply the theories, we used films. Each week, we would have a lab, where we watched a movie like Now Voyager or Blonde Venus, then spent our classroom time analyzing the movies based on critical theory. It was one of my favorite classes.

It was in those college days that I began to explore movies outside of the usual blockbusters on my own too. Was it just me or were the late 1980s and early 1990s the golden age of art house and foreign films? My college friends and I would drive from Riverside to Los Angeles to see movies like Henry and June and The Last Temptation of Christ.

What we couldn’t see on the big screen, we rented. It was the glory days of independent video stores, the early days of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. Every weekend, I would go with a group of friends, and we would scatter amongst the rows of cardboard-boxed VHS tapes, pulling them off the shelves, holding them up and asking, “Have you seen this one?” It was how we got to know one another; it was a friendly competition to see who was more cultured; it was an eagerness to share what we were learning about the world as we ventured into new experiences and began to lay the groundwork of who we were to become as adults.  

We rented movies like Cinema Paradiso, Europa Europa, and Raise the Red Lantern, and then we talked about them deep into the night, recommending them to anyone who would listen. It was all very pretentious, but in our defense, we were trying on new personas, expanding our world, doing the hard work of finding ourselves. We racked up late fees at the rental store.

While I always tell the story that I feel in love with my husband because of his bookshelves, his movie choices sealed the deal. One of my first dates with him was watching Strictly Ballroom. A few dates later, I introduced him to Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. (What can I say, I was flirty!)  The night he first told me he loved he took me to my favorite restaurant and then to the movies to see Barcelona.

Then there were the movies that were always slipped into the VCR at the end of a party, the point when the party dwindled, and only close friends were left and everyone was a little tipsy and we didn’t want the night to end. I think I watched Blue Velvet about twenty times, never seeing it in its entirety in one sitting because I was always coming in and out of the room, falling asleep, or talking deeply with someone in conspiratorial whispers. The movie playing quietly in the background, friends spread over couches, the smell of beer and Pier One’s Spiced Pear candles in the air.

There are days now when I feel like a college student again. I struggle to find my identity, one separate from being a mother and a career woman. I find I am turning to movies again. No longer at the mercy of Disney, I travel back in time, trying to find that carefree woman I once I was. I re-watch some of the movies from my college days. Some are offensive and I wonder at our collective biases, our racism. Others seem simply ridiculous through the lens of experience and a changing world, and I mourn my loss of innocence and those days of freedom, but some still resonate, assuring me that the woman I once was is still there.

I look for new movies, movies that are now available with a click of a button (I still miss the trips to video stores.), the movies that couldn’t have been made in my college years, the movies that are made by people in all corners of the world, who once didn’t have a voice. There’s still more to learn, they tell me, there are still new stories to watch.

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At the Check-Out Desk

Speaking of movies, I just watched Phantom Thread (streaming on Netflix) and loved it! The set and the costumes take you into a magical world and it is just about the strangest, darkest love story ever told.

Bourbon Bread from the Bien Cuit cookbook

In addition to watching movies, I baked this Bourbon Bread. It took two days to make but I wasn’t feeling well and so the excuse to sit on the couch in order to be available to “stretch and fold” the bread every 30 minutes was a good one. It was the worth the work and I’m thinking of using a few slices for a grilled cheese sandwich, made with gruyere cheese and some thinly sliced pears.

The deer eat everything in my garden, but I can’t help but feel honored to see them. Not the best photo as it was taken through a window.

Finally, I had a visitor in my backyard. I know deer eat my plants, but goodness, who doesn’t want to look up from their writing desk and see such majesty in their yard?

I hope you are well. Write me and tell me what you are doing, tell me about the movies you watched and loved when you were younger and what you are watching now.