Every once in a while you find a movie that just stays with you, you replay lines and scenes in your mind, and find that the movie just reached in and connected with you. Not guns and wild chases, not wild women and breathtaking scenery, but a part of life comes across in subtlety and charm. The humor not slapstick nor coarse, but straight from the homeland. Such a discovery was Nebraska - Bruce Dern - a black and white movie which was perfect in its lack of color. Color would embarrass these people of the plains. The scenery was flat as possible, the images of the town were of a dying community, still hanging on with a cast of characters that are almost interchangeable with any other small town on the great plains.
The images of the old guys sitting on the couch, all asleep, all with their mouths agape, the jealousy when it looks like one of their own might rise above the crowd...all painted an amazing set of pictures.
This movie is certainly not for everyone. Some will read my first paragraph and say no sex, no violence, no phony patriotism, why bother, but for those of us with Midwest backgrounds from Ohio to the Rockies it is a set of scenes from our childhood, our neighbors, our life's.
An old man thinks he won a million dollars not understanding that this is another of the millions of scams that come in the mail (and now on the internet) and a son so hungry for his father's love that he will sacrifice his own comfort to help in a Quixotic journey.
These are people who have their life, their passion, their emotions bottled up within themselves. Unable to express things directly there is an internal conflict with bigger ideas and bigger emotions. I loved it and still smile at the mental images it gave me.
No comments:
Post a Comment