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skies clearing just a bit
Moodwise. They appear to actually be overcast at the moment in NYC but were clearer earlier.
Just finished watching the last 45 minutes of an old 1963 movie on TCM called A Child is Waiting. It starred Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster, Gena Rowlends and was directed by John Cassevetes, Produced by Stanley Kramer (who fired Cassevetes after the movie was made and edited it himself.).
The movie is about a teacher and a psychologist who attempt to help mentally impaired children. The movie has that black and white harsh lighting of the early 60s films and somewhat preachy/moralistic overtone. But there are some nice touches.
One, which had me sitting down again on my couch when I was considering flipping it off and doing something else, was a short twenty minute scene between two men. One man, Steven Richey, played him I think, was an architect. He was sucessful. Had lots of money and prestige. He had high hopes for his son. But his son turned out to be mentally impaired.
The other man, I'll call him Al, has a 28 year old daughter who is also mentally impaired.
Richey asks him:" What point is there for teaching these children, what purpose can they have? There's no chance for success...no chance for anything. They have no purpose."
Al responds:" Purpose? When one ties a string, when one sings a song, and how much time it took them to get there...that has purpose. Is that any smaller than what we do."
Richey: "But what's that...in the scheme of things? "
Al:" Well, what purpose do we really serve in our lives? Can we say that our sucesses are any greater than theirs? Or matter? And how do we know that one is more than the other..."
I wish I could remember the exact dialogue. It was a little clearer than the approximation above. But it reminded me of something I'd briefly forgotten ...sometimes we are so busy worrying about making the buck, publishing the great novel, making an impact or just (in my case) getting a good job - that we forget that it is in the end our connections with each other, even in the smallest way, sometimes the smallest such as tying a string or putting a file in a cabinet that mean the most. Purpose, I suppose, like everything else, is in the eye of the beholder. I just keep thinking the destination is important when in truth maybe it's all the climbing? This little not-so-great movie reminded me of the climbing.
Just finished watching the last 45 minutes of an old 1963 movie on TCM called A Child is Waiting. It starred Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster, Gena Rowlends and was directed by John Cassevetes, Produced by Stanley Kramer (who fired Cassevetes after the movie was made and edited it himself.).
The movie is about a teacher and a psychologist who attempt to help mentally impaired children. The movie has that black and white harsh lighting of the early 60s films and somewhat preachy/moralistic overtone. But there are some nice touches.
One, which had me sitting down again on my couch when I was considering flipping it off and doing something else, was a short twenty minute scene between two men. One man, Steven Richey, played him I think, was an architect. He was sucessful. Had lots of money and prestige. He had high hopes for his son. But his son turned out to be mentally impaired.
The other man, I'll call him Al, has a 28 year old daughter who is also mentally impaired.
Richey asks him:" What point is there for teaching these children, what purpose can they have? There's no chance for success...no chance for anything. They have no purpose."
Al responds:" Purpose? When one ties a string, when one sings a song, and how much time it took them to get there...that has purpose. Is that any smaller than what we do."
Richey: "But what's that...in the scheme of things? "
Al:" Well, what purpose do we really serve in our lives? Can we say that our sucesses are any greater than theirs? Or matter? And how do we know that one is more than the other..."
I wish I could remember the exact dialogue. It was a little clearer than the approximation above. But it reminded me of something I'd briefly forgotten ...sometimes we are so busy worrying about making the buck, publishing the great novel, making an impact or just (in my case) getting a good job - that we forget that it is in the end our connections with each other, even in the smallest way, sometimes the smallest such as tying a string or putting a file in a cabinet that mean the most. Purpose, I suppose, like everything else, is in the eye of the beholder. I just keep thinking the destination is important when in truth maybe it's all the climbing? This little not-so-great movie reminded me of the climbing.