Movies That Make Me Feel and Think

Today I watched the end of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and, as always, my eyes filled with tears as, after having heard that her great grandson had been killed, Pittman (played magnificently by Cicely Tyson) goes into town ago orders and, with the moving movie music playing, slowly walks to the courthouse water fountain where she takes a drink of water from the "Whites Only" faucet. That scene supposedly takes place in 1962 and, as we know, so much happened in the years immediately after the scene that changed the face and the color of the United States. Last night, Barack Obama and John McCain debated at the University of Mississippi, which Obama could not have safely attended in 1962. How far we have come, but how far we have yet to go.

Our lives truly are too short to truly see the changing patterns of society. Certainly we can look back and see from where we have come. In the case of Obama running for the presidency of the United States, we can consider the history of the enslavement of blacks, the freeing of the blacks that did not truly result in freedom and all of the steps that led to the place we are in today. However, it is more difficult to see where all of this is heading and what our country and the world will look like in 50 years. Still, it would be nice to have the 100+ years that Miss Jane has (in the movie) to see the wonders of the changing world.

The movie moves me on another level (at least on other level). It reminds me of the importance of giving of oneself on more than the economic level. The people whose lives are portrayed move society forward with a push and a pull, a shove and a drag. This probably is a good message for this time of year in which we will have a chance for reflection during the holidays and another chance to make a new (or more likely re-emphasized) resolution. Time is short so I should start thinking about what I will promise myself this year.

Another movie that mixes water and eyesight is Field of Dreams. It is the last scene (always those last scenes) in which Kevin Costner's character has the opportunity to place catch with his father when his father was a young man before he was "worn down by life" when he had "his whole life in front of him". This moves me on so many levels. First, I would love to have the opportunity to play catch ("interact" in a true give and take) with my father when he was young man. Perhaps that is why, after my mother's death, it was such an emotional pleasure to make a slide show of the pictures of my father when he was young - as a school boy, a high school and college student, an Army officer, and young executive, a young father, etc. The pictures took me part way there, but not as far as I wish I could go. I wish that I had the same type of materials that I have for my mother, for whom I have the pictures, but also a significant amount of her school year writing. So that is the first basis for the connection with the father-son catch scene. The second is the chance to recapture the years of my youth - to do the things that I did with my father as well as the things we never did. I am not overwhelmed by these feelings in life and really am quite content with the relationships I had with my parents. However, a movie like The Field of Dreams brings up the feelings and I have to admit I like those feelings . . . they keep me connected.