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Writer's Block: Favorite Movie as a Kid
Mar. 16th, 2009 06:18 am[Error: unknown template qotd]
I had two favorite movies, The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music (which I saw at the Cinerama when I was very young), and they stayed my favorites until I was twelve and Star Wars came out.
"Over the Rainbow" was my theme song for a very long time. I grew up in a mill town, and I wanted desperately to be caught up in an adventure that would take me to a magical land, or just someplace else. Dorothy was my first heroine, and my earliest writing was focused on a young woman who was taken to strange new worlds and found staunch companions to help her learn what she needed to learn. (Good grief. . . I never realized before this moment just how close the parallel was. Okay, so on further reflections it's a classic hero's journey pattern.)
Besides being captivated by the drama of The Sound of Music, especially in the second half of the film, I think it profoundly shaped my ideas about romantic love. I never aspired to being a mother, and being a governess and then taking on someone else's seven kids as steps never appealed to me, but I loved Captain von Trapp as a man long before I was sexually awakened. Maybe it was because his dignity and presence reminded me of my own father. In any case, he was the romantic standard by which I judged my male companions for many years, which wasn't particularly fair to the adolescents around me! The Sound of Music is also a kind of "Beauty and the Beast" story, in which the heroine's love transforms the prince who has lost touch with his true, loving self. And yes, I wanted to wear a flouncy dress and dance in a glass pavilion with my boyfriend -- and at a ball with a lover in white tie and military medals.
The Sound of Music also introduced this Protestant girl to the existence of nuns, and while I couldn't fully understand why, I loved the image of these women living in a gated community dedicated to God and faith. They were smart and funny and more than capable of dealing with any problem, and I felt a yearning to be part of that. I knew I loved men too much to want to give up relationships with them, but a part of me felt very at home with the idea of convent life. I suspect that I have at least one past life as a member of a religious order.
Of course I grew up before VHS and DVD, so watching each of these movies on television once a year was a special ritual, usually accompanied by popcorn or other treat. When my family got our first VHS player, these were among the first movies we purchased, and they are still on my shelves today, although I don't watch them often.
Actually, it's probably time to watch them both again. . .
I had two favorite movies, The Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music (which I saw at the Cinerama when I was very young), and they stayed my favorites until I was twelve and Star Wars came out.
"Over the Rainbow" was my theme song for a very long time. I grew up in a mill town, and I wanted desperately to be caught up in an adventure that would take me to a magical land, or just someplace else. Dorothy was my first heroine, and my earliest writing was focused on a young woman who was taken to strange new worlds and found staunch companions to help her learn what she needed to learn. (Good grief. . . I never realized before this moment just how close the parallel was. Okay, so on further reflections it's a classic hero's journey pattern.)
Besides being captivated by the drama of The Sound of Music, especially in the second half of the film, I think it profoundly shaped my ideas about romantic love. I never aspired to being a mother, and being a governess and then taking on someone else's seven kids as steps never appealed to me, but I loved Captain von Trapp as a man long before I was sexually awakened. Maybe it was because his dignity and presence reminded me of my own father. In any case, he was the romantic standard by which I judged my male companions for many years, which wasn't particularly fair to the adolescents around me! The Sound of Music is also a kind of "Beauty and the Beast" story, in which the heroine's love transforms the prince who has lost touch with his true, loving self. And yes, I wanted to wear a flouncy dress and dance in a glass pavilion with my boyfriend -- and at a ball with a lover in white tie and military medals.
The Sound of Music also introduced this Protestant girl to the existence of nuns, and while I couldn't fully understand why, I loved the image of these women living in a gated community dedicated to God and faith. They were smart and funny and more than capable of dealing with any problem, and I felt a yearning to be part of that. I knew I loved men too much to want to give up relationships with them, but a part of me felt very at home with the idea of convent life. I suspect that I have at least one past life as a member of a religious order.
Of course I grew up before VHS and DVD, so watching each of these movies on television once a year was a special ritual, usually accompanied by popcorn or other treat. When my family got our first VHS player, these were among the first movies we purchased, and they are still on my shelves today, although I don't watch them often.
Actually, it's probably time to watch them both again. . .
