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tripping so hard right now -
Sep. 2nd, 2011 05:29 pmI just watched the first half of Brazil again. Shit. Why do I do these things to myself? Now I'm all wound and twitchy. It's the oscillation between the horrible claustrophobia dystopia and those wonderful dreamy flying scenes - the flying stuff opens me up all the way, strips all of my protective cynicism off, engages my heart fully, and then the crash back into dystopia just destroys me.
No fair, Terry Gilliam. You can do horrible dystopias, but it's not fair to throw in yearning violins and silver wings.
I saw Brazil for the first time as a really little kid - maybe eight or nine? - and those flying sequences haunted me for years. It's funny. The more I teach, the more amazed and somewhat ambivalent I am about how my parents handled that sort of thing with me. Because I feel such pressure to be gentle and safe with my college students, to protect them as they try to begin to deal with reality in all of its messiness, and my mom and dad just threw me into it. Here, little girl, watch Brazil. Watch Mononoke-hime. Read Brave New World. And Lord of the Flies. And The Once and Future King. And, you know, just deal with it. I grew up feeling like I wasn't allowed to not look - I didn't want to, but I felt some sort of weird deep responsibility to see all the messy. And now I'm not sure if I'm coddling my students too much, or if I was thrust into things a bit too far, too fast. Likely both things are true.
No fair, Terry Gilliam. You can do horrible dystopias, but it's not fair to throw in yearning violins and silver wings.
I saw Brazil for the first time as a really little kid - maybe eight or nine? - and those flying sequences haunted me for years. It's funny. The more I teach, the more amazed and somewhat ambivalent I am about how my parents handled that sort of thing with me. Because I feel such pressure to be gentle and safe with my college students, to protect them as they try to begin to deal with reality in all of its messiness, and my mom and dad just threw me into it. Here, little girl, watch Brazil. Watch Mononoke-hime. Read Brave New World. And Lord of the Flies. And The Once and Future King. And, you know, just deal with it. I grew up feeling like I wasn't allowed to not look - I didn't want to, but I felt some sort of weird deep responsibility to see all the messy. And now I'm not sure if I'm coddling my students too much, or if I was thrust into things a bit too far, too fast. Likely both things are true.