a night alone with fellini

I went alone to a double feature last night of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" and "La Strada". I love going to the movies alone. I love being there without distractions, particularly because I get swept away and when I leave a good film I am walking within it for hours after I leave the theater. If you go with other people, they politely ask you if you liked it, if you didn't then why, and then some choose to dissect it until its lost it's meaning. I just prefer to walk in silence with my thoughts staying put inside my head.

The venue was the historic Castro Theater in my neighborhood here in San Francisco. Before each film the little organ player donning a suit jacket rises out of the stage playing theme music to the featured film on the elevating organ. That's when I sink back in my chair and let the eyes well up with tears while spreading a huge grin on my face. That's where I saw the film Bubba Hotep and so the organ player had played Elvis songs that night and the other theater goers went wild while my eyes welled up with tears from the excitement of it all!

It's funny noting how we've grown or changed when we revisit places, films, music, books we once experienced years before. For example, the first time I saw "La Dolce Vita" 6 or 7 years ago I so adored the women's statuesque faces, gigantic eyes and eyebrows, their dark hair and sexy voices, their feline movements. Marcello's grainy voice and dapper attire. Then a few years later it was the extravagant party scenes that allured me. How I wanted to take Nico's arm as they all went ghost hunting that evening and she wore the metal knight's helmet and laughed her boorish laugh "a-hoo-hoo-hoo". This time I was excited to see Steiner, I didn't know it until Marcello ran into the church after he saw him enter it. I suddenly remembered him faintly and my heart sped as they went up to the organ loft and Steiner played a sad Bach tune on the organ. I found myself waiting anxiously for more Steiner. I choked when he said "Don't be like me. Salvation doesn't lie within four walls. I'm too serious to be a dilettante and too much a dabbler to be a professional. Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected."

It would be interesting to keep a movie journal. Make a section for each great film you know you will see again and again until you pass away, to note how you change, note what sticks out to you each time. I want to cry for Steiner because to me he was real. I suppose to me he is me. How horrid was it when his wife got off the bus and the paparazzi flooded her and she smiled and asked "Did you mistake me for an actress?" having no idea that her children and husband were awaiting her at their home...dead. Steiner killed them as they slept and then killed himself. She held her little packages and groceries she had just bought. How meaningless those items were about to become. Oh I am so depressed momentarily.

And then I saw "La Strada" and found myself loving the boorish male protagonist Zampano. I don't know why I am sometimes so fascinated with brutish animalistic men who don't hold any thoughts in their heads except the most basic and banal immediate concerns. he reminded me of Jake LaMotta in "Raging Bull", pure animal. I was crying so much when Zampano started crying on the beach after finding out Gelsomina had died, it was the only time his character showed any emotion other than anger. I ran out of the theater so fast as soon as the credits rolled. My face was wet the whole walk home. I enjoyed the cold air making it sting my face. Oh my heart is suffering so right now....