Fearless, starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez, is on my perpetual “top movies I love” list. It’s not a perfect movie, I can see its flaws as I watch it, but the flaws don’t seem to matter. Every time I watch it, I see something different. My experience with it has developed. I have grown in my life, my outlook, since the first time I saw it … and so the movie itself seems to change. Even though it’s really ME that changes. You know what I mean? That, to me, is the definition of a great film. I don’t care about its flaws. There are only a couple other movies that NEVER leave that “top movies I love” list. Others come and go, but there are some that NEVER get bumped out. Fearless is one of them. Another one is Running on Empty. Same thing. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen that film – and each time, it seems to be a slightly different movie. And yet – the things that WORK in the film, NEVER stop working. The same things KILL me. The same scenes KILL me. Empire Strikes Back is also a movie that will never be bumped off that elite top list. It’s been, what, quarter of a century since the damn thing came out? I have no idea. But my love for that movie, my excitement about it, my own “oh, yay, here comes this part!!!” response to it NEVER palls. No matter how many times I see it.
I watched Fearless again last night. And once again, reveled in Peter Weir’s mastery of mood, of story, of visual filmmaking. There are images in the movie, brief glimpses, that are not explained. That will never be fully explained. Just like in life.
The movie does not leave my questions unanswered in order to be clever, or purposefully oblique. It’s not trying to HIDE its meaning. It’s just that there are certain things, in life, in being a human being, that can’t be explained rationally. Sometimes, you just lie in the sand by your car, and you have a sort of out-of-body experience. You suddenly feel: Oh my God. I. Am. Alive.
Those moments are what that movie is about.
Underrated: Part 2
Red writes about one of my favorite movies, the criminally-underrated Fearless, with Rosie Perez and Jeff Bridges….
Sheila:
Thank you SO much for acknowledging the scene in Fearless with the spit.
I have a theory that relates to this type of behavior. I believe it has to do with a form of depression or shock. It’s the way that the mind seems to function after something happens that makes one feel completely alone.
I react this way sometimes when by myself, and it proves to be difficult to achieve much, largely because I seem to question the purpose of so many things. I feel that this sort of behavior started with me when I lost my Father at age 10. The mind goes in directions completely unrelated to a task at hand, and simple things that usually don’t seem to matter much are the most interesting things in the world.
I’m kind of straying from the point, but to give an example, I might take me a bit longer than usual to get up and out in the morning. I don’t sleep in or anything like that, but I might become completely and unecessarily fascinated with lint in a sunbeam, or how a slit of sunlight plays along the shower curtain in the bathroom, or my view out the window of the trees quietly leaning to and fro in the distance seem enthralling, until I’m brought back by some pressing matter at hand.
It might explain why I find fish so fascinating. Anyway, the short version of my comment is that I can relate to what that scene illustrates, and I’m glad you mentioned it.
All of you…stop staring at me. I mean it. ;)
Awesome. Awesome interpretation of that moment. Thanks for sharing it.
Hi. I just rewatched this movie after 10 yrs or so. Definitely on my top ten all time. I thought perez was incredibly believable in her grief and recovery. I thought the laceration on Max’s side was supposed to mirror the wound on the crucified christ (an image of which max and carla saw on their trip to Oakland). A friend of mine viewed the movie for the first time and loved it. Sandy