{"id":2841,"date":"2005-04-21T16:13:15","date_gmt":"2005-04-21T20:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2841"},"modified":"2022-10-09T16:50:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T20:50:18","slug":"celluloid-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=2841","title":{"rendered":"Celluloid Dreams: Movies I Would Like To Live In"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the comments section to Dan’s post on Cary Grant<\/a>, I said that I wanted to live<\/i> in the world of Only Angels Have Wings<\/i>. Dan suggested that would be a good idea for a post: Movies you would like to live in.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by the fact that I want to live<\/i> at that airport in South America somewhere, portrayed in Only Angels Have Wings<\/i>? Well, first of all … here’s a still from the movie which kind of describes everything.<\/p>\n

I mean, what else do I have to say?<\/p>\n

No, but seriously. The world of that movie comes across as so vivid, so interesting … I just want to slip inside the television screen and hang out there with those people. I want to have a drink with Dutchie, the owner of the bar who walks around with a parrot on his shoulder. I want to have the pilots fight over who gets to buy me a drink. I want to play the piano. I want to stand in the fog and watch the planes fly in and out. I want to sleep in a small room with Venetian blinds, and live out of a small battered suitcase. I could go on and on. I just love<\/i> the world of that movie.<\/p>\n

Other movies I want to live in:<\/p>\n

— Notting Hill<\/i>. I want to be friends with that entire cast of characters. I want to stroll along at the open-air market, and then go hang out with my group of friends and drink wine. I want to have romantic dramas, and have everyone gossip about me in a good-natured way. I just love the world in that movie, even if it is just a fantasy.<\/p>\n

— Fargo<\/i>. I know it’s bleak and snowy and the mornings are dark and cold. I love it. I want to go to the all-you-can-eat buffet with those people, and talk about my life, or not talk about my life. Whatever. I want to have a cup of coffee with Marge Gunderson and her kindly husband. They’re such good people. I want to stand at my window and look out at the whited-out world, with a roaring fire behind me. But mainly, it’s the people I want to meet.<\/p>\n

— The Big Easy<\/i>. Sure all those cops are corrupt, but they’re sexy! I LOVE that movie. It’s got a typical plot, but what makes the film special is how it completely evokes an entire world (not to mention what is, perhaps, the steamiest sex scene EVER – it’s steamy because it is emotional. Those two specific<\/i> characters, with all their emotional baggage, are trying to come together. There’s no nudity, nothing like that. But … God, almighty.) Anyway, it could be just your typical corrupt-cop fights-his-own-corruption story – except that the world outside of the police station is portrayed with such detail. You can feel the heaviness of the air, you can see how the light is soft and mellow, you can tell that an ice-cold beer would taste so good. I want to go to those parties where people play banjos, and I want to get tipsy at juke joints, and I want to take a run in the muggy evening air. And then go make out in a crumpled-up bed with a corrupt cop.<\/p>\n

— Contact<\/i>. I don’t know what it is. That movie GETS to me. I want to live in the entire thing. I love all those people. I love all the guys who work at the telescope installations or whatever you call them – I want to hang out with those people. Staring up at the night sky. Talking about “little green men”. I want to live that ENTIRE MOVIE. Being close to enormous events, almost being able to touch them, squinting up into the darkness at what we do not know … I think every scene in that film has such specificity: her room in South America, for example. It seemed like such a real place. The map with all the push-pins on it, the blinds drawn, the bed that looks so slept in – like she never makes the bed – she always just leaps awake and races out to go to the telescope, the abundant greenery outside. Good movies create entire worlds.<\/p>\n

— To Have and Have Not<\/i>. Again with the evocation of an entire world. And you know that they did it with re-used movie sets!! They weren’t on Martinique or wherever they were supposed to be, they were in Hollywood! But still – there is an end-of-the-world sensibility to the film, and I would love to be there to partake in it. Strolling through the nightclubs, maybe dancing with someone, maybe not. Befriending a piano player. Drinking whiskey and singing along around the piano, with all of the other stranded misfits, waiting for the end of the world to come. And I LOVE the hotel they were staying in. I want to stay in a hotel like that. Especially if Bogart was across the hall.<\/p>\n

— Ball of Fire<\/i>. Oh please. Let me step into that movie. I will be the floozy kind-hearted showgirl, and I will hang out in that CAVERNOUS mansion with all the scholars. I love that mansion. You can almost smell the dust in the rooms. But it’s expansive, it’s filled with books, and globes, and heavy dark wood furniture. Not to mention Gary Cooper on the scene. But I love all of those people, and I also love the bed she gets to sleep in. I would love to spend some time in the world of Ball of Fire<\/i>. Oh, and FUGGEDABOUT the nightclub scene: what I would not give for a time machine to go back to the era of nightclubs like THAT. With Gene Krupa<\/a> and his orchestra playing?? Are you KIDDING ME?? Oh, man … To be there! It reminds me of one of my favorite lines from a Nancy Lemann novel: “She had a nostalgia for a life she never led.” I have never led the life of a 1940s showgirl, but I have a nostalgia for it anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the comments section to Dan’s post on Cary Grant, I said that I wanted to live in the world of Only Angels Have Wings. Dan suggested that would be a good idea for a post: Movies you would like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[1318,488,427],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2841"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178390,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2841\/revisions\/178390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}