A few years ago my high school class held its 30th reunion. I did not go. A few weeks afterwards a friend sent me a link to a website that had pictures of the attendees, mostly couples. I knew most of these people, some of them quite well. But I only recognized one or two of them. I’m sure I have changed a lot in 30 years. Even though the change has been gradual, sometimes I am nonplussed when I look into a mirror. Nothing could prepare me, however, for the shock of seeing my classmates. They looked old. It wasn’t just a chronological age, though. They looked done: Stick a fork in them. They looked like people for whom the Early Bird Special was the highlight of the day.
Now these were people in their early fifties. I heard someone on the radio the other day say that 50 is the new 30. An exaggeration, to be sure, but still, in this day and age why should 50ish people look so over the hill? I recently discussed this with another friend of mine from the same class who doesn’t have that look. He looks quite a bit younger than these people, and so do I (to be fair he looks ten years younger than I). It doesn’t hurt that neither of us has much gray hair, a natural phenomenon (in my case, at least.)
A major difference, we observed, was that most of the people at the reunion knew what they wanted to do early, finished college and went to work at good jobs and succeeded at their goals. That is an admirable thing. For the most part they looked happy and satisfied. Good for them. What is different about my friend and I is that we are still trying to figure out what we are going to do when we grow up. We have both had some successes and live comfortable, yet unextravagant lives. But we aren’t satisfied. We’re still trying, still hungry for achievement. Neither of us have found that satisfaction, unless you consider the striving for it to be the satisfaction istelf. It is a rather existential satisfaction, like Camus’ Sisyphus rolling the stone up the hill.
I think New York has something to do with that. It is a city of strivers. Author David McCullough commented on the Brooklyn Bridge being a symbol of monumental effort, something which characterizes the essence of New York City. Some days just getting to work requires overcoming adversity: traffic, subway delays, overcrowding, bad attitudes, climbing stairs when you’re too tired… But we thrive on the struggle, the minor ones like the commute or the major ones, like 9/11. It is not uncommon to see an elderly, stooped over New Yorker struggling with a walker to get to the market and return, with the bag tied to the walker. Perhaps in the snow. I live in a walk up building, and there used to be an elderly woman on the fifth floor who went out every day to get her six pack of Meister Brau and she would come back and walk up one flight, then sit and rest, walk up the next flight, then sit and rest, and so on. And she always seemed immensely happy. She conversed with people who passed during her rest periods, and that was her social time of the day. It is my hope, and indeed my belief, that she enjoyed every drop of the cheap beer she struggled every day to get.
New York is full of dreamers (and schemers). Everybody, young and old, has some angle going that is going to make life better. Some are full of shit, and some are con artists, but many of them are actually doing something to fulfill the dream. Even if they don’t fulfill it, the dreaming itself is worth something.
I am grateful for the struggle. Every time I get smacked in the face by the harsh realities of the city, and I overcome it, I feel a rush of possibility. I can do anything. I design computer networks and challenge the organizational structure and habits of my company. I write. I make videos for YouTube. I still search for what I am going to do next and get excited by how much fun it will be. My friend makes films and is on the verge of a major success. And though the climb up the subway stairs makes my body feel each day of my 54 years, I still dream like a high school kid with his future in front of him. That’s why I don’t need to go to a high school reunion. I haven’t graduated yet.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Movie Review: Zodiac
Last night I saw David Fincher's (Se7en, Fight Club, Panic Room) new film Zodiac, about the serial killings by the Zodiac Murderer in and around San Francisco in the late 60s and early 70s. The crimes were never officially solved, but Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, pursued the case relentlessly until he believed he solved the case. The film is based on two books that he wrote.
Graysmith is played by Jake Gyllenhaal who solidly captures the obsession that is the core of the film. It is an obsession with detail and concentration. Initially Graysmith is a bystander who observes crime reporter Paul Avery, portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. in a brilliant performance (not unusual for Mr. Downey) that stories the decline from louche, cocky, but alert journalist to bitter, addicted has-been. Avery's main source is Detective Dave Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo as a cross between Serpico and Columbo. The three leads are actors I love to watch; they have a way of getting under your skin. Chloe Sevigny plays Graysmith's frumpy wife, still atoning for her Brown Bunny fiasco.
Acknowledging it's cinematic predecessors, one scene takes place at an SFPD screening of Dirty Harry, built around a fictionalized version of the Zodiac killings. Ruffalo is at least once referred to as Bullitt, a nod to the fact that Toschi was the role model for Steve McQueen's Bullitt. The killer was apparently inspired by the 1932 film, The Most Dangerous Game. This path of inquiry leads Graysmith to a creepy scene in a dank basement with a spookily effective Charles Fleischer.
As the case moves on, Graysmith transforms from interested bystander to the prime mover of a cold case. He fervently hunts down minutiae and accumulates small facts and connects the dots to draw a map that leads him to a face-to-face encounter with a man that he looks in the eye and believes is the killer. It is a testament to perseverance and concentration, even to the detriment of his family life.
Fincher seems to identify with Graysmith. The film has no sweeping narrative chords, but is a note-by-note construction. The story is very dense and intricate, but the filmmaker seizes details with the same fervor as his cinematic counterpoint and ultimately attains clarity, if not certainty.
The cinematographer Harris Savides finds ways to illuminate Fincher's penchant for darkness so that it isn't the burden it was in Se7en. Though much of the film takes place at night or in dark places, Savides finds highlights and contrasts that give enough glow to reveal the visual information we need to be pulled into the scene.
There are some excellent performances in small roles, notably Philip Baker Hall as a handwriting analyst, another devotee of detail and concentration; Anthony Edwards as Toschi's partner who doesn't have the stomach for homicide; and the ubiquitous Brian Cox as attorney Melvin Belli, who gets caught up in the media circus of Zodiac. I am old enough to remember when there were only two celebrity lawyers: F. Lee Bailey of Chicago, and Melvin Belli of San Francisco. Both were showmen and self-promoters. Cox approaches the role with a serio-comic flair.
Graysmith is played by Jake Gyllenhaal who solidly captures the obsession that is the core of the film. It is an obsession with detail and concentration. Initially Graysmith is a bystander who observes crime reporter Paul Avery, portrayed by Robert Downey, Jr. in a brilliant performance (not unusual for Mr. Downey) that stories the decline from louche, cocky, but alert journalist to bitter, addicted has-been. Avery's main source is Detective Dave Toschi, played by Mark Ruffalo as a cross between Serpico and Columbo. The three leads are actors I love to watch; they have a way of getting under your skin. Chloe Sevigny plays Graysmith's frumpy wife, still atoning for her Brown Bunny fiasco.
Acknowledging it's cinematic predecessors, one scene takes place at an SFPD screening of Dirty Harry, built around a fictionalized version of the Zodiac killings. Ruffalo is at least once referred to as Bullitt, a nod to the fact that Toschi was the role model for Steve McQueen's Bullitt. The killer was apparently inspired by the 1932 film, The Most Dangerous Game. This path of inquiry leads Graysmith to a creepy scene in a dank basement with a spookily effective Charles Fleischer.
As the case moves on, Graysmith transforms from interested bystander to the prime mover of a cold case. He fervently hunts down minutiae and accumulates small facts and connects the dots to draw a map that leads him to a face-to-face encounter with a man that he looks in the eye and believes is the killer. It is a testament to perseverance and concentration, even to the detriment of his family life.
Fincher seems to identify with Graysmith. The film has no sweeping narrative chords, but is a note-by-note construction. The story is very dense and intricate, but the filmmaker seizes details with the same fervor as his cinematic counterpoint and ultimately attains clarity, if not certainty.
The cinematographer Harris Savides finds ways to illuminate Fincher's penchant for darkness so that it isn't the burden it was in Se7en. Though much of the film takes place at night or in dark places, Savides finds highlights and contrasts that give enough glow to reveal the visual information we need to be pulled into the scene.
There are some excellent performances in small roles, notably Philip Baker Hall as a handwriting analyst, another devotee of detail and concentration; Anthony Edwards as Toschi's partner who doesn't have the stomach for homicide; and the ubiquitous Brian Cox as attorney Melvin Belli, who gets caught up in the media circus of Zodiac. I am old enough to remember when there were only two celebrity lawyers: F. Lee Bailey of Chicago, and Melvin Belli of San Francisco. Both were showmen and self-promoters. Cox approaches the role with a serio-comic flair.
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