How do you maintain normal in the face of something that defies all attempts to normalize it?
It’s a question that many of us are grappling with right now, but it’s a question that some people have faced before. For example, how do you pick up and carry on during wartime? There is so much art that grapples with the impact of WWII on the daily lives of the people at home that I started to feel at a certain point in my life like I’d actually lived through it myself. That’s what happens when nostalgia is so pervasive. It’s like ‘60s nostalgia. I wasn’t born when Woodstock happened, but I swear to god there was a point in the late ‘80s when I felt like I had been there by sheer osmosis.
John Boorman is one of the many filmmakers who decided to try to capture something of that experience on film, and I find myself surprised anew by today’s Quarantine Pick O’the Day, 1987’s Hope and Glory, every time I watch it. Boorman’s a talented guy, but also a complete madman. Much of his filmography is what I would politely describe as “totally pants-shittingly crazy,” which is great. I certainly enjoy that. But Hope and Glory is something else entirely, a movie that is surprisingly unsentimental about an unconventional childhood.
I love that Boorman’s film about growing up in London during the Blitz is funny. It gives me hope. You think that your kids are going to take the worst of this, but I suspect they are actually stronger than we are. Part of what shelters children is a lack of understanding of the full breadth of what we’re facing, but part of it is that children already understand that they have no control at all over their life. Adults operate under the illusion that we’re in charge of our fate, but that’s an illusion, and a crisis on the level of a world war or a pandemic can very quickly point out to you how tenuous that control really is. Children frequently just have to accept the way the world is, and Bill (Sebastian Rice-Edwards) is forced to cope with a pretty harrowing world.
Boorman’s genius here is the way the film feels like it’s all from Bill’s emotional point of view. There’s an innocence to the film that is beautifully etched, captured most vividly in his memory of the “fireworks” over London. There are terrific performances all around, but this is a great example of an ensemble film where everyone vanishes into the reality of the world. It’s a great example of how to layer in details to create a completely persuasive reality. It feels like you step into John Boorman’s memory, but the honest and unvarnished version, not the way we normally see childhood portrayed.
Today’s primary discussion question is this: what are your favorite movies about childhood, and what is it that the film gets right for you?
As always, these Saturday Free-For-Alls are open to everyone to comment, whether you’re a subscriber or not. And you don’t just have to talk about Hope and Glory. Anything goes as long as you treat each other well. Mainly, I just hope you’re all staying safe and sane.
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I did a double bill of "12 Monkeys" and "World War Z" today- the first one I wanted to rewatch, the second one my wife wanted to rewatch. I forgot David Morse was in the latter one; do we think Brad Pitt and he will find a way to close out a post-pandemic trilogy?
It's interesting, because I was planning on revisiting "12 Monkeys" this year anyway, and coupling it with "Waterworld"- another movie that turns 25 this year- and coupling them for a discussion on post-apocalyptic cinema for my podcast. I love Gilliam's film so much.
My wife and I were actually watching "The Call of the Wild" when your post came into my Inbox last night, and I agree with what you had to say about the CG, and how it's still decent once you get past it. Watched both "Death Race 2000" and "Black Narcissus" on Criterion Channel this week for the first time- really enjoyed the former and loved the latter. I also revisited Frankenheimer's "Seconds" for the first time since college, I think. In 1996, it was the weird visual style and tone that resonated most; this time, it was the theme of trying to start over in middle age, and how that isn't as simple as it sounds. I love that movie even more now.
While E.T. is my favorite movie of my childhood, I'm not sure it's my favorite movie about childhood. I would say A CHRISTMAS STORY is my favorite movie about childhood. It perfectly captures what it's like to be a kid at that time of year. While it's silly, it's often real. I remember trying to slip gift ideas casually to my parents -- I would leave open circulars/catalogs to the exact page of what I wanted that time of year or I'd dog-ear the page. I remember the anticipation of "will I get what I want" and how some years I did and some years I was Ralphie before he got the gun. I think its popularity isn't just because it's Christmas-y -- it's because it taps into something we all can relate to on a base level. Even the lesson about ratting out your friend and getting him in trouble, or sending away for a toy to find out it's a piece of junk. That movie is so filled with real childhood lessons/experiences.
One of my favorite movies about childhood is pretty cliché, but it's Stand By Me.
What that film gets right is how boys who are friends while growing into teenagers behave and talk with each other. The cursing, the toilet-gross-out humor, the ball-busting, and the hierarchy of a group of friends and how it all works together. It's amazing that those things don't change and haven't changed, maybe not ever. Well, it's changing now and not for the better. I have more thoughts. Maybe another time.
This theme and question hits me in an uncomfortable place, as I try to navigate the emotional needs and reactions (or non-reactions) of my two teenage children, facing this crisis with parents who have never experienced it themselves, and a world that seems unprepared for it too. A lot of the time I just feel an overwhelming sadness, thinking of the time and moments they will never get back, which will always be connected to these endless days stuck indoors, away from their friends.
And then I remember that kids have lived through horrible times throughout history, and throughout the world. I think of my grandmother with two toddlers, surviving the Blitz. Their experiences, good or horrible, are their own. They will make of it what they can. It’s not up to me now to fix it. I guess? Maybe?
But an unsentimental view of childhood, especially without the ironic distance of grownups watching and thinking “those poor kids have no idea,” is rare yet amazing when it works. It reminds you that kids can live through anything. They have to.
So with that focus, my top picks would be:
ET - nails the suburban divorced family vibe without the gooey paternalism that took over Spielberg in the HOOK years.
THE REFLECTING SKIN — an absolute horror show about childhood that feels utterly familiar. “Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally.”
STAND BY ME — what “Little Women” is to girls and women, this is to guys like me. Every one of those boys is familiar as individuals, but also as aspects of boyhood. Perfect movie.
KING OF THE HILL — Unfairly forgotten Soderbergh film from his early “lost” period. But I think his best until OUT OF SIGHT. It’s like ANGELA’S ASHES, but without the misery kitsch. Because kids don’t know how bad they have it. Thank God.
For me, E.T. actually captured a lot of how I felt when I was growing up (I was 5 in 1982). The mixture of wanting to prove you can take care of things yourself, while also feeling like the world is just too big to be able to get your arms around right now, spoke true to me even though Elliot was a few years older than I was. And for a different kind of growing up, Before Sunrise is uncanny in the way it captured the intoxicating way it feels to be out on your own as a young adult for the first time and feel like the entire world is laid out before you and all futures are possible.
I hope you all are safe and sane, as well.
I did a double bill of "12 Monkeys" and "World War Z" today- the first one I wanted to rewatch, the second one my wife wanted to rewatch. I forgot David Morse was in the latter one; do we think Brad Pitt and he will find a way to close out a post-pandemic trilogy?
It's interesting, because I was planning on revisiting "12 Monkeys" this year anyway, and coupling it with "Waterworld"- another movie that turns 25 this year- and coupling them for a discussion on post-apocalyptic cinema for my podcast. I love Gilliam's film so much.
My wife and I were actually watching "The Call of the Wild" when your post came into my Inbox last night, and I agree with what you had to say about the CG, and how it's still decent once you get past it. Watched both "Death Race 2000" and "Black Narcissus" on Criterion Channel this week for the first time- really enjoyed the former and loved the latter. I also revisited Frankenheimer's "Seconds" for the first time since college, I think. In 1996, it was the weird visual style and tone that resonated most; this time, it was the theme of trying to start over in middle age, and how that isn't as simple as it sounds. I love that movie even more now.
While E.T. is my favorite movie of my childhood, I'm not sure it's my favorite movie about childhood. I would say A CHRISTMAS STORY is my favorite movie about childhood. It perfectly captures what it's like to be a kid at that time of year. While it's silly, it's often real. I remember trying to slip gift ideas casually to my parents -- I would leave open circulars/catalogs to the exact page of what I wanted that time of year or I'd dog-ear the page. I remember the anticipation of "will I get what I want" and how some years I did and some years I was Ralphie before he got the gun. I think its popularity isn't just because it's Christmas-y -- it's because it taps into something we all can relate to on a base level. Even the lesson about ratting out your friend and getting him in trouble, or sending away for a toy to find out it's a piece of junk. That movie is so filled with real childhood lessons/experiences.
One of my favorite movies about childhood is pretty cliché, but it's Stand By Me.
What that film gets right is how boys who are friends while growing into teenagers behave and talk with each other. The cursing, the toilet-gross-out humor, the ball-busting, and the hierarchy of a group of friends and how it all works together. It's amazing that those things don't change and haven't changed, maybe not ever. Well, it's changing now and not for the better. I have more thoughts. Maybe another time.
This theme and question hits me in an uncomfortable place, as I try to navigate the emotional needs and reactions (or non-reactions) of my two teenage children, facing this crisis with parents who have never experienced it themselves, and a world that seems unprepared for it too. A lot of the time I just feel an overwhelming sadness, thinking of the time and moments they will never get back, which will always be connected to these endless days stuck indoors, away from their friends.
And then I remember that kids have lived through horrible times throughout history, and throughout the world. I think of my grandmother with two toddlers, surviving the Blitz. Their experiences, good or horrible, are their own. They will make of it what they can. It’s not up to me now to fix it. I guess? Maybe?
But an unsentimental view of childhood, especially without the ironic distance of grownups watching and thinking “those poor kids have no idea,” is rare yet amazing when it works. It reminds you that kids can live through anything. They have to.
So with that focus, my top picks would be:
ET - nails the suburban divorced family vibe without the gooey paternalism that took over Spielberg in the HOOK years.
THE REFLECTING SKIN — an absolute horror show about childhood that feels utterly familiar. “Sometimes terrible things happen quite naturally.”
STAND BY ME — what “Little Women” is to girls and women, this is to guys like me. Every one of those boys is familiar as individuals, but also as aspects of boyhood. Perfect movie.
KING OF THE HILL — Unfairly forgotten Soderbergh film from his early “lost” period. But I think his best until OUT OF SIGHT. It’s like ANGELA’S ASHES, but without the misery kitsch. Because kids don’t know how bad they have it. Thank God.
For me, E.T. actually captured a lot of how I felt when I was growing up (I was 5 in 1982). The mixture of wanting to prove you can take care of things yourself, while also feeling like the world is just too big to be able to get your arms around right now, spoke true to me even though Elliot was a few years older than I was. And for a different kind of growing up, Before Sunrise is uncanny in the way it captured the intoxicating way it feels to be out on your own as a young adult for the first time and feel like the entire world is laid out before you and all futures are possible.