Sideways, revisited

[fflo]

Sideways is at the $2.50 theater; saw it tonight with lovelikeyeast. It bore a repeat quite well, I must say. Among other things I was able to notice how many segments or episodes it has---it kept surprising me with stuff I'd forgotten. I also enjoyed thinking about, and briefly pow-wowing with LLY about, that moment we all know (one of which occurs in the film) in which the tension of possible/pending/opportunity-for sex is peaking, and how we handle that moment. (Unlike our protagonist, if I panic, I tend to blurt out something verbally about the panic itself.) (Which, you might be surprised to hear, doesn't necessarily quash the, uh, "potentiality" of the moment.)

What struck me most this time, though---so much so that I feel embarrassed for not having grasped it the first time---is what seems to be the movie's strongest "message," to me, tonight anyway.

So, our protagonist is a schlub of depression and bogged-down self-pity, of course. And the film pokes some fun at him for it, and even his asshole buddy has something to offer, in that the jerk's right about Miles' needing to get up and go out and get into something---even if Jack's shallow version of getting laid isn't quite right for our guy. But in the end, even our schlub sees that he's better off than the laughably childish morally bankrupt deceptive one. It's almost as if he goes along with cleaning up the muck (going back for the wallet, and tolerating wrecking the car WORSE, after the first "surprise!" time) because he glimpsed, while Jack is sputtering crying on the bed, that it could be worse: he could be that guy. And he's not. That guy's lack of the wholeness of integrity (a word born again for me after O. talk) leaves Miles (and us), after enough exposure to it, in simple head-shaking incredulity at its completeness, its astounding extent. Miles takes pity on Jack at the same time he is to be henceforth psychologically distant from him forever, stuck as he is with the knowledge that he himself may be pathetic, but Jack is infinitely moreso.

(Or should I call him "Jack-off"?) {wink, squirrelykat!}

In the end the film seems to suggest that the kind of real connection Miles wants to make---wants to have & to have had---may sometimes lead to maudlin wallowing (occasionally in the form of "drinking and dialing," among other ugly possibilities), but at the same time it's what makes him genuine. What makes him allow compassion into his moral universe. And thus what makes him better off than the shallow a-hole playboy dickhead idiot juvenile buddy.

One way of looking at the movie, I guess I'm saying, is as a morality play on the ways these two flawed guys choose to live. Somehow I missed that the first time.

The "pinot" speech felt too transparent again this time, too, but I forgive it the aesthetic strobe light effect---cuz I'm choosing to think that the movie, like the character, is trying to talk about feelings in that masculinely unadept way that's part of the characterization of Miles at that point. Not that the speech in unadept. It's really pretty sweet---too sweet. The unadeptness is the having to think it or say it about grapes. The necessity of metaphor for the easily wounded.

Of course metaphor is kind of a more interesting way to talk about emotions, in a way. Gives it a concreteness lacking in the broad philosophical strokes.

Too tired to say this stuff better now. Just this: funny how different the film seems to me a few months later. There are ways in which that difference seems to speak to my recent experience. (Perhaps any of ya'll readers still with me should be glad I'm too zonked to get into that more overtly tonight.)

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for me that speech is where the film is most American mainstream gotta-hit-'em-over-the-head-with-metaphor. But the way it makes the moment stand out like a sore thumb isn't so bad to me, in a way, cuz those sorts of do-or-don't moments are practically endlessly interesting to me.

So, would you say that the dramatic peak of the film is the moment when Miles is watching Jack, who is sitting on the end of the bed naked in his blanket crying, plead to him for help? Seemed that way to me, on second viewing.

Sorry to hear you were identifying with the schmuck! I would counter by suggesting gently that perhaps it's not just sex that you're longing for; that you haven't succeeded in being terribly deceptive NOR in being technically unfaithful; that you're hardly without moral qualms about it, and certainly not completely indifferent to others' feelings to the point of seeming ignorant of the very existence of those feeling. Moreover, let's not forget that a certain amount of self-centeredness is called for, as we are centered in ourselves---not to mention that women are socialized to take care of everybody else first and you have hardly been, in recent years, in shocking rebellious defiance of that role, if you see what I'm saying.

In my experience it's not the cruelly selfish who are wont to express concern about having been too self-centered.

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

You're probably right that I don't completely lack a moral sense. Don't knoe what it is about that boy that can make me totally ignore the one I have, at least temporarily. But I guess I do come back to it in the end, if that counts for anything.

Yeah, Jack crying on the bed, in the position of finally having to "sow what he reaped" was the dramatic peak, I think. Of course, then Miles helps him to escape his consequences, but I think that was because Miles could recognize that Jack would not learn from the consequences anyway. (That's just my conjecture there, perhaps fed by my own focus of late on dealing with consequences of one's own actions.) Miles's realization that at least he's not THAT guy gave him two possible courses of action, and he chose the one that was more compassionate towrd his friend.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that when we put the disk in, Brian accidentally started it with the option for "actors' commentary" on. We atched the opening credits before we realized that this was not how the movie was supposed to start. I think I might like to go back and watch the film again with the commentary on, if only because the two leads were pretty entertaining in their discussion of the opening.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I think it's the climax because it's when Miles has a light bulb go off, and though he goes ahead and bails Jack out, he's realized he's not Peter Pan himself, and from then on he's going to try to do the right thing. Like, I think we're supposed to think he wouldn't steal from his mother's coffee can after that, you know? When we see the overhead shot near the end & he's driving away from the stream of cars going to the reception, he's not just avoiding further encounters with his ex- at that point, but taking another metaphorical path (of course) (there's that over-the-head stuff again) to find his own adult direction. I think.

Of course I might have said that above, cuz I'm only responding to your most recent comment, and it's been a while since I wrote this entry.

If you do watch it with the commentary on before you send it back, let me know what int'restin' stuff you find out, okay?