Why do we go to the movies?
Aside from entertainment, or to learn something about the human condition, or because the neighbourhood Classic Bowl was closed due to a tragic gutter ball accident, I mean.
Speaking for myself, I know I go to the movies to fall in love.
It's like the safest one-night stand you can ever have, except instead of a physical connection (and risk), falling in love with someone in a film approaches the spiritual (and its accordant risk). I can vividly recall my cinematic loves, like the girl on Gordon Street, or the girl with a white parasol, glorious technicolour beauties with 5.1 surround voices, stuck in two dimensions and shared with strangers in the dark.
Rachel Weisz in THE MUMMY. Audrey Tautou in AMELIE. Eva Marie Saint in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Leslie Bibb in SEX AND DEATH 101. Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG. Rachael Leigh Cook in ... well, pretty much anything, but definitely SHE'S ALL THAT.
And Michelle Pfeiffer in BATMAN RETURNS.
Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer. Did you have any idea what you were doing when you stepped into Catwoman's knee-high boots? Did you set out to inflame desire and break hearts?
You played the demure secretary-turned sex kitten with such relish, such joy, that it's impossible to not fall in love with this performance. You play Selina Kyle as the epitome of confused female empowerment, an even-more perfect study in duality than the film's protagonist: both reveling in and scared by your power, alternately abused and loved by men, a product of society and trashing it at the same time. These are powerful forces, maybe too powerful for some viewers.
I would have been six in 1992, when BATMAN RETURNS came out. I didn't even know what the words were for what was happening to me. I wanted to save Catwoman; I wanted to make Selina Kyle smile. I wanted to hug Selina Kyle; I wanted to do ... something... to Catwoman. Only by looking back, can I name my pain: heartache. I'm no developmental psychologist, but I'd guess that six years old is too young for a boy to fall in love and have his heart broken. And Michelle Pfeiffer did it all in just 126 minutes, one chilly night in, of all places for a star-crossed romance, sleepy small-town Mississauga (a town so sleepy, we had a town mascot named 'Mister Sauga'. Now that's a tired PR staff).
That's the great tragedy of falling in love with film characters, of course - the credits are coming, and then it's all over. We'll be free to watch the film again, but it'll just be revisiting a memory. You only fall in love once, right? And like the hopeless romantics on a missed connections message board, we're doomed to relive those moments again and again.
But like those poor devils who exchange brief-but-meaningful glances from opposing subway cars, we eventually realize that there's always a new train coming (films are now trains, who are, of course, girls, in this horribly overwrought metaphor). We might only fall in love once, but if the string of names I listed above are any indication, we might not. We inevitably recognize that there are plenty of fish in the sea. Get it? Sea? 'C'? Catwoman!
Perhaps there are plenty of fish, but we can never forget the first time we were caught. Thank you, Ms. Pfieffer, for giving me another reason to go to the movies. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO.
Your post definitely strikes a chord with me Brandon.I've had a thing for Michelle Pfeiffer since way back, but it was Married To The Mob that started it all for me.
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough I also posted about Batman Returns on my blog Pfeiffer Pfilms And Meg Movies earlier this week.You're right you can never forget the first time you were caught.