On a whim last night I settled down to watch an old movie I'd downloaded a few days before. The movie was Goodbye, Columbus. I'd been prompted to download as I'm reading another Phillip Roth story from that era, Portnoy's Complaint.
I reckon I hadn't watched Goodbye, Columbus for over 20 years. In my memory it was the story of a slightly smart-arse Jewish man from working class background (a Roth staple from this period) meeting with and falling in love with the archetypical Jewish princess with the doting dad living in comfortable splendour. Naturally the relationship was doomed to failure, but in my memory I recalled it amusingly, focussing, I think, on the lustful possibilities of the union fully played out.
I wonder about memory often. Movies and literature live beyond the moment if they are good. They are more than a few hours diversion, they become part of the thin fabric that wraps around you as you go about your daily life. They live in your memory even if they are submerged within it. They accrete to you like psuedo-experiences, so much so that I find it perfectly feasible that people occasionally wonder if the the things they remember are theirs or a figment of some unrecalled movie or book.
I have occasionally believed that these movies transmogrify in our memory, but watching last night I had cause to re-consider that. I had distinct memories of Goodbye, Columbus that were represented in my mind by light and colours, and by moments within the movie. Watching it again much of it seemed different, the emphasis slightly shifted from what I remembered. The movie hadn't changed, and while it's easy to argue that my memory is playing tricks I don't think that's true. Rather I think it is two other influences at play.
It's rare you remember anything complete. For whatever reason your memory is selective, it remembers scenes and moments, colours and light, while the rest fades away into a grey background. What you recall are generally the most vivid and personally compelling moments of the show. Without the scenes that link them though there is no real context, our memories are warped not by the magic of the mind, but rather by what we don't remember.
The other critical difference is us, the viewer.
Thinking back to when I last saw this movie the era it was set in - the late sixties - though unfamiliar to me would not have seemed as distant and removed as it does now. More particularly I was different. I was young. I would have looked upon this movie with an amused hunger, expecting that much that was portrayed on screen would some day soon be not dissimilar to the context of my own life.
Watching again I remembered how I would have lusted after the Ali McGraw character, at her slinky, tanned, ivy league body and the sense of entitlement she so naturally assumed. That's an attractive challenge to any man, but particularly one young and hungry, ambitious for life and lustful for all the joys and pleasures of it. I was that man then, that boy. I watched that movie thinking well one day I'll do that, I'll live like that, one day I will take a big bite and chew hard.
Watching again 30 years later much of what I imagined then has since come to pass in one way or another. I have lived fully, enjoyed many of those joys and pleasures as I once imagined. I hope much more of that is ahead of me, and I felt no less lust for Ali McGraw last night than I did 30 years ago, but it is not mystery anymore, not even expectation. I have taken one bite after after another, have chewed hard on the best and worst of life: I see then with different eyes.
In a way then watching last night was like seeing it for the first time. I was effectively looking back with the benefit of my own experience, rather than looking forward with the lurid imagination of a teenager. I appreciated the art of the story more and appreciated the poignant truth of it that I overlooked before.
For a man this is a classic coming of age story. For a woman viewing there is something more I think, the desire to please father and the often complex relationship that entails. In many ways it is cliched, the boy from the wrong side of the tracks falling for the princess. For a while it is golden between them, but the differences in background and the pressures of expectation and family drive them apart. The summer ends, winter comes, innocence is lost.
Well, we all know that, but it is no less poignant for that. We all have those stories, those moments, those regrets. Watching I saw my own life within that perspective. A favourite Frank Sinatra song came to mind, A Very Good Year. Everytime I hear it I relate it back to my own life, those women along the way and the tales that go with them. Neil, the main character in the movie, is set at the end of it to take a similar journey.
At the end of the movie I realised I had enjoyed it again. Roth is a great writer with a very particular worldview and wit. The movie is dated a little, more in style than content - it seems very much a sixties movie. The writing is good though, Ali McGraw gorgeous, Jack Klugman great as her father, and Richard Benjamin the perfect embodiment of the Rothean hero, smart, lustful, a little self-conscious, and ultimately worldly if not completely wise.
