Tags: a boy at his volcano day 1518
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I find it hard to describe the value I ascribed to art at this age. I was an easy addict to the magic of movies, as early as I can remember, no matter the genre. The reverie was absolute, in this incredible beauty of elements drawn together in tandem; the actors, the imagery, the story. All four of us kids were the same for a time – give us anything to watch, and we'd lose ourselves in it. Wouldn't matter if we liked it, we'd probably watch it twice just the same.
I still remember the experience of everything the first time around, especially those rare occurrences in the early 90s. We didn't own a TV or VCR until at least 1994, so everything we watched was at the homes of friends or family. If they gave us an opportunity, we'd take it, like hungry children begging on the corner for a taste of entertainment. The other kids didn't get it, they'd soon wander off while we disappeared into a dream world, oblivious to the outside.
What it meant in the moment was something holy, sprawled at the altar of a storytelling screen. I remember sitting on the thin-worn blue carpet of my living room, seven years old, watching Driving Miss Daisy on a flickering screen that sat on Mom's piano bench. By the time it was over, I thought I'd lived a lifetime, caught up with those characters like they were my relatives. I remember the afternoon we borrowed the early-90s version of The Secret Garden from the Andersons – our neighbors in the little log house down the road. The story of Mary Lennox taught me to believe in wonder, to embrace fear like it was something I needed. I sat with my sister in the family room, and we both went on that adventure together.
When my father brought home Star Wars in 1995, it was like a holiday happened. I didn't know what was coming, but I got lost in that world for the better part of a decade. I was hungry for imagination like I didn't even know it, the beauty of what a human brain can make. From the first scene of a spaceship roaring overhead, to sometime in my late teens, I got caught up in the tales of some galaxy far from home. Eventually, I lost interest in the modern progress of the series, but those early days reached my heart like nothing else.
I can't possibly encapsulate all the moments, riding that rollercoasting emotion that still hits me in waves. We could be sprawled on the floor at the DiRisios, seeing Mrs. Doubtfire for the first time and laughing ourselves stupid. I could be sitting on the corner of my grandparents bed all alone, terrifying myself with The Fly (while they were far away in Florida). Every wild influx of intensity still rises up to welcome me, the cinematic magic that no other art ever equals.
I'm the littlest hypnotized boy in the back, leaned up against that couch that everyone seemed to have back then. What we're watching here is probably An American Tail. I remember seeing the sequel (Fievel Goes West) when visiting the same family a year later, so it seems likely. There's little chance we noticed my mother with her camera, completely entranced in the story.
Twenty-eight years later, and I've watched 2,759 movies – I keep a list, one of my many obsessions. There's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, not with so many innocent ones around. A good story is welcoming like nothing else, if it's told with heart, passion, and not too much sound and fury. I'm still moved to tears, anger, fear, joy, and wonder... and I hope you are too.
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