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Day Three Hundred and Fifteen:  Good Old Otis.

Sometimes I forget how odd my favourite movies are.  I think I wrote a post a while about my favourite movies, or atleast I believe I did over my trip to Cuba because I wrote a series of favourites things…  But I love old movies, good movies, big and small movies, films that are important, films that suck to everyone but me.  The other day I rediscovered an amazing song called “Pretty in Pink” by the Psychadellic Furs, and Saturday evening I watched Eternal Sunshine of the spotless Mind for the first time.  Needless to say, I am rediscovering my love for physically scenes.

This might seem odd to you, but in all honesty if you’ve seen either Pretty in Pink or Eternal Sunshine you’ll understand.  Let us begin with today’s inspiration:  Otis.

Duckie Dale is in the record store in which Molly Ringwald (her name in the film escapes me) works and as Otis’s “Try a little Tenderness” erupts from the speakers Duckie dances, in his cons, and his lust, to impress dear old Molly.  He dances around the stores, up stairs, on the floor, all along to the jazzy funk tune that Otis lays down.  I love this scene for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of the physicality.  The way in which his shoes hit the floor, hands grasp the floor when he crawls, it is so primal, so real, so important and incidental, these are things that someone who has seen the movie a bunch of times would notice I guess, but the physicality is brilliant.

Next is Sunshine.  Jim Carey plays Joel, and Jim Carey is already a physical actor, physical comedian, but this film isn’t a comedy, it is a drama, and inside of it Joel has specific physical attributes that are fascinating.  Head movements, eye movements, posture, there is a scene where they visit a memory of his childhood and he curls under the kitchen table in his pajama’s and refuses to come out with his head between his knee’s.  It is, again, so primal, and so beautiful.  It embodies the moment perfectly, but also shows his composure as a character-delving deeper, introducing simple aspects that make or break what he’s getting across.  Fascinating stuff.

While writing my One Act Play for my playwrighting class right now I strive to find a moment of physical significance similar to these two scenes that stuck with me over the years (or in Eternal’s case the past few days).   It becomes difficult when everything can be narrated, but there are specific moments that can be…narrated physically. 

Does anyone else find it ironic that I am more attracted to scene of physicality that I cannot necessarily see easily on stage?  Because I do.  Way ta go.

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