Tango
Why, oh why, do they insist on showing this movie at least once a year on every TV channel? What is so wonderful about it? Why does it get five-star reviews in the TV guide? What makes it a "romance"?
I just don't get it. What's the attraction of a story about an appallingly self-absorbed nitwit of a woman who is in love with the idea of being in love, who treats the man who loves her abysmally, and who, having found a suitable subject for the starring role of Prince Charming in her fantasy, proceeds to imagine that she is in love with him?
Or is it, perhaps, the story of a man who, having lost the woman he loved, wants to isolate that love, extract it and purify it and experience it again, quite divorced from the person who encouraged those feelings in the first place?
Yeeeeeech. There are some funny lines in this film, true, but it gives me the creeps. True love isn't some kind of drug, to be purified of any human involvement, bleached of any negative feelings, powdered into a complete abstraction, and taken for a "hit" in a prescribed dose.
Love is not a concept or an ideal. It's the emergent property of the characters of two people and their interaction. It simply can't be abstract. It's intensely personal, private, and completely incomprehensible to outsiders; and sometimes it's not all sweetness and light. It's not about some generic Prince Charming, and it's not about Mr. "He's my type" or Miss "Perfect in every way".
There is no "love" as an idea. There is only that feeling you get when you look at that person and your heart feels full to bursting, and you know that you could shut your eyes, or walk away, and you would still feel it. That you understand this person so well that it's not even about liking their personality or finding them attractive: you just know them so deeply that they are a part of you, in the way your limbs are a part of you.
There can never be love between people who don't know each other, although there can be attraction, of course, sexual or otherwise. When you say you love someone, it's always that particular person -- and you never love two people in exactly the same way, because no two people are the same.
This is why I have always hated dull insipid "romances" like "Sleepless in Seattle". They strive to generalise where there can be no generalities. They rob the most beautiful and frightening and dangerous feeling in the world of its sharp contours and its individuality; they draw its claws and airbrush it into something bland and cold. The lowest common denominator.
This movie's "love" is to real love what the photo of a porn star is to a real woman.
I just don't get it. What's the attraction of a story about an appallingly self-absorbed nitwit of a woman who is in love with the idea of being in love, who treats the man who loves her abysmally, and who, having found a suitable subject for the starring role of Prince Charming in her fantasy, proceeds to imagine that she is in love with him?
Or is it, perhaps, the story of a man who, having lost the woman he loved, wants to isolate that love, extract it and purify it and experience it again, quite divorced from the person who encouraged those feelings in the first place?
Yeeeeeech. There are some funny lines in this film, true, but it gives me the creeps. True love isn't some kind of drug, to be purified of any human involvement, bleached of any negative feelings, powdered into a complete abstraction, and taken for a "hit" in a prescribed dose.
Love is not a concept or an ideal. It's the emergent property of the characters of two people and their interaction. It simply can't be abstract. It's intensely personal, private, and completely incomprehensible to outsiders; and sometimes it's not all sweetness and light. It's not about some generic Prince Charming, and it's not about Mr. "He's my type" or Miss "Perfect in every way".
There is no "love" as an idea. There is only that feeling you get when you look at that person and your heart feels full to bursting, and you know that you could shut your eyes, or walk away, and you would still feel it. That you understand this person so well that it's not even about liking their personality or finding them attractive: you just know them so deeply that they are a part of you, in the way your limbs are a part of you.
There can never be love between people who don't know each other, although there can be attraction, of course, sexual or otherwise. When you say you love someone, it's always that particular person -- and you never love two people in exactly the same way, because no two people are the same.
This is why I have always hated dull insipid "romances" like "Sleepless in Seattle". They strive to generalise where there can be no generalities. They rob the most beautiful and frightening and dangerous feeling in the world of its sharp contours and its individuality; they draw its claws and airbrush it into something bland and cold. The lowest common denominator.
This movie's "love" is to real love what the photo of a porn star is to a real woman.
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17.04.2004 в 11:53Love is not a concept or an ideal But they want it to be!!! Because, when it comes to real relationships, people have problems, they have to understand each other, and they start to get each ither for granted, and the romance somehow dissapears, that's why they wach incredibly 'romantic' movies, like sleepless in Seattle. They want all their proplems to solve out, just like in the film!
Second, look at the ones, WHO actually LOVE the movie! Usually (not all) they are lonely, and that explanes a lot. We like to read fairy tales since early childhood, well, it IS a fairy tale!
There can never be love between people who don't know each other, although there can be attraction, of course, sexual or otherwise WHAT IS LOVE??? Isn't it an attraction, mixed with respect and care for that one particular person???
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17.04.2004 в 12:59FunkyWolf Each time I read about "they", these mysterious millions of idiots who adore the stuff, I ... oh well, let's remain civilized. It's one the worst kinds of self-deception, imho.
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17.04.2004 в 14:26-
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17.04.2004 в 16:36I just have to know. What does ППКС stand for?
FunkyWolf
I agree that there is certainly an audience out there, or this film wouldn't be the hit that it is. What I suspect, though, is that a great number of people like it for the humour (and yes, it can be very funny in places), rather than any deep personal need for romantic fulfilment. Or maybe they just like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, who knows. Of course, I'm sure that at least some of them buy into the idea of abstract romanticism, but what can you do.
Where I have to disagree is that being lonely says anything at all about you, except that you've been rather unfortunate. Or that liking fairy tales presumes that you will like this kind of film. I adore fairy tales, though not for the romances, such as they are. There is always some deeper level to them, something about the personal qualities of the hero or heroine, or about the story itself.
WHAT IS LOVE??? Isn't it an attraction, mixed with respect and care for that one particular person???
I meant the initial attraction you feel when you meet someone new. Love is the feeling after that "crush" wears off, and the initial romantic high grows into a real, three-dimensional, relationship. You can have a crush on someone you don't know or understand. You cannot love them.
Tango
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17.04.2004 в 16:39-
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17.04.2004 в 16:43-
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18.04.2004 в 18:13-
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19.04.2004 в 13:55Конечно, понимаю.
Tango
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03.05.2004 в 00:31-
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03.05.2004 в 11:45в смысле Ты Русский!!!!
Даже "русская".
если хочешь, заходи, поговорим.
Спасибо.
Tango
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03.05.2004 в 21:11-
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05.05.2004 в 16:29У тебя мыло или аська есть?
Все есть -- только времени нет.
Tango
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06.05.2004 в 00:47