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| Tiny Ricky Schroder as T.J in The Champ |
When I was young my Mom often let me an my younger brother stay up as late as we wanted on the weekends. We often watched movies on t.v. very late into the night. As the hours pressed on, more interesting films were shown, and soon the drama and mystery unfolding before us collapsed any sense of external space and time. Sometimes I would break out of the hypnotic trance from a film I was watching and scan our living room, which by this time took on an odd seriousness: the flat ash-like glow from the television illuminated the overstuffed sofas, lace curtains, funky antique furniture, making the space feel faded and fragile. I felt distant from everything except the intense emotions swirling and raging in my heart and mind thanks to some late night film programming. It is from these first 'film' experiences that began a lifelong fascination with cinematic space, (and spatial encounters in general). These early years also managed to form the pleasure I experience when watching very intense or sad movies alone. And I hold those first film impressions and feelings very close to me.
And now, almost 30 years later, there is something incredibly unsettling about being able to go to YouTube and the find these films immediately. My success rate at finding these Pre-Teen-Staying-Up-Way-To-Late-Films have been very high. But the disappointment that often follows after watching a much anticipated clip from those favorite films is so thorough I feel as though something is wrong. My memories have been usurped. What was once a cherished memory has been uploaded into a low-res moving postcard, a cheap rendering sent to me from the past, a murky representation of those moments. What the hell is going on? Hm. Huh. Right. I see. Ok. Fuck. I immediately sink into a strange reverie, starting with anticipation, affection, moving quickly into outright embarrassment (yes, you did go on and on about this film how amazing it was, what it meant to you not long ago!). These films are often not sad, just highly sentimental or just astonishingly bad! WTF?!!!Case in point is when I recently went to write something brief about my shock and sadness at hearing that Jack Layton had passed away from cancer. I was reminded of the final death scene in the film The Champ. It seemed appropriate, as I remember the tiny, adorable Ricky Schroder wailing over the body of his father and 'champ' (Jon Voight) and pleading for the other adults in the room to bring him back. I remember being so heartbroken by this scene when I first saw it those many years ago. If any one else remembers this scene then you should be clenching your chest right now. Tiny Ricky Shroder! "The Champ", dead on the table! Gohd!
Fast forward to 2011, still late night, however I'm watching Tiny Ricky Schroder on a 4x6 window on my computer and he is still adorable. But the death scene is so over the top, saturated in sentimentality and mellow drama, (as I've come to learn in complete tradition of almost all of Zeffirelli's films) that I cant take it seriously, and stop it from playing out completely because I don't want this new-old memory distorting my old-old memories. I am once again made aware of the potency of film as a documentation of cinematic-time, not memory-time. I can watch a film a thousand times and each time my emotional experience will be different, but the mechanics of the film are exact, its just me, revolving around it, like a circling vulnerable earth to a brilliant perfect sun.
By denying a contemporary look at an old memory, I was able to keep my matured heart and critical eye from destroying old attachments (for better or worse). And for this I am unapologetic because it has allowed me to indulge and align Layton as a true champion, and he will be seriously missed.