Love's the most excellent place of all
My post about Gandhi the other day got me thinking about E. T., which came out the same year as Gandhi and which I hadn't seen since 1982. I watched the movie again, with my husband and children, on Sunday afternoon.
It really is a wonderful movie. It has all the best Spielberg elements -- expertly crafted story, fine acting (particularly by children), and a refreshing lack of embarrassment in the face of the more noble (and ennobling) aspects of human existence. I hadn't remembered the plot point about E.T.'s empathic connection with Eliott, nor had I remembered how much the film emphasizes the child-like ability to "believe" in E.T. as the necessary precursor to loving him. That sounds sort of obvious, I know, and I don't want to make too much of what is essentially simply a very nice movie, but it struck me that loving another person is a bit like loving an extra-terrestrial. If each individual is his own separate universe, comprised of myriad discrete elements -- unique thoughts, feelings, ways of apprehending the world -- then loving someone else requires us to communicate with a person from another universe. Loving another person requires taking that other universe on faith. Love, like faith, entails a leap, an acceptance of another world of which we can only experience a glimmering once the leap is made.
Then again, maybe I'm just rationalizing my embarrassing display of emotion at the movie's conclusion.
It really is a wonderful movie. It has all the best Spielberg elements -- expertly crafted story, fine acting (particularly by children), and a refreshing lack of embarrassment in the face of the more noble (and ennobling) aspects of human existence. I hadn't remembered the plot point about E.T.'s empathic connection with Eliott, nor had I remembered how much the film emphasizes the child-like ability to "believe" in E.T. as the necessary precursor to loving him. That sounds sort of obvious, I know, and I don't want to make too much of what is essentially simply a very nice movie, but it struck me that loving another person is a bit like loving an extra-terrestrial. If each individual is his own separate universe, comprised of myriad discrete elements -- unique thoughts, feelings, ways of apprehending the world -- then loving someone else requires us to communicate with a person from another universe. Loving another person requires taking that other universe on faith. Love, like faith, entails a leap, an acceptance of another world of which we can only experience a glimmering once the leap is made.
Then again, maybe I'm just rationalizing my embarrassing display of emotion at the movie's conclusion.
posted by Kate Marie | 9:59 AM | Permalink
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3 comments
3 Comments:
loving another person is a bit like loving an extra-terrestrial
KM, I often feel that way, especially in my own home.
I love that movie, although it is subject to some criticism as reflecting Spielberg's "Shameless manipulation of human emotions", which is one of his hallmarks.
By the way, did you know that ET has a sister of loose morals?
Yep. . . EZ
ET recently died of a heart attack. He got his phone bill.
Stewdog -- you forgot to add "Ba dump dump."
CIV, I suppose we all feel that way every now and then, don't we?
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