My Movie

One of Kate's idea cards posed the following question/statement to me. It said, "A great film role I would have loved playing is ____." It's an interesting supposition, that any role in any movie would be better than, or even representative of, the life I have lead. It begs the question. Are there any film roles that would be as interesting to me as loving a woman, raising my children, having a diverse and exciting career, and living a life filled with so many amazing adventures?

Some days the edge of death does not seem so great to me. Some days as I look back on the panoply that is my life, parts of it appear as a movie set or a stage play. Events, some long and some short, evoke a visual image in my mind that is as entrancing as anything on the silver screen. Certainly I have not been in a great battle, so Star Wars is not the first visual that comes to mind. But I have done wonderful things, amazing things. It's just a different kind of movie.

If there is any kind of film role that I would have loved to play, it would be that of a well-rounded character, someone complex, with no simple answers for things. A film role for me would include a character with deep inner strength and compassion. It would tell the story of a man moving through a complex life filled with interesting people, family and friends, a life well lived.

My film would not be an indoor film, nor would it be an outdoor film - it would show both landscapes. It would show a man who is comfortable no matter where he is, a man who loves adventure whether it is in the confines of a building bound landscape, out on the open sea, or deep in some primordial forest. My film would be one of experience and learning, something you could hear and feel, no matter where it happened.

My film would not be spectacle, it would be a statement. It would be rich in colour and hue, laced with quick wit and laughter, occasionally punctuated with sadness, confounded by moments of deep meaning and intent. It would be a love story, a tragedy, a comedy, and an adventure, all rolled up into one. I would be the lead character; after all, it is my movie. Yet the lead would be shared and in many scenes I would be absent, visible only by my emotional presence, away, off camera but known, veiled but there.

I am not sure I could pick a single movie role, my life has been far too interesting to limit it in these choices. Perhaps the role of Jake Sully in Avatar, when a man with a broken body gets a new lease on mobility, finds love and purpose, and learns that life is not always what it seems; a movie where the end is simply the beginning of a new chapter in his life. Perhaps the role of William Thacker in Notting Hill, a simple man cast into a complex life, a man with a world of friends and family who love him, a man who finds love, loses it, finds it again, holds fast to it, and sees that love blossom at the end, making him a father and building his own family.

It's interesting that both of these films are basically love stories. I wonder what that says about me?