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the movie ON THE ROAD
Nirvana
aka BUBBA ` ` South Carolina, USA Veteran
Don't know how many of you have seen the new movie, released in December, but it's really worth the view. It does contain some nudity and sex, but no full frontal. I don't recall any violence. From a literary/historical point of of view I have no clue what it may offer you.
Begins in 1947. I hadn't really been aware that Kerouac, Ginsburg, et al. had been hanging out quite so early.
I read the beat poets years and years ago and haven't picked those old works up since. But the movie...
What struck me most was the monumental amount of self-indulgent behavior that the Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) character engaged in. Whether it was sex, drugs, music, or just using people, all he seemed to occupy himself with was the thrill of the moment, without any real regard for others. Sure, he valued companionship, but (as another character points out in soliloquy early in the film) he was only hoodwinking the other guy and he knew the other guy knew that he was being hoodwinked. But you can't help but like Dean and hope that he'll start steering straighter. That's what made the movie work for me. (Most movies with overly self-indulgent characters and raucous behaviors are promptly terminated with me.)
The film was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, 'cuz I hate to see people get hurt. I kept hoping for a little bit of self-mortification and reason coming into Dean's life, but it never happened and the other characters make clear that that sort of thing never can happen to Dean.
It's an interesting story and only tragic in the case of Dean: a Dean who admits he's out of control; a man who is so self-absorbed that he seems incapable of truly encountering another human being on her or his own terms.
From the Buddhist perspective, I believe this colorful, wonderful film shows the folly of unbridled thirst for excitement and the misery which it is able to create through its thoughtlessness and its thirst for even further thoughtlessness. Ortega said that man has a mission on this earth and that mission is the mission of clarity. I can think of no one in human history who exemplified that quest more than Shakyamuni. Self-indulgence is a vicious circle from which there is no escape. Yet the Lord Buddha doesn't himself threaten with punishment for those lost along the waysides, but just gently points out a path: A path wherin to indulge more true aspects of the Self.
Begins in 1947. I hadn't really been aware that Kerouac, Ginsburg, et al. had been hanging out quite so early.
I read the beat poets years and years ago and haven't picked those old works up since. But the movie...
What struck me most was the monumental amount of self-indulgent behavior that the Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) character engaged in. Whether it was sex, drugs, music, or just using people, all he seemed to occupy himself with was the thrill of the moment, without any real regard for others. Sure, he valued companionship, but (as another character points out in soliloquy early in the film) he was only hoodwinking the other guy and he knew the other guy knew that he was being hoodwinked. But you can't help but like Dean and hope that he'll start steering straighter. That's what made the movie work for me. (Most movies with overly self-indulgent characters and raucous behaviors are promptly terminated with me.)
The film was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me, 'cuz I hate to see people get hurt. I kept hoping for a little bit of self-mortification and reason coming into Dean's life, but it never happened and the other characters make clear that that sort of thing never can happen to Dean.
It's an interesting story and only tragic in the case of Dean: a Dean who admits he's out of control; a man who is so self-absorbed that he seems incapable of truly encountering another human being on her or his own terms.
From the Buddhist perspective, I believe this colorful, wonderful film shows the folly of unbridled thirst for excitement and the misery which it is able to create through its thoughtlessness and its thirst for even further thoughtlessness. Ortega said that man has a mission on this earth and that mission is the mission of clarity. I can think of no one in human history who exemplified that quest more than Shakyamuni. Self-indulgence is a vicious circle from which there is no escape. Yet the Lord Buddha doesn't himself threaten with punishment for those lost along the waysides, but just gently points out a path: A path wherin to indulge more true aspects of the Self.
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