waking life Tagged Articles at Cinematical

The notion of a collective conscience has been in my head ever since Ethan Hawke's Jesse and Julie Delpy's Celine discussed life and death in Waking Life. Jesse referred to innovative leaps, getting the answers, and solving an old crossword puzzle: "It's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on 'em. It's like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences."

But what about media and moviegoing? I've been in the middle of reading one book, happen to pick up another at the store, and then turned the page of my current read to see mention of the new book I just purchased. With moviegoing it seems to be even more prevalent. Within days of watching Synecdoche, New York, I watched Heaven & Hell: North & South, Book III. I'd seen neither before, and both had Tom Noonan. Just the other day, in the middle of my Soap marathon, I threw in Janeanne Garofalo's Matchmaker for a little romcom fluff. Robert Mandan, who played Chester Tate in the former, played McGlory Senior in the latter. I'd had no idea.

These aren't cases of watching two new movies and seeing the same actors in them (like Anton Yelchin in Star Trek and Terminator Salvation), but moments when quite random actors pop up as if the subconscience had planned a double feature. It happens so often that I wonder: Do we all have a photographic memory that we just don't have the ability to access? Is there a collective conscience? How many times does it have to happen before it stops being coincidence?

I turn the question over to you, movie fans: Does this sort of thing happen with your movie watching, and why do you think it is?

2008 is not this generation's 1968. Let's get that matter straight, right away. Even if we can draw some parallels or see some similarities between now and then, the truth is that it was a very tragic year, and despite our penchant to fetishize the period and wish that our time could be so important and powerful, we need to pray no politicians are assassinated this year (the fact that one particular candidate has been compared to both MLK and RFK is especially upsetting) and we need to be thankful that there is no draft. But mostly we need to just move on from the '60s already and stop attempting to appropriate its events in order to heighten the relevance of the 2000s. 2008 is indeed a significant year on its own, or it could be if we let it exist as such.

That said, Chicago 10, the latest documentary from Oscar-nominee Brett Morgen (On the Ropes) is literally about events of forty years ago, though the filmmaker claims it is a film about now. Okay, sure, there may be some relevant themes, but imprisoning your film with such definite statements of purpose makes it possibly less enjoyable to the people who are tired of these weak and easy-minded juxtapositions. Without acknowledging the obviously apparent intent, Chicago 10 is actually appreciable as one of the most creative and entertaining documentary films in years. And it could indeed be viewed as significant on its own, if we let it exist as such.