Pride and Prejudice...
Last night, my wife and I went out on a date which is a sort of weekly marital sacriment we honor religiously. That night is sacred to me. I don't know how couples last without a weekly get away. This night we decided we wanted to see the movie "Pride and Prejudice". I didn't know what to expect, all I knew was that I was in the mood to be transported to another time and another place for a couple hours with my "bride by my side". I could not have known the kind of experience I was about to indulge in.
This movie was nothing short of spellbinding. It was a Romance that gave romance back it's original glory. The palatial balls, the dancing, the courting, the exchanging of glances, the propriety, the chivalry, the stately gentlemen, the femenine curtsy, the pursuit, the mystery, the proposals, the sisterly secrets under the covers, the tongue-tied male trying to express his affection in words, the blushing, the dresses, the castles, the European landscapte, the idyllic conversations down by the river, the aged trees sprawling ever so wide as if to stretch while yawning, the midnight meeting in the rain with soaked hair and haggard clothes, the horse drawn carriages, the large brick homes on acres of plantation, the five course meals, the giddy anticipation followed by the devestating letdown, the wondering of intention or interest, the playing hard to get, the tilted head in embarrassment, the sheepish grin at the invitation to dance, the gallantry and courtesy of the man...I could go on and on.
Notice I didn't say kissing, sex, sensuality or seduction. These had no part of the movie at all and yet it was the richest display of romance I've ever encountered. The only kiss was given in the final scene of the movie and it was passionately tender (rather than animalistic and barbaric). It just showed that romance has very little to do with sex. You have to look no further than our sex saturated culture, which bypasses the inconvenience of romance and moves directly into an impersonal exchange of body fluid, to see that sex and romance are no longer one in the same. It's unfortunate.
And the language. Oh the language. It was unbelievable. I'm not talking about swearing...there was none of that. I'm talking about a day when words were appreciated and honored. The way they described base things left you drooling with delight. I must have turned to Heidi 15 times and said, "Can you believe that?" They spoke with such eloquence and precision. They used proper English and communicated with passionate pronunciation. I was filled with rapture time and time again as I listened to their dialogue and dreamed of having a vocabulary that actually expressed what I felt. I never realized that most of what I say falls so short of what I wanted to say simply because I don't possess the words to share what I'm picturing in my heaed. I'm illiterate. Our culture is illiterate. We have no idea the blessing that we're missing out on. We value crass, lewd, raw verbage and have the audacity to call it relevant communication. The more broken up and slang-ridden it is the more of an audience we will carry. Again, it's unfortunate.
Over and over, I was gripped with how much we've lost. We've lost simplicity, romance, language, architecture, nature, femeninity, masculinity and all for the sake of industry, transportation, expediency, convenience, modernity, efficiency, technology, and reality television. We suffer from the utilitarian complex which values productivity over principle. We are machines cranking out product and losing our souls in the process. Oh my God, deliver us!
I want the former. I'm telling you I feel like I would trade in the industrial revolution if I could but taste the delicacies of what we've lost as a culture, as a society. I want to be a helpless romantic if it means returning to my roots and grafting back into the trunk of my heritage. I know, I sit here on this computur enjoying the very thing I'm vehemently cursing...but I would trade it, I tell you, for a portal back in time to when everything still dripped with dignity. The kind of dignity that treated life as a precious thing and time as a fleeting possession intended to be used wisely.
You have to see this movie...it's moving.
This movie was nothing short of spellbinding. It was a Romance that gave romance back it's original glory. The palatial balls, the dancing, the courting, the exchanging of glances, the propriety, the chivalry, the stately gentlemen, the femenine curtsy, the pursuit, the mystery, the proposals, the sisterly secrets under the covers, the tongue-tied male trying to express his affection in words, the blushing, the dresses, the castles, the European landscapte, the idyllic conversations down by the river, the aged trees sprawling ever so wide as if to stretch while yawning, the midnight meeting in the rain with soaked hair and haggard clothes, the horse drawn carriages, the large brick homes on acres of plantation, the five course meals, the giddy anticipation followed by the devestating letdown, the wondering of intention or interest, the playing hard to get, the tilted head in embarrassment, the sheepish grin at the invitation to dance, the gallantry and courtesy of the man...I could go on and on.
Notice I didn't say kissing, sex, sensuality or seduction. These had no part of the movie at all and yet it was the richest display of romance I've ever encountered. The only kiss was given in the final scene of the movie and it was passionately tender (rather than animalistic and barbaric). It just showed that romance has very little to do with sex. You have to look no further than our sex saturated culture, which bypasses the inconvenience of romance and moves directly into an impersonal exchange of body fluid, to see that sex and romance are no longer one in the same. It's unfortunate.
And the language. Oh the language. It was unbelievable. I'm not talking about swearing...there was none of that. I'm talking about a day when words were appreciated and honored. The way they described base things left you drooling with delight. I must have turned to Heidi 15 times and said, "Can you believe that?" They spoke with such eloquence and precision. They used proper English and communicated with passionate pronunciation. I was filled with rapture time and time again as I listened to their dialogue and dreamed of having a vocabulary that actually expressed what I felt. I never realized that most of what I say falls so short of what I wanted to say simply because I don't possess the words to share what I'm picturing in my heaed. I'm illiterate. Our culture is illiterate. We have no idea the blessing that we're missing out on. We value crass, lewd, raw verbage and have the audacity to call it relevant communication. The more broken up and slang-ridden it is the more of an audience we will carry. Again, it's unfortunate.
Over and over, I was gripped with how much we've lost. We've lost simplicity, romance, language, architecture, nature, femeninity, masculinity and all for the sake of industry, transportation, expediency, convenience, modernity, efficiency, technology, and reality television. We suffer from the utilitarian complex which values productivity over principle. We are machines cranking out product and losing our souls in the process. Oh my God, deliver us!
I want the former. I'm telling you I feel like I would trade in the industrial revolution if I could but taste the delicacies of what we've lost as a culture, as a society. I want to be a helpless romantic if it means returning to my roots and grafting back into the trunk of my heritage. I know, I sit here on this computur enjoying the very thing I'm vehemently cursing...but I would trade it, I tell you, for a portal back in time to when everything still dripped with dignity. The kind of dignity that treated life as a precious thing and time as a fleeting possession intended to be used wisely.
You have to see this movie...it's moving.
Comments
I took Kathy to see this movie last week. I enjoyed it, but not to the extent that you did. I failed to appreciate what you did in the movie, and realize you are right. There is a glory in the way the characters relate that we have lost in our society. It can be regained though, if our media were to provide the proper models. However, that day will probably be a long time in coming. Jeff