My favorite moment of all - taxing and take off. I love flying so much. I love the gravity and noise of engine, or slightly bending wings in the wind. I love the quietness of tense and excitement during take off. I love almost everything that is associated with flight. I've been for years searching for words to clearly describe the delight of flight.
The other day my favorite film critics were discussing George Lucas on radio. I've been a huge fan of Star Wars series but never knew the maker had not only created an incomparable world in a galaxy far, far away, but also pioneered and drove the way to the modern movie industry as we all know it today. Sound editing, filming technology, distribution, merchandise, and managing studio where a perfect independency of the creator is protected. One of the members in ILM had actually invented Photoshop software. The other professional working with Mr. Lucas made a non-linear editing software. The more I know about his work outside of creating Star Wars, the more I understand how he has been greatly contributing to the creative technology, to the whole digital/IT industry. The critics actually agreed to regard him as a man of visionary as great as Steve Jobs.
And talking about Mr. Lucas, allow me to introduce the following simple fact which gives me much more personal impact, although it doesn't mean anything...
In 1973 George Lucas made American Graffiti, when my brother was born, and in 1977 he made the first Star Wars, when I was born. We are both huge fan of Star Wars.
Why we make biographical movie? To learn from history, great people, great story, wisdom, courage, or spirit of art. So we see films about artist, politician, musician, scientist, athlete, actors and actresses, and braves. And we seldom see a movie about a businessperson. Steve Jobs, however, is no doubt one of these businessperson who well deserve to be told and described. Steve Jobs in the movie "Steve Jobs" looks very different from the genius who we all know as one of the most influential and innovative leaders in the contemporary business world. The man in this charming film is suffering, annoying, sometimes unforgivably wrong, like you or me, everyone. Yet simply put, he is great as he is, being in deep pain and stress, he in his own elegant and powerful style makes his way to justify his vision in arts and technology. The people with strong vision and strength to realize it may not make a best person to everyone, but may overwhelmingly change the everyone's life.
Life of people is often compared to life of tree. Baby and child is like blooming and green shoots in spring, youth is like a growing tree in summer, matured and golden age is like autumn color of leaves, and the following aged life is like a dry, starved wood in winter. It's a cliche but true. Yet I have a bit different feeling of the idea of comparing human life as a cycle of four seasons of tree's life, because tree can live longer and keep living in those countless cycles of four seasons. Is there anything that prohibits us from comparing our lives to this repetition of cycles, not the sole cycle of birth to aging. We live so many cycles of lives internally and may continue to get reborn while ending something, leaving something behind.
This movie "Life" (2005) is a very unique and impressive work. Unique because it focuses on the relationship between one of the most extraordinary actors of all time and a great photographer. Impressive because it shows the simple fact that there is (not always, but most likely) a story behind a great portrait. I have never seen a film of James Dean, and I know little about what he was like. But this is "a few days with Jimmy" story told by the photographer and not about the actor. It's about taking photograph of people in an effort to curve out the moment of identifying the person. The person shot in the photo is not alone. There is a photographer who tries to profile you in the most artistic way. There should be a feeling, sympathy, maybe a tense between them, which I find is the beauty of portrait photograph. I usually don't take photo of people and rarely have conversation with the people whom I look at through the camera. I try to become transparent, wordless and feelingless in a hope to just to capture the real fact in front of me. But this movie makes me wonder what Jimmy was thinking and what he got from the dialogue, the distance, the silent moment, between him and the leica. Likewise, I really want to know what the photographer saw through the lens in the coolest star on earth.
Yesterday evening was a very hot, humid and tiresome summer time. I was standing at the crossing and waiting for the traffic light to turn green. In the moment of blurring blue and orange light of the dusk, a sleek, green convertible gracefully appeared in my view and slowly went across the crossing. If I was right, it was a Bentley. The beautiful and honored car changed my tired feeling right away into the excitement and delight of welcoming something great and beautiful into my ordinary life. That's why I highly value the importance of bringing refined and excellent design into every corner of our daily lives. They really makes us happy, it's no doubt. The problem is the work of designer (of graphic, architecture, city planning, sound, or any other aspects) is not always fairly valued, and also if we are to get the good design in our lives it should be a luxurious life. On the other hand, I understand that not everyone prioritizes the power of good design, and also that the clear differentiation from high-end design and others makes some sense, but yesterday I cannot help wondering if it would be possible for us to get natural delight and happiness of mind by being entitled to enjoy good design in our lives just like we enjoy safety, food, water and air, as I think it is indispensable.
The legendary Rocky has come back with a brand-new hero, Adonis, a son of Apollo Creed. I don't say I'm a huge fan of Rocky movies nor boxing movies, but I cannot help finding this as one of very important films of recent years.The heavyweight champion, Apollo had a son who, regardless of his smart job as a banker and his wealthy and quiet life, decided all he wanted was to be a boxer. He had never met his own father Apollo, and he asked Rocky to train him. Young Adonis and old Rocky gradually learned to trust each other, help each other, share the joy of life and became a father-and-son-like relationship.
The interesting thing in this remarkable film is that the genetic similarity between Apollo and Adonis is not told so much. His instinct and his DNA was brought by his Apollo but it was collaborative effort of Adonis and Rocky that finally identified Adonis as a boxer and made him a true heir to the champion. Rocky is like a foster father to him and in turn he gives back Rocky a power to fight again. Apollo, his own father, is like a guardian angel who urged him to become a boxer with leaving everything behind, and it turns out that the vision of real father has been lying in his deepest mind.
