When I learned a few years ago that my adult daughter had never seen the 1968 film “Planet of the Apes,” I felt like a failure as a father. How could I, someone who tried so diligently to instill in my children a love of movies, overlook the iconic sci-fi movie that gave birth to multiple sequels and was groundbreaking in many ways?
When I say groundbreaking, I must admit that it helps to be an 11-year-old boy when you first saw this movie. I was, and after watching it, I truly believed I had just witnessed cinematic art that Fellini or Alfred Hitchcock would have envied.
My daughter, not being 11 or a boy when she saw the movie, was still blown away by the surprise ending and she loved it. Unlike my oldest son who is almost as big a cinephile as I am, my daughter’s “education” in all things film was still lacking, and her brother has taken it upon himself to tutor her. He lives in Nashville, and a couple of weeks ago a box came in the mail. It was filled with a sampling of Blu-ray discs from my son’s extensive film library collection.
It was with some satisfaction that I watched my daughter dig through this box of classic movie treasures, especially considering how long it took us to get her to watch a black-and-white movie. That roadblock was removed after she saw “Some Like It Hot” for the first time.
The first movie she pulled out of this box was another Billy Wilder classic. But his 1950 “Sunset Boulevard” could not be further removed from the over-the-top comic madness of “Some Like it Hot.” “Sunset Boulevard” stars William Holden as a desperate scriptwriter who finds refuge in the decrepit mansion of a delusional silent screen siren played by a real-life silent screen superstar, Gloria Swanson. Next came 1947’s “Out of the Past,” starring Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer — one of the best film noir movies ever made.
It was a solid “double feature” and a good film 101 beginning for my daughter’s continuing education. Even though I have seen both films multiple times, like all good art, there is always something new to see or understand.
When these films were being made, there was little thought that great art was being created. They were made to sell popcorn. But something magical did occur through an alchemy of the major movie studio machinery and its movie star matrix. To paraphrase Swanson’s Norma Desmond character in “Sunset Boulevard,” it was a time when the pictures were “big” like their stars.
On the surface, both films are lurid, but given the tenor of the times, the low-rent aspect of both stories had to be muted. This works to their advantage, as my daughter and I discussed in our after-movie debrief. Today’s films have no such guardrails.
“Sunset Boulevard” and “Out of the Past” are morality plays, a testament to the era in which they were made and a measuring stick of how far afield we have come not only as filmmakers but as film audiences.
Movies today, including those aimed at adults and children, constantly beat the drum of “follow your heart.” The Book of Jeremiah thinks that is not sound advice, as the heart can be deceitful. The Bible has other things to say about what happens when we follow our heart or, in the case of King David and the Prodigal Son, our passions.
That is what happens to both protagonists in these films. They are men who chose a path of darkness and must reap what they sow. What makes these films stand out as art, and what connects them to a God-centered view of the universe, is how both men in these different movies sacrifice themselves in the end for someone else.
After chasing the expedient, shiny object of their desires for the short-term gain, the protagonists in “Sunset Boulevard” and “Out of the Past” find themselves trapped in a hole of their own digging.
This makes for good tragedy as cosmic justice attaches itself to the plots of these films, which mirror a scriptural template. And like all good tragedies from the Old Globe onward, there is a ray of hope or some redemptive act left behind to linger as we watch the end credits.
These are not religious films, and they are certainly not “Catholic” movies, but they contain elements taken from Scripture, with tales of falls from grace and even redemption of sorts. I cannot wait to see what comes out of that box next.
