Finding Forrester - a tribute?

As though to vindicate some of my previous posts, in "Finding Forrester", Wiliam Forrester says that you should write your first draft from your heart and edit it later with your head (something along those lines).

Tonight, after a long day at the office, and a million things still on my mind, while channel surfing, I realized that this movie was showing and decided to watch it again. Dad was watching too... and to my delight, he liked it as well. So there we sat, me explaining some of the quirks of western culture that our generation is more familiar with to dad - acting as his interpreter - as dad prefers to put it.

This movie touches me every time I see it. It is just right. The feel of New York, the sights and sounds of solitude, the aptitude, the attitude ... great photography, soothing background scores - you even get to hear the tabla in bits and pieces. Even the furniture in the rooms is just right.

I don't really know why it touches me so profoundly. Though the waters run deep, there are some things which I cosciously realize and appreciate.

What touches me, I think, is not so much Jamal's case - the contradiction inherent to being a 16 year old - the need to blend in, the thirst to break out ... yes those things are there ... I notice them. I believe what touches me most is the character of William Forrester.

The isolation that he creates for himself, the comfort he finds in his solitude, the discipline ... breath taking. The point when Jamal takes him to the baseball field on his birthday, the ability and the strength to taste your emotions ... letting it roll on your tongue while just stating the bare facts ...

Awe and envy at seeing a man attain more than one pinnacle in a life time. To be able to write a novel that is so good that it is the best. The satisfaction of having done something so well, that you don't even have the need to do anything ever again ... to have said it all.

As if that weren't enough, the satisfaction of nurturing something unique and seeing it grow and blossom - Jamal's talent... this probably fits in with the need to propagate ideas that I wrote about a while ago ... and even in dying, to have that last laugh ... and that last moment of satisfaction in knowing that you have done it again ... and that someone is there to see it through though you are no longer around.

And the desire to reach the same heights, live as richly and to die as peacefully.

Yes ... that is about it ... about as close to my emotions as I can get ... in words.

No. This is not a film review, and I am not asking anyone to watch it. The fact remains that if Finding Forrester the first time (pardon the pun) had given me great joy, rediscovering Forrester today game me equal pleasure.

So why do I write?

I write so that I may remember ... for we often forget.
And therein lies the sorrow ... of losing ...
And therein lies the joy ... of re-discovery ...

To find something, you may need to lose it first!