Wednesday, August 22, 2012

The movie,Terms of Endearment- it's all different.


One of my favorite movies of all time is Terms of Endearment. It came out in 1984 when I was a new mother. Although I didn't have a bum of a husband Like Emma's Hap or a meddlesome mother like Emma's Mom, Aurora. I really identified with Emma. I felt her pain. And for many years when I would catch parts of the movie on TV I would always cry at the same parts.
Many parts.
 Emma was played by Debra Winger. We were about the same age when the movie came out.

Fast forward to present day. I hadn't watched Terms of  Endearment in about ten years. Recently, on a rainy day, I settled in to watch it with my kids. I told them how much I had loved the movie and that they could count on me sobbing through-out.

But somehow, everything had changed! I was identifying with Emma's mother Aurora played by Shirley MacLaine! When as a longtime widow she began dating her next door neighbor I felt how awkward it was. When she wanted to control/help her daughter, I understood! When she found out her daughter was sick...

That was when the sobbing began.
And?
I realized I wasn't crying at the parts I used to, when Emma's husband cheated on her, when she had to move again, even when she had to tell her children she had cancer!

Instead?
I was crying when Aurora was devastated about her daughter's health, when she forgave Hap for treating her daughter like crap, when she was helpless in helping her daughter escape pain and ultimately death.

It's funny, I always thought Shirley MacLaine was so much older when this movie came out. I come to find out that she was only 48 years-old!

I have really been contemplating why this movie has changed so much for me.
Is it because now I closer in age to the Aurora than I am to Emma?
Is it because my experience and that of my peers is now more reflected by Aurora than Emma?
I say yes to both.
And now I wonder, will this be happening a lot?
Will certain books and movies take on a whole other meaning as we get older?

For the record? The scene shown below illustrates my point. I CANNOT watch it without sobbing.
Every. Time.
And that is something new for me.

2 comments:

Kim said...

That movie is near and dear to my heart because they filmed it in Lincoln when I was in college. Debra Winger was having a fling with our single governor at the time and they often came into the bar where I worked (she drank Stoli martinis on the rocks and smoked Camel no filters). I really can't watch that movie and get into it because I'm always looking at the background, the extras and remembering knowing just where they filmed that. But I think that's definitely true, how you experience something depends on your life perspective and it can change over time.

Formerly known as Frau said...

Such a great movie.....it is wild how our views change as we age.