Monday, August 14, 2006
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Director: Blake Edwards
Should you see it? You haven’t already!?!
I’ve already written about this amazing film, one of my all time favorites, so I will just discuss one scene.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s contains a scene of cinematic grace.
Now, out there are works of art across all media that span the range from good to great (not to mention from bad to horrible), but a very small number are imbued with aesthetic grace, which I identify by the transcendent sensation of awe. For instance, in the high-art world Michelangelo’s David may be the most perfect object ever created by a human. Standing in Florence before David I first was enraptured with aesthetic awe. In addition to David, there are those damn amazing peaches by Cézanne in the Met which awe me each summer. I know next to nothing about art so I cannot tell you why these works are valued by those in the know. I can explain that standing before these works I am lost in a different consciousness. My aesthetic sense is awakened, takes possession of my consciousness and leaves me lost in awe. It is as if my inner truth is falling in love with the object’s beauty.
Now Billie Holliday’s Lover Man, one of the greatest tracks ever recorded, is an instance of aesthetic grace in music. Put on Lover Man, close your eyes, and listen to each word, each tone of her voice. You will lose your consciousness, your selfness, to the emotional immediacy. These moments are something like transcendent experience. Your selfness levitates from your body and the aesthetic experience, be it visual beauty or pure musical emotion enters and becomes your consciousness, if only for a few moments of grace.
So what the hell does this have to do with Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Well, there are also such transcendent moments in film; moments when you lose your selfness in cinematic delight. One such scene occurs in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the scene where Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard are trying to buy something for $10 from Tiffany’s. The moving images suddenly feel imbued, haunted, with actual living vitality and you as viewer have gone from being outside voyeur to in the presence of authentic vitality. You feel as if you are along side Holly and Paul with your arms up on the counter, and the delight is overwhelming. It is a scene incidental to the film narrative yet it is one of the most authentic and vital in film history.
See it if just for that.
Should you see it? You haven’t already!?!
I’ve already written about this amazing film, one of my all time favorites, so I will just discuss one scene.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s contains a scene of cinematic grace.
Now, out there are works of art across all media that span the range from good to great (not to mention from bad to horrible), but a very small number are imbued with aesthetic grace, which I identify by the transcendent sensation of awe. For instance, in the high-art world Michelangelo’s David may be the most perfect object ever created by a human. Standing in Florence before David I first was enraptured with aesthetic awe. In addition to David, there are those damn amazing peaches by Cézanne in the Met which awe me each summer. I know next to nothing about art so I cannot tell you why these works are valued by those in the know. I can explain that standing before these works I am lost in a different consciousness. My aesthetic sense is awakened, takes possession of my consciousness and leaves me lost in awe. It is as if my inner truth is falling in love with the object’s beauty.
Now Billie Holliday’s Lover Man, one of the greatest tracks ever recorded, is an instance of aesthetic grace in music. Put on Lover Man, close your eyes, and listen to each word, each tone of her voice. You will lose your consciousness, your selfness, to the emotional immediacy. These moments are something like transcendent experience. Your selfness levitates from your body and the aesthetic experience, be it visual beauty or pure musical emotion enters and becomes your consciousness, if only for a few moments of grace.
So what the hell does this have to do with Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Well, there are also such transcendent moments in film; moments when you lose your selfness in cinematic delight. One such scene occurs in Breakfast at Tiffany’s in the scene where Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard are trying to buy something for $10 from Tiffany’s. The moving images suddenly feel imbued, haunted, with actual living vitality and you as viewer have gone from being outside voyeur to in the presence of authentic vitality. You feel as if you are along side Holly and Paul with your arms up on the counter, and the delight is overwhelming. It is a scene incidental to the film narrative yet it is one of the most authentic and vital in film history.
See it if just for that.
