Author Archives: jtc284

A Race With Character

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Last Friday, I watched a documentary called The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young with Rose House. As a washed-up cross-country runner, I was a really excited to watch this film. I’d known about ultra-marathons prior to watching this film, and had always been intrigued by the level of physical endurance required to sustain the required level of energy for that many hours, or days, or sometimes even weeks on end. I remember hearing about an ultra-marathon in Brooklyn called the 3100 Mile “Self-Transcendence” Race; I can’t imagine having the mental and physical fortitude to do something of that calibre.

But the Barkley is in a class of its own. I feel like a lot of the event’s charm comes from the aura of it. The little intricacies of how the race runs, the characters that organize the event, the class of runners it brings in—they all add to create an event that, at least to me, is oddly intoxicating.  There is so much difficulty buried in the event, but that difficulty is wrapped up in a strange sense of casual-ness. The way the organizers explain how it functions really adds the the experience. For example, the relaxed manner in which the founder explains that the “entrance fee” is simply whatever he needs more of that year, be it socks or button-down shirts, really sets the tone for the rest of the film.

I don’t think I could, not would I ever want to, participate in the event. But I would love to just attend as a spectator, camping out and cheering on the runners. On some level I understand why that doesn’t happen; the event is small, and is intended to build a sense of camaraderie between the athletes, but there is definitely something about the culture of it that feels like it would be fascinating to be part of. It makes me wonder what, and where, all the other events in the same realm is this one are, because you know they must be out there somewhere. Maybe someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll have my very own “Barkley Marathons.”

Film, and Aging Gracefully

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Last Saturday I attended Rose House’s showing of Twelve Angry Men. I am not a movie buff—so much so that it wouldn’t be entirely unfair to call me uncultured because of it. There are plenty of classic movies that I haven’t seen (Lord of the Rings, The Godfather, The Breakfast Club… the list goes on and on). I tend to be fidgety and impatient, and unless there’s someone else pushing me I don’t have any drive to sit down and watch a film on my own. I’ve made an effort this semester to attend the majority of Flora’s Friday Films for this very reason. Even so, Twelve Angry Men was a film I initially had zero desire to see. I mean, it was a black and white film made over sixty years ago—how “important” could it really be?

The only appropriate answer to that rhetorical question is “very.” Even despite its age, it still feels like an incredibly fresh take on the courtroom drama genre. The whole film takes place inside a single room. The viewers get none of the context of the trial, and are only revealed information in small pieces through the characters’ dialogue. This, in a sense, makes the viewer part of the jury; you are discovering different perspectives of the case along with the other jurors. This focus on storytelling through dialogue genuinely plays to the films strengths, and is what I believe makes it such a timeless film. This movie is not about grandiose special effects, or impressive cinematography. It’s about the story of a young man on trial for the murder of his father, and that’s what is most important.

Because of this, almost nothing about the film lost to time. Unlike other films, such as Blade Runner or IT, a remake of this movie with modern day technology would add almost nothing. This fact in and of itself is fascinating to me. With Hollywood’s current focus on larger-than-life action/superhero movies, I can’t help but wonder which films will stand out above the rest in sixty years time the same Twelve Angry Men does today.

Perspectives and Privilege

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Last Friday I attended Rose House’s showing of the film Before Night Falls. This was a movie I had heard a lot about before having seen it, and was greatly looking forward to it. Despite all the build-up, however, it absolutely met and exceeded all of my expectations. When watching this movie, I think it’s important to come at it with the mindset that this story (while likely dramatized to some extent) is real. It’s not supposed to be clean, it’s not supposed to be concise, there is not supposed to be closure. It’s the biography of a man who went through hell and then some, yet still managed to overcome it all in order to get his story out there.

Perhaps my favorite part about this film is just how many different perspectives it provides. It encompasses the perspective of a Cuban during the time when its borders were closed; it encompasses the perspective of a gay man during the 20th century; it encompasses the perspective of a stateless immigrant lost in the jungle that is New York City. I think it’s incredibly important to hear and learn from these perspectives. As someone who has been given a lot of opportunities in life, at times it can be difficult to keep in mind just how far that privilege has taken me. Seeing Reinaldo Arenas suffer through years in prison—especially having done nothing wrong to deserve it in the first place—yet still remain his passion for poetry and writing was incredibly empowering. I cannot begin to imagine moral strength that must have taken, and it is something I can only hope to emulate in my own life someday. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who has yet to see it.

Some Perspective (at 30,000 ft)

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Last week I attended the Rose Café with Mike Comella, First Officer for Delta’s Endeavor Air. As someone who (unfortunately) has done very little traveling in his life, this event was very eye opening. I’ve only been on a total of five or six flights in my life, most of which were when I was too young to remember. I’ve barely even left the EST time zone too, which should speak to the duration of each of those flights. That’s why a lot of his points were particularly surprising to me.

For example, I had no idea that there was pilot shortage in America currently. Unfortunately I did not have a chance to ask, but from a few earlier points he made it seems as though this is a function of the level of training required to become a pilot combined with the comparably low starting salary. When you take this into account with the fact that the schedule can be disruptive—night shifts, several days on then several days off, etc.—I can see the job being less glamorous then it may seem at first. I am not envious of the responsibility, but I have much respect for those who do it.

Additionally, another point brought up during the event that I had not thought of before is the flying equivalent of “highway blindness.” After some point, the novelty (and fear, in some cases) presumably would leave, and after staring at the same color for hours and hours on end on a transatlantic flight, I can imagine it would be difficult to stay completely alert. So much so, that I find it intriguing that, on average, flying is inherently much safer than driving despite being miles and miles above the earth. This event definitely gave me a lot more perspective on the profession, which I genuinely appreciate.

Can We Separate Art from the Context of Its Creation?

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In eighth grade, I remember my class watching an extremely censored version of Forrest Gump in school. Despite that being some six years ago, I still expected the movie to be a bit of a drag since I had already seen it; I’m usually not one to rewatch or re-read anything. Though I still remembered a lot of the beats (there are some iconic scenes that have become so ingrained in our culture it would be difficult not to remember), there was still a lot that I had forgotten about. So much so that immediately after finishing the movie, I pulled up the wikipedia page on my phone and read through the synopsis one more time. One interesting fact I read on the wikipedia page was that the movie was actually based on a book. The novel, written by Winston Groom, was published in 1986—some eight years before the movie. Given the popularity of the film, I was surprised that Groom wasn’t on the level of popularity of J.K. Rowling or Suzanne Collins. I decided to search for some numbers to see if there was a reason for this.

Prior the movie’s release, the book had only sold 30,000 copies. While still a solid number, this is fairly small compared to the estimated 78 million who saw the movie in theatres in the U.S. Heck, even the wikipedia page for the novel is titled “Forrest Gump (novel)” while the film’s page is just “Forrest Gump,” despite the novel being the source material. This really rubbed me the wrong way. There seemed to be a serious disconnect between the novel and the film. This made me want to dig a little bit deeper into the story.

It turns out there was a bit of a controversy over royalties for the film. Groom was paid $350k upfront for rights to the book, and was contracted for 3% of the films net royalties—the important word here being net. Despite the film being an enormous success, Paramount Pictures used “hollywood accounting” (read: found a dubiously legal loophole) to falsely prove that the film didn’t make a profit. The film made $678 million in the box office on a budget of $55 million. Based on these numbers, Groom was cheated out of close to $20 million.

Despite the fact that those who directed/edited/acted in the film weren’t the ones who screwed this poor man out of his paycheck, I can’t help but let this knowledge negatively affect my perception of the movie. It feels… dirtier somehow, as if the politics of the film’s creation tarnished its wholesome message. There is somewhat of a happy ending to this story—Paramount gave Groom a 7-figure contract for the rights to the sequel (yes, there is a sequel to Forrest Gump). But even still, I can’t shake the feeling that he was cheated. This begs the question: do you think we should we let the circumstances of a piece of art’s creation influence our perception of it? Is it possible to keep these two things separate? Should we even try?

Different Perspectives of West Campus

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Last Wednesday I attended the Rose Café for History and Secrets of West Campus. I was really excited for this event because I feel like a lot of the ideology behind the creation of west campus has gone over my head, and this was a good learning opportunity. I’m definitely very glad that I came to this event.

As a transfer student, coming to Cornell and being placed on West Campus without any sort of primer was very confusing. While I’m extremely grateful that I’m here, there was a definite period of disorientation. Returning freshmen have the benefit of attending different information sessions to learn about West, but we transfers did not. I vividly remember reading out my housing assignment to my mom this past summer and she responded by asking, “Wait, so you’re going to be living in a house?” There wasn’t really anyone who reached out to touch base and explain what the system was and why it was set up ten years or so ago, so I mostly just assumed it was set up like my freshman dorm system at the school I transferred from—a loosely affiliated set of buildings with the same administrative team watching over them. Since then I’ve learned a lot and have grown to be extremely grateful for the community Rose House provides, but there definitely was a learning curve.

This event really helped bring to light a lot more of the intricacies of the house system. More specifically the layout; I had no idea that the gothics were designated historical landmarks, which presented significant complications during the construction of the rest of the main buildings. Additionally, it was interesting to finally learn the truth about Quill and Dagger. From the day I arrived on campus, people were spinning tales about an elusive secret society that owned one of the towers by Baker Flagpole, but nobody seemed to know any more details than that. It’s nice to have an answer. In all, This event genuinely helped me understand the motivations behind the creation of the house system, and the role it plays in the greater Cornell community.

Experiencing Other Cultures

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Last weekend, I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in the Rose House dining room. In the past, I’ve experienced the olympics rather peripherally—I’d usually hear about them from others as they were happening, and catch the highlights for the events I was interested on YouTube later on. I never really made an active effort to follow them as they were happening, so this was my first time really experiencing them, especially the opening ceremonies. I genuinely enjoyed it a lot.

Since coming to college, I’ve become increasingly fascinated in other cultures. One of the first university courses I took freshman year was called “Major Works of Eastern Literature,” and it really opened my eyes to just how diverse the world is. Watching the opening ceremonies really reaffirmed that for me. I thought it was fascinating the way each country chose to enter—be it stoic, or full of energy. Beyond that, the more Korea-focused sections of the ceremonies were really intriguing. I really loved the choice to follow children as they grew up, which in a sense allowed them to grow with our understanding of Peyongchang.

My favorite part by far was the aerial shots of the different scenery. As someone who is in love with backpacking and camping, it really made me want to visit (which I suppose is, in part at least, the point of hosting the Olympics). I’m decidedly uncultured, having only really left the Eastern Standard Time Zone maybe once in my life, so I feel like there are always so many things I need to and see. This has certainly made visiting South Korea an important part of my list, however.

I will say, however, that I wish that the commentators would talk over the ceremonies less. It made it difficult to focus, and I think I would’ve enjoyed it much more being able to watch on my own. All things said though, I’m glad I had this experience.

The Role of the Soundtrack

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This past Friday, I attended Rose House’s showing of the movie Friday Night Lights. Despite not being a particularly big fan of football, I was definitely looking forward to it throughout the week prior. In part because it was timely (being right before the Super Bowl and all), but largely because of the film’s soundtrack. Barring a few songs featuring other artists, the soundtrack to the movie was written and recorded by the band Explosions in the Sky, a contemporary post-rock band from West Texas. Strangely enough, it was actually through the band that I first heard about Friday Night Lights—they’ve been one of my favorite bands for quite some time, and I was even lucky enough to see them in concert last spring. Since I found out they spearheaded the soundtrack for this movie, it’s been near the top of my (ridiculously long) “movies-to-watch” list.

In spite of my general disinterest in football, I really enjoyed this movie. I was a little bit worried going in; I came from a place where high school football was largely peripheral to everything else going on, and I knew how seriously other places, especially the South, could treat it at times. It was never really a part of my culture—my idea of football for the longest time was “A couple of months out of the year where my dad would yell at the TV a lot because the Giants were always losing.” I was worried that the movie would seem melodramatic to me, given this context. Luckily, that concern ended up being completely unfounded.

I have to believe this is almost entirely due to the soundtrack. Obviously I am biased since I already know and love the band who produced it, but I firmly believe it is true. The soundtrack can make or break a movie, and Explosions genuinely did the movie justice. (1) Being personally asked by the producer of the movie, Brian Reitzell, to tackle the project, (2) being familiar with the book the film was based on, and (3) being from the area the movie was set, you can tell they were genuinely passionate about the project. I think that really bleeds through into the music.

Often times you hear artists being called “sellouts” for writing music for film, but I strongly disagree with that sentiment. Writing a soundtrack presents a whole new set of challenges, and I can imagine it being a difficult, and largely thankless, job. I wish the role of soundtracks was more talked about in the music world. I would love to learn more about their history and the creative process behind making them—perhaps Friday Night Lights is the perfect place for me to start learning.