..with Jack Nicholson and Karen Black. Five Easy Pieces. These are the things I thought about:
1. Karen Black is extraordinary. I don't think it would be easy to play the dolt, the nincompoop, the airhead. At least to play it well. She makes it a spectacle.
2. What am I doing not playing guitar? This is a ridiculous thought, prompted by a fictional movie where Jack N. is a prolific pianist who can't take it and works on an oil rig. I don't work on an oil rig. I work in my art studio, and I love it. But I shouldn't ignore music completely. (Thank you Jack N., fictional piano-player. And thank you, Jack N.'s stunt hands).
3. Family is family is family (and that's you); there's no use in pretending it's not, even if you run away to Texas and work on an oil rig and go bowling. Eventually you will come back to the San Juans and play music, with your musically dysfunctional family.
4. I have nostalgia for Douglas Firs and logging trucks, and become homesick for these sights when I witness them onscreen. Except that I live here in Washington, and so it makes no sense. Displaced sentimentality?
I think the whole thing made me want to re-watch Love Streams by John Cassavetes. Or maybe Three Women with Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek. So good!
