Evolution of Enjoyment

Last night I settled on my couch with my semi-weekly vanity project of ragging my hair into curls. I needed something to distract and entertain my brain, but I find Monday night television a dismal offering. So I scanned through the on demand options and decided to finally get around to watching the first episode of The Pacific.

Now, if you don’t know this about me, I always liked war movies. I like literature about war and battle and soldiers dealing with the surreal experience of defending their country (which typically has been an American perspective). I suppose a lot of this has to do with my Dad, a Vietnam vet who relishes a good WWII epic. Something about watching and reading these stories helps me to understand that dark corner of his life. But then this curiosity led me into more history, teaching at Higgins about medieval warfare for five years, and then – my coping mechanism for living in London during 9-11 – a fascination with the Blitz. Sometimes I wonder if there is a past life thing there, too. I don’t know. I do know that I typically watch a war movie when it seems out of character for me. 

Of course, the more movies I’ve seen has led to a very real appreciation of the film itself. Battle sequences are an art in and of themselves. One that bedazzles my mind and impresses me even if the story and characters don’t.

One that really impressed me was Band of Brothers. I actually started watching that during my London residence, so I imagine there was some emotional resonance in that appreciation. Plus, I have a soft spot for Damian Lewis. So, obviously, it is no great shock that I should anticipate the follow up to that series on HBO. I was delighted when I saw the first promo after the credits of True Blood last summer. I could tell it was going to be a beautifully crafted, honest story. One that I would watch and be entertained.

It’s taken me three weeks to watch the first episode. I watched it all the way through. And… I’m not going to say I don’t like it. My suspicions were right about the production value. Very vivid and well captured imagery… but I couldn’t emotionally connect to it. Not even enough to enjoy the cinematography.

This isn’t an indictment of the show. I have enough wherewithal to know that it isn’t about quality. It’s about me. I just came off a weekend when I stared and stared at the denouement of my novel and asked myself difficult questions about action and propelling the story forward. I watched the story of Guadalcanal and kept wondering what the story was. Only my brain was able to say, that was the point. It was a lot of sitting around and waiting… and then there was a brutal skirmish. And… when that happened, I wasn’t satisfied.

I realized when the sun came up the morning after on the bodies of the Japanese that I don’t find any amount of pleasure in watching the retelling of battle carnage any more. I just… I can’t watch a scene where some nameless young soldier gets a bullet in his shoulder and not think to myself… he’s just a kid. He has a whole life, a family, a hometown, a career, a series of hopes and dreams and broken hearts that will be lost forever. I get distracted by that… and think that sorrow not just of the nameless GI’s in the background, but the piles of Japanese on the shores of the Pacific island.

Wait a minute… doesn’t your book… have violence and death? Well, yeah. Maybe that’s why these things bother me more. Because I’ve spent a lot of time the past year thinking about the multi-dimensions of a violent death. It isn’t a clean, swift act of inevitable fate. There are consequences even in the justice… and I can’t watch a war movie and get that out of my mind.

But it’s a war movie, Jess. It's a war.  Death. Kill or be killed. Fight to survive, by any means necessary. That is what war is all about. And, I’m not going to knock the fact that WWII was a necessary war. It purged the planet of evil. But a lot of people died. A lot of boys. A lot of unfulfilled dreams.

So, hey, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with war movies. Or wrong with the people who watch them. I still believe it is an amazing effort to produce one. It is a tribute to the nameless forgotten who lost their lives… I suppose. I just… I don’t find satisfaction watching them now.  It's too real... and not escape.  Not a distraction at all.