Concept: not having to go to work, to interact with people, to take part in any mundane, quotidian things; having plenty of time to read, write, draw (and getting paid for simply doing that on my own terms), having good physical and mental health, having a good night’s sleep every night, lots of laughter every day, lots of love and warmth and good food. All. The. Time.
There are some love stories (both real and cinematic) which would never have occurred without contemporary technology. But there are others which could only have existed without it.
We all know that smart devices and social media both aid, and impede, our interactions with others, and with the cities around us. Sure, today young Celine and Jesse probably wouldn’t have spent ten years apart, in doomed relationships, repeatedly missing chances to reconnect, wondering what might have been. But they also could never have had the magical night in Vienna that the film depicts.
At one point Celine says she believes that “If there’s any kind of God, it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone”. That magic is there in this movie, because there’s no device, no filter, in that space between the two characters, or between them and the city around them. No camera, only a long long look to truly see, and to try to memorise. No phone calls possible to other people, so illuminating imaginary enactments of those conversations with each other instead. No google maps or local event guides, only chance encounters/discoveries. And no taking for granted that when they part, there will be always be video chats, and DM, and hey, if they get a little bored with each other - maybe even before the end of the night- a whole internet full of other possible people to hook up with instead. There’s no preoccupation with instagramming the moment for some future viewing, and no opportunity for one of them to pull out a device, as they sit in a cafe together, to scroll privately through past events. There is only the immediacy (and a recognition of the preciousness) of the moment itself.
Do or die and kill
Couldn’t grasp it at the moment, didn’t feel, now I feel loss
A beautiful, moving, historic thing I made detached, not close, a performance
Roger Waters man
All I want is tenderness and humanity. You have become something else.
Anaïs Nin, from a letter to Henry Miller written c. September 1942 (via violentwavesofemotion)
