The Edge: Bookworm

I learned from reading a biography of Anthony Hopkins that the working title of The Edge was "Bookworm," referring to the billionaire cuckold character. The logic evidently was that, without a bookworm in their midst who'd internalized a wilderness survival skill or two, the eminently foolish photographer and his gender-bending sidekick would have simply died in the wreck of the Beaver. Or that's the implication. It's a pretty macho movie, and my first thought was "Ick." It grew on me, when it shouldn't have. And it's stuck there.

Charles Morse's most-bookwormish lines stick with me, is why. Here are two that keep cropping up in my life:

1. [somewhat petulantly] Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane.

When he gets him alone, Bob--the Younger Man, the transgressor, the third leg of the love triangle—takes his opportunity to needle his lover's husband, by way of appearing to pay him a compliment. He says, basically, "It must be tough to be so rich." (Envy, again.) The above line is Charles Morse's reply.

I used this line once, on a retired Air Force pilot, when he was telling me that someone was jealous of him. He laughed politely. I will always wonder what he must have thought. One has to be careful, when quoting lines from movies.

2. (Why is the rabbit unafraid?) Because he's smarter than the panther.

This one takes some describing. The inn-keeper, a Good Ol' Boy played by L.Q. Jenkins, is lamenting not being able to go huntin', and he's nonplussed when Charles Morse (billionaire bookworm) responds by giving him a useful suggestion on how to get his rifle sighted in. Now, this is good ol' boy territory! What's a bookworm doing making a useable suggestion? G.O.B. says as much:

Morse: "Well, an ironing-board makes a good bench rest."

G.O.B.: "No disrespect; I'm surprised you know what a bench rest is."

F.T.W. (Faithless Trophy Wife): "Charles knows what everything is! Got a question? Ask him! Charles knows everything!"

G.O.B.: "Take a mighty accomplished man to claim that."

Morse: "I didn't claim it."--looking glum--"I don't claim anything."

"Betcha can't stump 'im!" continues The Wife.

"Betcha I can!" says G.O.B., taking the bait. He takes down a shellacked wooden paddle from the wall. On one side is painted a black panther. "I will give you FIVE DOLLARS, if you can tell me what's on the other side of this blade!"

There's a hush.

Morse: "It's a rabbit, smoking a pipe."

"A rabbit smoking a pipe," says the transgressor. "My, my, my! Why in the world would that be, Charles?"

"Ah, oh."--Hopkins is magnificent, here, just as when he was William Bligh, being cross-examined by the English court in The Bounty. He has just the right, self-effacing touch. "Oh,” he says, “it's a symbol of the Cree Indians. On one side, the panther; on the other, his prey, the rabbit: he sits, unafraid; he smokes his pipe. It’s a traditional motif."

G.O.B. "Why… is he unafraid?"

Morse, significantly (as it turns out): "Because he's smarter than the panther."

Ah: This is what the movie is about! And, even though it might have struck me quicker, were I a man—as quickly as during the opening credits, were I my father—I guess I got there fast enough.

Traditional motif, indeed.

Life After Death

“It comes to life!” is the tagline for the 1932 film The Mummy. It seems a pretty straightforward statement. But although death does not appear in this tagline, this statement is really about death. “The mummified remains of some dead person are now alive again, freed from death.

“Death is only the beginning” is one of the taglines for the 1999 version of The Mummy, in which Imhotep speaks those very words as he succumbs to death for a second time. And I wonder, “The beginning of what exactly?”

For millennia, people have claimed knowledge of what came before and what comes after. I do not profess any such knowledge.

Per my Catholic upbringing, I should believe in either a lovely or a terrible hereafter based on the life I'm living here and now. Hindus believe in reincarnation and karma where the goal is to escape that very cycle. The ancient Egyptians believed in arriving at the afterlife with a well-mummified body, a guilt-free heart, and the right knowledge from the Book of the Dead in order to live again.

Here is the truth that I do know:

I don't know what the heck happens after death. I don't know if I'll be needing any or all the parts of my body. I don't know where my soul will go or whether it will need my body, a body, any body. And I don't want to know.

Just as I don't want to dwell on how I'll die, I don't want to dwell on what, if anything, will happen afterward. I don't want to live this life always planning for, worrying about, or hoping for the next.

Here are some other truths I do know:
- I want to be now the best that I can be instead of having regrets later.
- I want to enjoy this level/life/existence because in any other that may come I'm not likely to know that I'm there rather than here, remember what came before, or wonder if there will be another.
- I want to enjoy this life in present sight instead of in hindsight because coulda, woulda, shoulda doesn't make anybody happy.

Now you, you can believe whatever the heck you want.

The Edge: Our Story

Our Story Begins...

with a model (Elle MacPherson) and her photographer/lover (Alec Baldwin), headed to Alaska in search of a memorable photo shoot. Tagging along with them is the guy whose Challenger they're riding in, a billionaire guy who happens to be the model's husband. Anthony Hopkins plays that guy.

Charles Morse begins the film as a wealthy cuckold, a bit of a sad sack. He's distant, well-dressed, dignified. (Can Hopkins ever not be dignified? Even Hannibal Lector was dignified--creepily, but still.) Morse "knows everything," because he's curious (and, presumably, because he has the leisure time to indulge his curiosity--envy is one of our themes, here). His secretary has given him a slim volume on survival in the wild, and he's reading it on the DeHavilland Beaver trip to the lodge where they'll stay. The other, younger folks are chattering away; Morse is a loner. And it's his birthday: the book is a gift.

Next day, Morse and Baldwin and Baldwin's assistant (played by Harold Perrineau, Jr.--who had played the gender-bender Mercutio, the year before, in Baz Luhrmann's movie remake of Romeo and Juliet) set off still deeper into the wilds in search of photographical fame and fortune for Bob Green (Baldwin's character). It's a bad plan. The plane crashes (poor Beaver!), and there they are. And now they have to get back.

Simple story.

Now, about the soundtrack: I've been playing the soundtrack from The Edge, in my head, since I bought the film. It became symbolic of the Freezing North, long before I knew I'd actually relocate my base of operations there (to the Freezing North, that is). When I did move to Olympia, Washington, and later to Seattle, the soundtrack from The Edge went with me. Living in the area it depicts made the music seem more right for the territory, not less so. It's spooky and majestic. Jerry Goldsmith wrote it, and, in a serendipitous twist, Jerry Goldsmith also wrote the soundtrack of the original Mummy, another of our "Movies for Life"! (Hey, Gess!)

I made my dad watch The Edge with me, back when I was luxuriating in this watch-a-movie-a-hundred-times business. "I see something new in it, every time I watch it!" I gushed. After helping me unpack the moving van, Dad settled in, in Olympia, with an Organic Fish Tale Wild Salmon Pale Ale in his hand. He watched for exactly two minutes and twenty seconds. He watched the opening credits roll. He watched the Hopkins character disembark the Challenger in his greatcoat, followed by the model-wife, the little photographer, and the shutter-snapping entourage. He watched the camera linger for a moment on MacPherson, in her fur hat and her lime-green parka.

"Ah," pronounced Dad, in a voice that said he needn't watch further: "The faithless trophy wife."

That pretty much sums it up. It is going to be my job, in posts to come, to explain to you what it is I could find to watch so many times, in this film!

Tink is signing off!

What a Way to Go!

A lesson from "The Mummy" films of 1999 and 1932

I don't like to think about how I’m going to die. I imagine most people are like me in this respect. My demise was inconceivable at age 10, purposefully ignored at age 20, and now at age 40 peeking up for my attention.

Why do I fear Death, shun Death, ignore Death? Three little reasons: pain, deterioration, long death throes. Think about how these aspects of death worked out for Imhotep in "The Mummy" of 1999.
- Pain: mummified while still alive; eaten very slowly by scarabs
- Deterioration: from handsome to decayed and "juicy"; from religious leader to hunted prey
- Length of Death Throes: 3 millennia!

What does this all lead to? Think about the worst-case scenario. In the 1932 film "The Mummy," of unearthed Imhotep it is said that he “looks as though he died in some sensationally unpleasant manner.” Just so we are all clear on this one point, let me spell it out: I do not want to have that said about me. Nope. No way. No, thanks. I’m aiming for something more like “peacefully at home surrounded by close family and friends”; or “suddenly while swimming in the turquoise waters off Bermuda”; or “calmly while penning the last line of her highly-anticipated next novel.”

What would I see as an acceptable death? Something that is quick, happens while I’m having fun, and causes no suffering for my family and friends. But on that, and any further details of any sort of “ideal” death, I still refuse to dwell.