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How Film Changed Me: On Change

Barbara McLean

On January 20th 2016, Kylie Jenner dubbed the year ahead the ‘Year of Realising Things.’ Indeed, 2016 did seem to be a year in which things were realised. For example, a lot of white liberal Americans ‘realised’ racism still existed when You Know Who was elected, while we here in the UK realised that Brexit had divided us almost precisely down the middle, and the whole world realised that our favourite celebrities could die – something we realised over, and over, and over again.

On January 20th 2016, Kylie Jenner dubbed the year ahead as the ‘Year of Realising Things.’ Indeed, 2016 did seem to be a year in which things were realised. For example, a lot of white liberal Americans ‘realised’ racism still existed when You Know Who was elected, while we here in the UK realised that Brexit had divided us almost precisely down the middle, and the whole world realised that our favourite celebrities could die – something we realised over, and over, and over again.

If I were to put myself in Kylie Jenner’s philosophical seat this year, I’d likely call 2020 the ‘Year of Change’. Albeit, back in January I thought that change was going to be more to do with real estate than global upheaval. But still, I have, during this pandemic, bought a flat (my first) and two of my friends are preparing to move into a house they’ve bought together. Other friends have gotten engaged, while some have moved in with their partners to get around lockdown restrictions, acquired new jobs that require them to move across the country, or made plans to pack up and head for sunnier shores.

This change is likely due to my age (I turn 27 in September) and that famously I’m approaching what some call ‘Saturn’s Return‘. This is the idea that Saturn takes around 27 to 30 years to orbit the sun and so when you reach my age, it’s getting closer to the place in the sky it was when you were born. This, in astrological terms, means that your life is disrupted, thrown off course, and you’ll face hardship for a few years as Saturn, well, returns. Of course, your late 20s are often when you’re expected to be more independent, and bills, house sales, taxes, hair loss, and bad knees come into play so Saturn’s Return might just be astrology’s way of trying to make sense of adulthood.

The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada / CREDIT: 20th Century Fox

Whether the planets cause it or whether we just blame them, change can be hard to handle. So much so that I often find myself wishing it could fly by in one niftily edited montage. The seasons will change, and I’ll walk down the street in different weather appropriate outfits that allude to the passage of time. They’ll be a shot of me signing the contracts for my new place, and it’ll cut away before showing the stress and anxiety of buying property. Then, without showing the hassle and stress of finding affordable movers, it will show me directing two strong removal men to put the beautiful fancy sofa I’ve spent too much money on down against the far wall. In the next shot, the walls will have been painted, the shelves will be up, and my books will be all unpacked. Ultimately, it will end with everything done and I’ll sit down on my expensive sofa, look around at my finished flat, and smile. I’d be fully moved in, and ready to go back into the main storyline.

Change is a lot easier to process on film, and it has all these ways to deal with the passage of time that we don’t. For example, on Tuesday, I went for my first run in two years, and it ended with me spending £15 on Epsom salts and muscle relaxant bubble bath. It was the muscles in my groin, specifically, that felt like they were over it, as if they were some much-ignored cog in this machine I call my body. Each time I stood up, they ached, and trying to climb the stairs felt Herculean. It’s at this point that the idea of recasting is appealing. Out with the old and in with the younger model like James Bond or Aunt May. Yes, bring in someone more spritely to play the part of me for the next few years – ideally someone who has Hollywood-level personal trainer and doesn’t share my love for potatoes. Let the young hot bushy-tailed ingenue take over and then maybe I could be tempted to step back into the role in a few years (but only if the money is good.)

Bond, James Bond
Bond, James Bond

The last option, of course, is the full-blown reboot. Go back to the origin story, do it a little differently, and re-write the mistakes in the hopes that this time it will all go better and that people will be more receptive to it. Make this new version glossier, smoother, and put money into it. Recast everyone and start again. Of course, by this point, everyone will already be sick of it. Why bother bringing back a story that no one really cared about the first time? Why not make something new instead of regurgitating this old shite. I imagine that’s what the YouTube comments would say under the trailer for my new rebooted life. Nothing is ever original these days. 

Instead, I’ll just have to weather the change like everyone else. Ride with its ebbs and flows and try to make the emotional space to deal with it. I can hope and wish that I had smart ways to process change like film does. I can dream about 4 hours’ worth of shopping becoming a 3-minute montage set to a pop-rock song at the end of which I have a new haircut and a whole new outfit. I can fantasise that, as the inebriated man rambles on about politics, I could just cut away and skip the rest of his drunken lecture. But, instead, my makeovers are more gradual and my night outs often ruined by pontification.

In his book In The Blink of an Eye, film editor Walter Murch writes that Francis Ford Coppola had 1,250,000 feet of film printed after shooting Apocalypse Now. This works out to be about 230 hours of footage, all of which was edited down into 2 hours and 25 minutes. With this in mind, I guess we could try and look at life in a different way. We shoot it all, every second of life, and our memory acts as the editor. Our memory can cut out the excess, reduce the time between scenes, and even dub the dialogue. Right now we’re just the exhausted actors that have shot nearly 27 years’ worth of footage, but at the end of our lives, we’ll be able to play our own personal movies over and over again. We just have to wait until then.

Also Read: How Film Changed Me: On Reese Witherspoon

Read the rest of the How Film Changed Me series.

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Jon Paul Roberts

Queer Writer. Northern.