MGordon_MD
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Feb 26, 2010, 8:11 AM
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By Dr. Michael Gordon
Most of us love movies. There’s an international passion for film. The predicted demise of the movie theatre with the advent of television and DVDs has not turned out to be so. Every Monday, I hear on the radio a report of the top box office hits at movie theatres.
The constant flow of new movies, however, may hide the importance of old movies and their potential role in the lives of elders. In my geriatric practice, I often recommend to families that they play old movies they know their family member loved. This is a lot easier these days than it once was, with libraries and online means of ordering old movies.
My father, who is now 98, until recently when his ability to do so has waned, would watch certain movies over and over because he loved the story or the actors – one example is the 1995 movie, The Bridges of Madison County, even though this would not be classified as a truly old movie. He especially loved the role played by Meryl Streep.
I recently experienced through the wonderful emotional power of old movies that I have a strong, positive memory of and the powerful feelings that cinema can provoke. Two that I watched have strong associations because of my father.
After seeing the play Still Life by Noel Coward at this summer’s Shaw festival, and Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand at Stratford, I was motivated to find the copies of the 1945 movie Brief Encounters, based on Still Life, and the 1950 Cyrano movie based on the second play. The copies I purchased online were not re-mastered to contemporary technical quality, but the impact that each of them had on me was profound and moving.
I saw Brief Encounter for the first time with my father in the 1950s and recall the quiet in the theatre and the beautiful music that accompanied the film. I recognized the music, from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, as that was the first 45 rpm record set we ever owned, when this format began to replace the 78 rpms that had reigned for decades. The records I recall vividly were red vinyl and were played on a small changer that dropped the discs, which had a large central hole. The changer plugged into a large radio that either already had the ability to act as an amplifier or that my father arranged through his engineering knowledge to act as the amplifier.
I listened to that concerto over and over and became so attuned to the pauses between records that when I finally, years later, bought a 33 rpm version when I had the ability to do so, I could not understand initially why there were no pauses at certain places in the concerto as the full-sized record played on uninterrupted.
The Academy Award-winning Jose Ferrer role in Cyrano was the first movie I attended with my father where I witnessed him crying during a performance. It is a habit I must have inherited from him, and my children have remarked at my doing this over the years when we have seen films together.
I recently watched each of the movies, and the memories and tears evoked reminded me of those wonderful, moving childhood memories.
Memory can do this, and all of us should use our wonderful memories of those we love to their utmost to bring back special experiences that often mean so much to us and help define who we are and how we bond with each other.
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Dr. Michael Gordon is Medical Program Director, Palliative Care Baycrest Geriatric Health Care System in Toronto, Canada and Professor of Medicine, at the University of Toronto. He is co-author with Bart Mindszenthy of Parenting Your Parents.
Parenting Your Parents is available in bookstores and online at: Indigo-Chapters, Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It is available in a US edition: Parenting Your Parents: Support Strategies for Meeting the Challenge of Aging in America.
For bulk orders email info@dundurn.com. Call: 416-214-5544 or Fax: 416-214-5556
Dr. Gordon is the author of the engaging memoir Brooklyn Beginnings: A Geriatrician's Odyssey, published by I-Universe.
Brooklyn Beginnings is available in bookstores and online at: Indigo-Chapters, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and I-Universe
Visit Dr. Michael Gordon's website.
(This post was edited by MGordon_MD on Mar 22, 2010, 7:57 AM)
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