Living an Authentic Life

Thanks for the post. I like the phrase "living the authentic life". I also felt this movie was a good film to encourage one to live their dreams. It's also a cautionary tale to not mess up a good thing by dumping where you sleep. Those two sleeping together was the end of a very special creative relationship between all three of them and they all knew it. A very bitter sweet film.






Live Long and Prosper!

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Probably the best first time director movie out there.

So what did you think of Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Breathless, Badlands, and The Shawshank Redemption?






Sorry. Low hanging fruit.

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I'm not sure I understand your question but like you I too
could watch this movie again and again.
I like its look, its 'feel', its story, the characters,
the actors/actresses playing those characters,
and even Jack's dental work needing canine, but especially
its non-Hollywood ending.

But to try to answer your question
I don't think it's so much the in-authenticity of our lives
as much as just the entirety of living itself.
We get caught up in just going thru 'it' til all of a sudden
it's ten or twenty years later - all of a sudden.

Or there's a moment - say for instance your example of the telethon
scene - where you're forced to stop and look at 'it.'

Then further, and as another example take Jennifer Tilly's character
(shoulda been nominated for supporting actress imo btw), she's waitressing
waiting for her Schwab's Drugstore moment to hit.

Is the Baker Boys' audition going to provide it? Uh ... no.
Has Blanche (Monica) even realized 'it' yet? No not yet, she still
hasn't swallowed the cynical pill Jack & Susie pop like a daily multivitamin.
(They have a lifetime refillable subscription.)

I guess living an authentic life does require some self medicating,
whatever the source or wherever it's derived;
because there will be bruises along the way, no?

And Jack & Susie are definitely bruised even numb to 'it';
that's what pulls me toward them so strongly.
They both break down the other's well fortified defenses
when neither ever thought anybody ever could again.

I'm not sure my post here even makes sense but what I'm trying to say
is what appeals so much to me about the Fabulous Baker Boys movie
is watching two people who are so 'authentic' to me.
They're real and deep and sharp and attractive and yet really
damaged. They are *definitely* damaged goods.

And yet their cynicism is really not too unlike Frank's spray paint hair;
all just costume accessories we all don for the masquerade
party called life.

I love this movie because I flatter myself that my own life
is authentic even tho 'it' requires its own 'miracle hair.'
I see myself in Jack and Susie and Frank too.
Hell even Blanche/Monica tho only when I'm brave
enough to let my guard down, (and the inevitably gut punch that
follows - grin - but that's cool I'm covered by the same rx plan as
Jack & Susie.)

Or when a comment such as yours strikes a nerve (or chord this
is after all a movie about music, right?)

I seem to need a finish note here but I don't have one,
I guess that's another thing about life sometimes there's no clean
ending; sometimes it's left up in the air just like this movie.

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Jack completely embodies the ways we numb ourselves to not deal with our own inauthenticity in our lives.

you nailed it, my friend

jack epitomizes denial and broken dreams and the bitterness that grows from those.

side note, i remember the michael landon movie sams son or something like that. he plays a teen and his mom is always grouchy and mean. at a touching moment late in the film his dad explains that she wasn't always like that, but became that way due to circumstances, that she had really been an innocent sweetheart when they were younger. i know people like this. life has beat them up.


but you see, this is how i see jack. he's clearly a sweetheart of a guy. (the dog, the kid) yet he is traveling with a huge, deep, overwhelming scar, one that he HIMSELF probably can't even verbalize since it's been suppressed for so many years. that kind of scarrage can transform a person, and in this movie what we are seeing is a snapshot of the moment when jack is about to break out. he is about to snap. then of course all the other details converge as well to add fuel to his 'breaking' moment. (changes in the biz, hitting his limit with his brother's overbearing ways, the appearance of susie)


this is a perfect character arc film.


but then also, it has so much more, like capturing that other world of those who live the night life. (and from a bygone era, to boot) that gives it the moodiness and reflective quality that adds to the other stuff going on with jack. the whole film just oozes mood and atmosphere. anyone who has lived in the city or been urban for any period, will connect with that. the city is a whole other world at night.

then add to it the photography, the music itself (grusin!) etc etc

i could say way more.....

lol




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Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her Daddy in the bathtub.

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