I haven’t watched Community in about 20 years. I’ve all the time thought-about it one in every of my favourite motion pictures, however except for sometimes watching Ned Beatty’s and Peter Finch’s traditional speeches within the film on YouTube, for no matter purpose, I haven’t revisited it a lot. I lately rewatched it, and whereas the message continues to be disturbingly correct – perhaps moreso than it was when it was launched in 1976 – there was one thing else that grabbed my consideration this time.
The tangled, messy relationship between Max (William Holden) and Diana (Faye Dunaway) was one thing I all the time noticed as a distraction from the primary level of the movie. It is smart within the context of the story (type of), however I by no means related with it like I did watching it lately.
The Film Actually Ties Collectively Diana’s Nihilism In Her Skilled And Personal Lives
Diana is as cutthroat and impressive as any film character ever, and she or he has a chilly, remorseless perspective in regards to the tv business that has been written about many occasions during the last 50 years or so. That coldness is mirrored in her affair along with her a lot older boss, Max. What begins as a fling finally turns right into a cohabitation state of affairs. Max leaves his spouse for Diana and shortly begins to lament his selections.
The 2 are arguing within the kitchen of their condominium, and Max says to Diana,
I really feel awful in regards to the ache that I’ve precipitated my spouse and children. I really feel responsible and conscience-stricken, and all of these belongings you suppose sentimental, however which my technology calls easy human decency.
It’s what he says subsequent that actually resonates with me,
I am starting to get scared shitless, as a result of hastily it is nearer to the tip than the start, and demise is all of the sudden a perceptible factor to me, with definable options.
I had a serious well being scare in 2024, and it actually set in that I’m getting older. I don’t worry that demise is true across the nook, however demise feels very actual to me now, in a means that it by no means had earlier than. It’s a perceptible factor. It has definable options. I used to be so struck by this second within the film that I really needed to pause it and ruminate on that line for a couple of minutes.
Within the scene, Max is upset at himself for a number of the selections that he has made. I’ve been fortunate sufficient to haven’t made comparable selections because the getting older TV government, and I’m not as outdated as Max is within the film. I nonetheless have a variety of my profession left and, hopefully, a variety of life left. Nonetheless, I’m in a spot now, waiting for my subsequent birthday when the odometer goes to roll over into a brand new quantity on the entrance, and I can’t assist however take into consideration how a lot time I actually have.
I Observed My Personal Nihilism Creeping In
Once I first noticed probably the greatest motion pictures of the ’70s, Community, in my early 20s, I used to be filled with vim and vigor. I wished to tackle the world, and politics bought me offended and excited. I used to be fearful in regards to the future, as I had a variety of it forward of me. Actuality TV was on the rise, firms exerting extra affect on politics and on a regular basis life, and I used to be disturbed by it. Within the many years since, issues have solely gotten worse. That was what this text was presupposed to be about.
That side of Community has been, for lack of a greater phrase, crushed to demise through the years. Books have been written about how prescient author Paddy Chayefsky was together with his sensible screenplay and the good quotes from it. Mass media has solely grown greater and extra influential, and now we’ve social media performing the function that TV used to, and it is like TV on steroids. It has, frankly, made issues worse than they’re within the film. The search for followers and views, like Diana’s thirst for higher rankings within the movie, drives a lot of what folks do and say on social media that information don’t matter. All that issues is being extra outrageous and extra stunning than the final individual.
I’ve turn out to be numb to all of it, in a means. Positive, I nonetheless see pink once I one thing actually upsets me, however not like I used to. The movie made me marvel if the way forward for the world is not as necessary to me anymore, and I fear if that sort of nihilism will solely enhance as I become older. There’s solely a lot I can do, and albeit, I’m not “mad as hell” proper now. I’m resigned to the established order. I don’t prefer it.
Community Used To Scare Me For The World, Now It Scares Me For Myself
Perhaps this can be a name to motion. I would like to seek out that fireside I used to have. I have to take the phrases of Howard Beale (Finch) extra significantly. I have to get “mad as hell.” As darkish because the satire is in Community, it was additionally inspiring to me within the ‘90s; it must be much more so within the ‘20s. I ought to wish to tackle the “primal forces of nature,” as Ned Beatty says in his solely scene within the film.
What makes Community nice is that it’s the sort of story that teaches viewers various things at totally different factors of their lives. Identical to rereading Catcher within the Rye as an grownup made me hate Holden Caulfield, after adoring him as a youngster once I first learn the e-book. Nice tales have the power to be chameleon-like of their message, and Community is a type of nice tales.
It has jogged my memory that, within the phrases of Howard Beale that “I am a HUMAN BEING, God rattling it! My life has VALUE!” So, it’s time for me to rise up, open the window, stick my head out, and yell “I’m not going to take it anymore!”