Why You Treat Me Like a Dog?: A Ziploc Bag Full of Super 8 Movies

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

A Ziploc Bag Full of Super 8 Movies

There's a scene at the end of one of my favorite films, Cinema Paradiso, where the main character, Toto, watches a reel of classic film love scenes, spliced together without sound by the old man who was the projectionist at the town's old cinema. It is accompanied by the film's beautiful musical score and is a wonderful, nostalgic expression of the old man's love for Toto from the time he was a young boy. It is guaranteed to turn me into a bawling, sobbing glob of jelly every time and I love it.

My uncle was visiting recently from out of town. Before he came down, he told me that when my grandmother died several years back, he had found a Ziploc bag full of reels of old Super 8 movies in a drawer in her apartment. He said most of them were labelled with my name, and he asked me if I wanted them. I said sure, bring them over.

A few days later, he stopped by, with the Ziploc bag in hand. It took me a day or so to find a Super 8 projector on eBay. Its a Honeywell Elmo, fully functional in its original box, apparently first purchased in 1968 and barely used. I won the auction for $17.50, shipping was $28.00 and a week later, it arrived.

That first evening, I set the projector up, and after a few minutes of looking it over and figuring out how it worked, I loaded up the first reel.

For the next hour, my wife and I watched eight two minute movies, all of them silent, of a time that I have no recollection of - basically, the second year of my life, as recorded on Super 8 film by my uncle.

At the time I was the only child in the family. My parents were in their early twenties, having left the Old Country to get an education. My uncle (my dad's brother) and my aunt (my dad's sister) were also here, and had not yet married their respective spouses. The films record a visit to the park above Santa Monica Beach, all of us in the rose garden outside the Griffith Park Observatory, and me riding a carousel at the amusement park that occupied the space where the Beverly Center and Cedar-Sinai Medical Center now stand. On another reel, I ride my little bike and pedal car in front of our first house. My mother dotes over me. I am a one year old surrounded by adults, all of whom clearly adore me.

Several things stand out immediately about the films. Of course everyone is dressed in that late 1960's-early 1970's slighty goofy kind of way. My mom's skirts are very short. My father has hair, and his own teeth, with a wide gap between the front two. My uncle drives a Volvo, a curvy one, not like the boxier ones that came later. My aunt, a nurse, is actually dressed like one, with the funny white hat and everything. She drives a cool red 1966 Mustang convertible. My parents have an orange Volkswagen. My dad and aunt are both smoking - you'd think they would have known that it wasn't a good thing to smoke around a one year old back then.

My paternal grandparents make an appearance on one reel - both of them have since passed on.

My wife and I watched the movies - we commented about how funny everyone looked and how much our son looks like I did in the movies.

After we finished watching the movies, we went about our business for the rest of the evening. When I finally lay down in bed, in those liminal pre-sleep moments, I felt a wave of sadness come over me. So much has changed since those movies were made. They are from a different time, so analog, and not just because of the non-digital Super 8 media. There was an innocence I saw in my toddling self, but more importantly I saw it in my parents, as well as in my aunt and uncle. They are the same people now as they were back then, but the years have taken their toll.

In those few minutes of film, I saw a vibrancy and happiness in my mother that I had not remembered seeing in many years. There was a love I saw she had for me that she has not been able to express to me for the longest time, and that I guess I miss on some level. I saw my aunt before she developed multiple sclerosis and its complications. My harsh and abrupt uncle was tender and loving to me. My father had his usual slightly cowboyish swagger, which he carries to this day, but now with an extra 50 lbs or so, less hair, dentures and he finally dumped the cigarettes a couple of years ago.

Watching the films made me sad I think also because I am witnessing my son enter the same age I was in those films. On the one hand I want to take him to the park in Santa Monica and to the Griffith Park Observatory and make a video of our family. But will he someday watch a film of my wife and I with him and also feel a sadness? Will he notice or feel that he was once loved more than he is now? Will there be people in the film who have changed or are no longer around? I don't want him to feel the same sadness I feel now. Or is it all inevitable?

I plan on transferring the films to digital media so that they can be preserved. They hold pieces of my life that I don't remember, and yet they are so much a part of me. I expected to feel nostalgic when I saw them, but not sad like I do. I don't know when I will watch them again, but for now, I am grateful that my uncle gave them to me.

- posted by wanderer @ 11:04 PM

Comments:

Wanderer, what a touching post. You made me cry. I have movies like that too, that were transferred to video years ago. Your description reminds me of the end of "Field of Dreams", when Kevin Costner sees his "young" father, and realizes how life had worn him down. (hopefully you've seen the movie and know what I'm talking about).
Thank you for sharing such personal memories.

# posted by

cruisin-mom : 5/03/2006 8:05 AM

Wow, Wanderer, what an amazing story. I can't believe you found a working projector on EBAY. Clearly, some divine intervention was involved. You were meant to see those films again.

I have similar films at my parents' house. I used to be the "AV" guy, the one who spliced the clips and ran the projector. My dad was very proud of that.

Yes, many things change over the years between parents and children. I can see how my dad is with me and wonder if I look the same in my own videos.

Even now, I look back at videos from the early 90's, when Fudge and Moe were small and we lived in a small apt at Einstein and I wonder if those people in the video are really my wife and me.

There has been much weathering over the years.

I hope that whatever the issues between you and your mom, you will find the wisdom to steer clear of them in your relationship with your own offspring.

# posted by

PsychoToddler : 5/03/2006 10:56 AM

Cruisin' Mom - Sorry I made you cry - not my intent (as I'm sure you know). I was just trying to put the feelings I was having into words - a catharsis of sorts. I did see Field of Dreams (long ago) and have a vague recollection of the scene you're referring to. Thanks for your comments as always!

PT - Its interesting to me that you wonder if it is really you in the videos from Einstein. I'm sure you have your own memories of what you see on the videos, and wonder which feelings seem more real - the memories of feelings you had at the time the videos were shot, or the new feelings the videos engender as you watch them now.

# posted by

wanderer : 5/03/2006 12:11 PM

Wanderer: don't be sorry...they were good tears...your words really touched me.

# posted by

cruisin-mom : 5/03/2006 1:13 PM

Hi Wanderer, speaking of movies, I watched the Red Violin tonight, finally. Wonderful! thanks for the recommendation.

# posted by

cruisin-mom : 5/06/2006 9:07 PM

Great Cruisin' - glad you liked it. Now you know what makes the violin red! Cool twist, no?

# posted by

wanderer : 5/06/2006 10:05 PM

Ok, now that Randi has seen the movie, what's the real meaning?

Btw, I just saw The Inside Man tonight. Has anyone else seen it and if yes, can you please explain to me the ending or email me an explanation? I really like the movie, but there were a few scenes towards the end of the movie, that just didn't make sense.

# posted by

... Is the Window to Our Soul : 5/06/2006 10:13 PM

Anyone who doesn't want to know...don't peek:

The red is blood. The vioin-maker used the blood of his dead wife to paint the violin.

# posted by

cruisin-mom : 5/07/2006 9:15 AM

That's right CM (and Sweettooth) - the red in the violin came from his beloved wife's blood who had just died, and he added it to the stain he usually used to make violins as an expression of his love and to keep her memory alive.

Its so cool how they figure it out in the movie by putting it under a microscope and seeing the red blood cells. (Of course the physician in me knows that the cells would have long been destroyed and would not be visible...)

# posted by

wanderer : 5/07/2006 10:34 AM

I remember taking the videos at Einstein--we're talking 15 or 16 years ago? But it seems like a lifetime ago. Like I was a different person. Of course, a cross-country move and a career later may have something to do with that.

I even remember taking the videos with my Dad. I remember when we bought the sound camera and figuring out how to put the film in, and taking a movie of my sister swimming at the bungalow colony in the Catskills.

Surely, that was 2 lifetimes ago.

# posted by

PsychoToddler : 5/15/2006 2:09 PM

Don't call me Surely.

# posted by

wanderer : 5/15/2006 6:55 PM

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