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When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.
Goethe.
Last night I saw a film in which I identified almost completely with the protagonist; a three hour film in which I felt I was sort of immersed in my own narrative drama. The film was MY SEX LIFE… OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT (Arnaud Desplechin) about a 29 year old philosophy teacher named Paul Daedalus “whose academic agonies are only exceeded by his difficulty breaking up with girlfriend Emmanuelle Devos amid many temptation” (according to the Metrograph website).
The film is, objectively, I believe, a classic — but the weird symmetries between the protagonist (my age, profession, disposition) and the fact that I was sitting next to the actor (there to introduce the film) who played Paul in the back row of the theater, created the sense, for me, that I was watching a classic made for me.
I’ve often said that art is like a platelet transfusion — it pours us back into ourselves at times when we’re emptied of ourselves. I don’t advocate for reading or watching classics for purely narcissistic reasons, but I do think that to engage with a work of art subjectively is important; draws out some of, if not all, of that works deepest resonances. A great film or play or novel is meant to be felt…
