I first saw The Sterile Cuckoo in college. It was part of a writing class. We saw maybe 12 important films that semester. Each with complex thematic constructs, and were challenged to write an article about them. Not just a review, but an article exploring an element of story, character, theme, or general film making...whatever the choice, it had to be relevant and it had to be good writing. I had no idea what to write about this one. Bonnie and Clyde, and Citizen Kane were pretty easy. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie left me cold. Probably because this freshman had lived a life that barely included the other side of the walls to his 10 X 12 room up to that point. So, very little of it made sense. Ive not been able to watch Maggie Smith since. Even on Doctor Who. But The Sterile Cuckoo was a tough one. Perhaps because I was young and isolated, myself. Or maybe that I was inexperienced to the point of painful shyness. Something thats never gone away. Or, it could have been that I was going through the same moments in life that were being depicted on the screen. This after having emerged battle hardened from a storm that would have made Stephen King cower in the corner like a school girl. Liza Minelli was brilliant. Carrie Snodgress and Elizabeth Hartmann auditioned for the role. Patty Duke turned it down. I doubt any one of them could have brought such credibility to the manic panicked awkwardness of Pookie Adams friendlessly unlikable girl. Perhaps because Liza, herself, was so unhinged. And Wendell Burton was perfectly cast against her. And like my own story, that year, it began with an awkward moment, blazed for a time, and ended just as awkwardly. She even had a Volkswagen. Its what I learned to drive in. It was disquieting seeing what was currently going on in my life up there, 40 feet wide, at the front of the hall. It was all there. Walks through the campus. The woods. The beaches, in my case, the riverfront. The getaways to the cabin. All the while wondering if this is as good as it will ever get. If it will stay even this good. Living on the razor between panic and abyss. Wondering, as Pookie said on the screen, if things are too perfect. And how the slow motion crash would play out. Or if Id crash it, myself. Fearing, that, tender, inevitable rejection. See, I was the cuckoo in my story. Socially inept. Sharp tongued. Like a freshly whipped dog, wondering where the next lash would come from. Friendless. With, suddenly, this girl in my face. And not having the first clue what to do with it. Still have those moments. Someone with a gifted insight, and an artful, overabundance of talent for nurturing, tried fixing me up, more than once. She actually said out loud, a decent single guy should not go to waste. I had no idea what the hell to do with that. Im not sure I do now. But, watching the awkward, white hot connection between Pookie and Jerry on the screen, again, tonight, and seeing how his total immersion in her eccentric, outside-of-society world actually prepared him for mainstream life among those she so desperately rejected and wanted no part of...Well, that raised some bittersweet memories of my own. Times were different 1969. As chaotic as the 60s were, on college campi, coupled with the general chaos on college campi, anyway, those times seem almost placid by comparison to whats going on in Life, today. And despite the lack of the abundance of technical leashes, tethering us to a network watching our every move in the Third Millennium, 1969 had people talking to each other. Learning about each other. Getting to know each other. Simple cabins in the woods. Cars that just ran..well, sort of..instead of the overengineered, over featured, behemoth jewelry of status and ego that we accept as the bare minimum in contemporary driveways. It was simplicity, on the verge of extinction. It was the beginning of the age of consumptive politics. The dawn of the Epoch of Threesome: Man-Woman-State. It was a brief moment when a few stolen nights of exploration with another person would teach you something about yourself. Instead of the legal system. Seeing The Sterile Cuckoo in 1969, was like looking into a mirror. Contemporary reflection of a life being experienced. Seeing The Sterile Cuckoo now, is through the glass darkly. A depiction of a memory blurred by time and space, and decades of experiences, themselves raised by the learnings of those experiences. It was largely as I remembered it. With subtle understandings, that I did not grasp then. That are more personally apparent, and relevant, now. Bittersweet is a good word. Definitely bittersweet. And, I remember thinking in 1969, that I wish Id not seen it, then. Im thinking, Im probably going to wish Id not seen it, now.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 05:01:11 +0000