09 March 2010
Slanted Perception (A Single Man)
)Published on March 9th, 2010 @ 12:13:50 pm, using 605 words, 1595 views
George: A few times in my life I’ve had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.
George: So what are you doing here?
Kenny: Just out for a ride on my bike.
George: Is that all?
Kenny: I don’t know.
George: Were you looking for me?
Kenny: Maybe. I don’t know. I feel like my head’s stopped up with stuff, with crap.
George: Stuff like what?
Kenny: Like, the stuff you were talking about today in class.
George: That is definitely not important.
Kenny: No, it is important. Your class is great. But somehow we always seem to get stuck talking about the past. The past just doesn’t matter to me.
George: And the present?
Kenny: I can’t wait for the present to be over. It’s a total drag. Well, tonight’s the exception…
George bursts into laughter.
Kenny: What?
George: Tonight - yes! The present - no! Let’s drink to tonight!
They clink glasses.
Kenny: Tonight!
They both take a sip.
George: So if the past doesn’t matter and the present is a ‘total drag’. What about the future?
Kenny: What future? I mean Cuba might just blow us up.
George: Death is the future.
Kenny: I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be depressing.
George: It’s not depressing, it’s true. I mean, it’s not necessarily your immediate future, but it’s what we all share. Death is the future.
Kenny: You’re right I guess.
George: If one is not enjoying one’s present there isn’t a great deal to suggest that the future should be any better.
Kenny: Yeah, I’ve thought that before. But the thing is, you just never know. Look at tonight.
George looks intently at Kenny.
Kenny: Actually I feel really alone most of the time.
George: You do?
Kenny: Yeah. I’ve always felt this way. I mean we’re born alone, we die alone. And while we’re here we are absolutely, completely sealed in our own bodies. Really weird. Kinda freaks me out to think about it. We can only experience the outside world through our own slanted perception of it. Who knows what you’re really like. I just see what I think you’re like.
George: I’m exactly what I seem to be, if you look closely. You know the only thing that has made the whole thing worthwhile has been those few times that I was able to truly connect with another person.
Kenny: I had a hunch about you, sir.
George: You did?
Kenny: Yes, sir. I had a hunch you might be a real romantic.
George smiles.
Kenny: You know, everyone keeps telling you that when you’re older, that you’ll have all this experience - like it’s some great thing.
George: That’s a load of shit. I think I’ve actually just gotten sillier and sillier.
Kenny: Really?
George: Absolutely.
Kenny: So all your experience is useless?
George: No, I wouldn’t say that. As our friend Mr. Huxley says: “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”(A Single Man - Screenplay by Tom Ford and David Scearce)
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Film, scene, Colin, Firth, Nicholas, Hoult, Tom Ford, single, man, clarity, silence, noise, sharp, moments, present, past, future, alone, experience, sillier, sealed, slanted, perception, Huxley
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