—
When we go to the movies, sometimes we pick up the subliminal messages the filmmakers slip in for us.
Some filmmakers leave it to you to take away what you need. The characters I saw on the screen shaped what I believe are certain portions of my personality. I am not the only one to feel this way; I am just one of the ones wild enough to admit it.
Yes, I got some of ‘me’ from the movies.
There, I said it. I learned some of what was acceptable and not acceptable about being a man from characters in the movies. Mind you, this is a subconscious thing and some of it made perfect sense in the tumultuous times that I grew up in, in NYC.
When the Black exploitation movies hit the big screen in the early 70’s I was a young and highly impressionable fatherless boy. I read Ebony Magazine as part of the tools I used at the time to educate myself about being black, how society saw us but also how we can shape our own future and our own destinies.
◊♦◊
A movie came out in 1971 about a dapper cool private Detective named John Shaft. In the title role was an unknown actor and Ebony Fashion Fair model named Richard Roundtree. The brother put black swagger and controlled explosive temperament wrapped in leather and cool under pressure and placed it on the screen for all to see in its full brown masculine glory. As the Grammy Award-winning soundtrack written by the late great Issac Hayes (For this generation “Chef” on South Park) the lyrics said, “This cat Shaft is a baaad Mutha….Shut yo’ mouth”
.
.
Shaft walked in two worlds, the mainstream world of the police establishment that he had to relate to in order to keep his detective’s license and therefore his gun, and also had to maintain enough street cred (and understanding) of the brothers who in Black Panther like fashion sought to not just undermine the “man” but the scum in the community that was brown like “us” that profiteered off of the pain within the community by selling drugs.
When your mind is young and impressionable, and you don’t have a father or other male role model that is “yours” exclusively, sometimes our fantasies allow us to internalize traits from the films we see and make an impression on us. When I saw Shaft, it taught me that being Black could be powerful, it could be cunning, stylish, and righteous because John Shaft was all those things and in reality, he has one vulnerability: women; exclusively his woman Ellie.
◊♦◊
Films have power. For, after all, they are stories about the human condition—whether they be fantasy or reality—there is a “soul” in the film. These characters and storylines that impressed me as a youth and left marks on my male mind vary but are nonetheless important:
Movies that taught me that grace under pressure, cool, and style are traits that any man would want to acquire:
James Bond: The wry snarkiness with a wink that only Sean Connery could deliver. He was just a bad boy with very nice toys and bespoke suits. How he commanded a room, held the attention of male and female alike and yet, when required he could kill without a second thought. He had a license to kill, a bad boy, an enforcer with authority for Queen and Country. My favorite Bonds? Connery, Brosnan and Daniel Craig (sorry, it was hard for me to take Roger Moore seriously with all that polyester).The lesson? Honor, Humor, Snarkiness is OK as long as it’s delivered in good taste. Always defend a lady and when required, and be prepared to utterly decimate your enemy especially when it comes to blowing up their evil lair.
In To Catch a Thief, Cary Grant took cool beyond grace. Always dapper, always a well-put-together gentleman, Cary Grant was brilliant as Don Robbie the retired professional jewel thief and legend retired in the South of France. (Isn’t that where all jewel thieves go to retire?) He had incredible chemistry with Grace Kelly who eventually became the real Queen of Monaco.
The lesson: Cool under pressure, always be suave, always get the girl and always do so while looking stylish.
.
.
Our Man Flint. James Coburn did two films as the super-spy Derrick Flint. “Our Man Flint” and “In Like Flint” where campy versions of James Bond films (also see Dean Martin as “Matt Helm”). But the difference with Flint is that while highly misogynist he was also very Zen-like in his approach to everything. Having trained in real life as a devotee of Bruce Lee’s style of Kung Fu and probably Bruce Lee’s best friend in Hollywood, Coburn added a layer of authenticity to a role that was campy wherein you knew he was having fun with it.
The lesson: Have fun, know your craft and you don’t have to be what the world thinks is handsome and attractive to be suave, to get the girl and save the world.
.
.
The Eiger Sanction and The Killer Elite: If you haven’t guessed by now, spy movies are my thing. Clint Eastwood and James Caan, respectively. Eastwood as the art-loving mountain climbing womanizing professor assassin Jonathan Hemlock. James Caan as Lockett the CIA Agent betrayed and decommissioned by his best friend and partner.
The lesson: Both men were loners, cool, determined and fought against the odds even when betrayed (betrayal and how you cope with it was the overriding theme in both films. How you emerge victoriously and how you deal out judgment if you desire to with the people who have done you wrong.
◊♦◊
Movies that Taught me About Love and Emotions
My all time favorite that makes me moody and melancholy at the same time is The Price of Tides.
Yes, that movie actually makes me cry. The film was about a man learning about love from the women in his life and coming to terms with his truth. Nick Nolte’s role as the rough and gruff macho football coach and father of three girls is a tear jerker where he learns the meaning of his own life through a brief love that opens his heart in ways he could never have imagined. This same relationship opens him up.
The lesson: The women in your life do teach you about love, and what you decide to do with that knowledge can grow you in ways you didn’t know possible. Hopefully, in that journey, you become your whole self. This is my all-time favorite film about love. And when you pair that with the vocals of Barbara Streisand, the Rainbow Room scene which is their last night as lovers in NY, is quite frankly the best ever filmed.
Love in the Time of Cholera, the story of a man and woman who loved each other across the span of their lifetime and only when they were older, were they able to act on their love because of the course that each of their lives took.
The lesson: Despite what occurred in their lives, numerous lovers, marriages, great wealth, what truly mattered to both of them is what they felt for each other.
Love Actually with Hugh Grant & Liam Neeson is a great ensemble movie (another high favorite that I watch every time that it is on the television) The film follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London, England. All of the men are flawed and trying to figure out what love is for them. The characters are richly drawn and trying to navigate their love lives through death, marriage, infidelity, you name it.
The lesson: Love is complex, it’s still a mystery for some of us but with all of that, it’s so worth it in the end.
◊♦◊
There are so many favorites where I can tell you I took a lesson, something touched me, or I learned something that stuck with me, even today as an adult: Wall Street (be a beast in business), Malcolm X (integrity and change), The Thorn Birds (love can be selfish and secrets in a relationship is a huge problem). It may sound a little loopy, but if you pay close attention you sometimes internalize the lessons of love and manhood in these celluloid creations.
Nick Nolte as Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides so eloquently stated: [narrating] “In New York, I learned that I needed to love my mother and father in all their flawed, outrageous humanity, and in families, there are no crimes beyond forgiveness. But it is the mystery of life that sustains me now. I look to the north, and I wish again that there were two lives apportioned to every man – and every woman.” Another lesson well learned, and applied.
********************
If you liked this essay,
subscribe to Franklin Madison, Author, In Memoriam
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please support our mission and join us as a Premium Member.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
********************
Photo credit: Shutterstock
great, i appreciate your work on it. thanks for sharing this blog,
Thanks for sharing these are just woowwww movies.
wow just a fantabulous movie I love it to watch and its to favourite of all nice story thanks for share
what a great post..and thank you for including Love actually..its my favvvvvv movie of all time! and i learnt and loved it so.
I’m glad that you appreciate the work my late father-in-law, James Coburn, did in the Flint movies. But I must assure you that he did not meet Bruce Lee until at least a year after filming the second film. He often remarked that he believed the fights would have been even better had he known Bruce earlier. I am in the process of completing the authorized biography of James Coburn, on behalf of the James and Paula Coburn Foundation, currently titled “Dervish Dust: The Life and Words of James Coburn.” The book includes letters, poetry, journal entries and transcripts of… Read more »
Hey, Admin great work I loved this post after reading this post I watched this movie it’s different I have developed the taste of this. Awesome movie