“E qui la luna l’abbiamo vicina”
February 10, 2009
We looked out the back door just now, and there behind the trees was Cosmo’s moon – bright enough to almost hurt your eyes if you stare at it. I don’t know if it was out there last night, but it would have been appropriate: We stayed up ’til midnight watching “Moonstruck” yet again. We had just watched “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,” which neither of us had ever seen. That was directed brilliantly by Elia Kazan, who later went before the House Unamerican Activities Committee and named names. In 1945, when Kazan made that film, we Americans hadn’t yet refined our paranoia about Reds.
We knew “Moonstruck” was scheduled to start at around 10:30 and neither of us made a move to turn off the TV or change the channel. We watch it whenever we’re aware that it’s being broadcast – and this was TCM, with no commercial interruptions and no dubbing over expletives. Of course, one can achieve the same thing by watching the movie on a DVD, and, in fact, there is a DVD of “Moonstruck” in a cabinet immediately under our TV. But that wouldn’t be the same, because we’d be watching it, but no one else would. We can do that any time – and we do, at least twice a year – but the communal experience was too much to pass up.
“Look! It’s Cosmo’s moon! … Is he down there?”
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