With 'Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat,' a new possibility was introduced to the world of art and culture.
For the first time, men, according to Andrei Tarkovsky, found the means to take an impression of time
and simultaneously the possibility of reproducing that time on screen as often as he wanted to repeat it and go back to it.
Men acquired the matrix for actual time.
A snapshot captures a single moment
but cinema or any other piece of film, for that matter, it records the movement of images across time.
For Tarkovsky,
that's what the medium is all about. I think it's for that reason that when you see the passage of time,
real time, you get such a powerful experience out of it.
Most movies that show aging on-screen will use different actors to represent the different periods.
Or they'll resort to characterization to change the actors and make them look younger or older.
Or both like the way they aged Ethan Hawke in 'Great Expectations.'
When the filmmakers do this, they're going out on a limb.
They're asking us to forget that this boy is not another actor and that this really isn't Ethan Hawke wearing a wig.
Sometimes those transitions work seamlessly, but they never carry the same punch of someone who's growing and aging on-screen.
For my money, Richard Linklater's best work comes when he explores real-time
capturing the aging process throughout a whole trilogy or a single film.
When you watch life happened to the characters in these movies in the form of pimples
and then wrinkles, in some level you can feel you watching an unmatched expression in all of the arts.
I've recently discovered that this type of film has a bigger impact on me the older I get.
I noticed this when I watched the latest installment in my favorite series of all time
'Creed' is steadily directed by Ryan Coogler and stars the very talented Michael B Jordan.
It's a vibrant tale of a young black man discovering his identity while trying to reckon with his troubled past.
But for me as a fan of the 'Rocky' series since before I can remember
the character who still packs the bigger punch is Rocky Balboa.
I watched every installment of the 'Rocky' series before I was 10, and then I rewatched it every time it was on TV.
Which was just about every other weekend.
Half of the push-ups I've ever done were in front of a TV set playing 'Rocky.'
I can't say I have the muscle to show for it, but on the upside, I carry with me the memories.
I have this theory that with every repeat viewing I get to reconnect with every version of me that watched the movie in the past.
If that makes sense?
Whether it's the boy, who first watched it on a Sunday afternoon
or the young film student who found out that 'Rocky' is actually a really solid movie.
For Ryan Coogler, 'Rocky' obviously carries the same punch. In an interview close to 'Creed's' release
he described the connection between 'Rocky' and his father.
Quote:
"He would do ... before I have a big game, he made me sit down and watch watch 'Rocky II' on VHS.
You know that was my introduction to the character and to the story."
When 'Creed' references the other 'Rocky' movies you can see that it's not just to milk nostalgia.
It's in fact connecting to a deeper sense of time gone by.
"Why do you want to fight?" "Cause I can't sing or dance."
"Since we're pretty much like family, who won the third fight?"
"He did."
"I want you to wear these."
Time doesn't lie, you can see it in the face of Stallone.
In his older body and the way it moves differently now, it shows in his quieter demeanor.
There's no amount of makeup and CGI that can fake it, life has beaten him up and worn him down.
But he's still here in front of us fighting these new battles.
Now every time I see him going up those stairs
whether it's 1976 Italian Stallion or 2015 Mr. Balboa
now I can't disconnect it from the weight of time.
For me this character will never return to just be young Rocky or old Rocky,
now he's all the Rocky's I've seen through time, compressed into one. Always.
And every time I see it, I'm never just me, but I'm all the persons, I was when I saw it.
All at once.