Saturday, January 07, 2006

Devious Deviants: Divide & Conquer

I just woke up. Yes, I know it's 4:30 in the morning, but I fell asleep at around 10, decidedly drunk and happy with my day.

The full story is as follows: We had a revision session for European Cinema, taught by one of my 2 favourite lecturers, and one of my 30 or so favourite people in the Universe - those of you who have seen our last year's film will know who I'm talking about. Yeah, that guy...

We were having a smoke outside, just before class, and naturally he came over, we offered him a cigarette and the "interested" crowd (no more than 5 people out of a 100-or-so people course) and him talked about academia and stuff.

He then offered to take us to the pub after class, so that's precisely what happened (exam nerves seem to disappear when the guy is so brilliantly entertaining - I mean, who cares about European cinema? I'll tell you who: people who have Ron as a professor...). So there we were, drinking and talking about cinema and life in general and cinema and films and cinema.

What struck me as so wonderful and unique and blogworthy was the actual crowd. There we were, three people from Greece, one from Britain and one from Sweden with a South African accent (Iwona was working as usual so she couldn't make it), each with their own completely different tastes and opinions on the same general subject - Chris is into classic black & white cinema, Bergman and such, John is into indie arty contemporary stuff, Than is into comedy and "making your film with any means you've got", I'm the kind that will justify my tastes as "new media", anything innovative and original yet classically effective, while Ron, the lecturer, a 50- or 60-something year old man with the heart of a 20-year-old, is into Nicholas Ray and vintage American cinema in general.

Still, all of us connected so well. We viewed the same subjects the same way, and, no matter if we disagreed on almost everything tastes-wise, we discovered the exact same things from completely different viewpoints. The chemistry was magical. And everyone there was glad to be there, to be part of this odd and wondrous group.

So, no, you don't choose the people you like, or love, because they're as close as possible to you. That never broadens your horizons wide enough, there's nothing there for you to learn and expand. You choose the people you can communicate with, the people that can show you a different window through which to see the same lovely view of the world outside that you're humbled by.

2 comments:

Atalante said...

Amen.

Is it the second time I am... amening in a comment here, or is it just me?

BunnyDee said...

Amen away... I'm enjoying every second of it ;)