I’m drawn to the connection between the profound and the ridiculous. One of my all time favorite movies that falls in that shadowy carnival rabbit hole of a spectrum is Beetlejuice. It’s fun, it’s ridiculous, it’s irreverent, and for my money, it has one of the most brilliant scenes in movie history.
The dinner party possessed by the lunatic Beetlejuice begins the moment Katherine O’Hara looks skyward, unknowingly poising herself for the event to come: a dance party to Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O, the Banana Boat” song.
As they flow to the rhythm of “a beautiful bunch, a ripe banana!” they’re all clearly bewildered. Their surprised expressions ask “who is this person?” as they glance down incredulously observing their familiar bodies moving in unfamiliar sways, owning and living their sensuality.
All of this they tremendously enjoy, right up until giant sea monster hands emerge from their bowls and pull their faces down into the Tim Burton soup du jour.
Sure, they are possessed, but the greater significance of that scene is that they surrender to how their bodies want to move: Feel more. Think less. Be.
This is why I love film, and scenes that capture something telling, and revealing, about who we are. And of equal importance is that film can awaken and stir something within us about who we want to be, and how we want to live.
The bigger “picture” matters to me too, in life and in film, but it’s the scenes that fill up both. They give us reason to pause, to step off the pernicious road of busyness, of societal and self induced pressures. The pause itself is worthy in its own right, as is just about anything that gives us pause.
Knowing that people care a great deal about how to tell a story in fiction and particularly in documentary film, which I write the most about—it matters. Films cultivated with intimacy and awareness, suffused with spontaneity, and crafted with care and attention are quite possibly the reason someone’s day turns a corner. That matters. It might be the reason someone doesn’t give up. And if that element of a scene isn’t worth tapping into, I don’t know what is.
