Take Two
Last night it was the workprint of “Blade Runner”, tonight an uncut DVD of “the New York Ripper”. Tomorrow, I’m out at my friend’s film night watching god knows what. Films, films, films. I can spend days and weeks doing nothing but work through the pile of unwatched DVDs teetering by the telly. I love getting obscure titles or odd versions of films I know. Finding that the DVD of “The Wizard Of Oz” had a deleted scene of it was like finding a secret passage under my bed. Something I’ve seen a thousand times and suddenly, a part of it that’s completely new.
More often than not though, I end up watching the same handful of old favourites. I can watch “Gregory’s Girl” over and over again. In fact, when I get to the end of it, I usually want to start it over straight away. Part of that is nostalgia. When I first watched gangly Gregory obsessing over the unobtainable Dorothy, I was in the middle of an unrequited teenage obsession of my own. Seeing Gregory fail in his mission, white jacket or no white jacket, but still end up with the (frankly far superior) Clare Grogan gave this misfit teenager hope that it would all work out for him in the last reel, too. Maybe that’s why I keep going back to it – that happy ending, that sense of hope, the idea that some unexpected thing might appear out of nowhere and make everything all right. If i just watch it enough times, I’ll work out the secret formula…
I never did get to take Clare Grogan to the country park, though.