Great Expectations

The other night, I attempted to watch The Beales of Grey Gardens, which I had never seen, but which I had always been intrigued by from afar. Only five mintues into the film, I arrived at the point that the daughter is explaining how the garden--now darkly overgrown--used to be one of the most famous gardens in America.


She ends with the thought: 'It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present. You know what I mean? It's awfully difficult.'



And the DVD stopped and refused to play, even when I tried cleaning the disc and putting it in again. It was a library copy, and badly worn out, but I found it significant that, somehow, fate had chosen this very place to make the disc unplayable. Something thematically, or even musically, right. The music of chance, maybe...Only I don't know when I'll attempt to see this film again. In a way, this strange experience has claimed the film for itself.