Monday, 2 October 2006
Recommended by an eclectic scholar of art and media, two friends and myself stepped out of the Broadway Circuit at Cinematheque near midnight to conclude the end of long weekend. For the 2 hours before midnight, we indulged ourselves to the understanding of the ‘descending’ stage in the movie of “A Prairie Home Companion” which translated as「在睛朗的一天 收檔」in Chinese.
Probably related to my recent teaching, I couldn’t keep my mind away from the stages of human development proposed by Erik Erikson throughout the whole movie. Erikson postulated that there are eight different stages in a person’s life. People in each stage are assigned with specific tasks, or psychosocial crises as he named it. There are certain stages that I personally do not have hand-on experience and thereafter could only tell from my observation of the others and readings. One of the stages is the “Old Age” which roughly starts from 65 years old onwards. According to Erikson, people in this stage kept reviewing their life. The sense of ego integrity, which includes our acceptance of an unique life cycle, with its own history of triumphs and failures, provides a sense of order and meaning. When one couldn’t accept their life passage, one probably ends up in despair. Somehow the movie “A Prairie Home Companion” seems providing me a chance to taste the last stage of Erikson’s model.
While senescence may not be a contemplating issue to me at this stage of life, Erikson’s concepts do provides me the framework of how to perceive it. How one go through this stage of life when there’re too many stories to tell, memories to share and people to remember. How should one face the coming and leaving? What about those issues/buildings/programmes that used to be core in our life? When time passed by, earthly things dissipate. In what position should one take while facing all these things? Senior persons are the witnesses of life changes. It’s unpalatable that they have no choice but accept as it comes. The “Angel” in the movie simply carried a symbol of ‘thought’ for this group of people who prepares the last show of the long-serving live radio programme. This “thought” comes and go like the ghost. It can mean the end of life or the end of a particular state. Meeting the ends of something probably is the main task of the senior – one scares its occurrence while the other tries to repress* its existence. The woman in pure white jacket may not come to the attentions of all the crew members of the radio programme and yet no one can deny its existence – for this group of people or the ancient building. Isn’t it served as some kind of unconscious reminders? It’s there even though you may not really able to see it through.
The struggles in this stage of life are far more than that, I am sure. I look forward to be able to transcend it in the coming 20- 30 years or getting a chance to hear from a real person, preferably growing up in the mid-west of USA in Erikson’s old age.
*Freudian suggested that repression is also one kind of ego defense mechanism.
Movie website : http://www.aprairiehomecompanionmovie.com/
Recommended by an eclectic scholar of art and media, two friends and myself stepped out of the Broadway Circuit at Cinematheque near midnight to conclude the end of long weekend. For the 2 hours before midnight, we indulged ourselves to the understanding of the ‘descending’ stage in the movie of “A Prairie Home Companion” which translated as「在睛朗的一天 收檔」in Chinese.
Probably related to my recent teaching, I couldn’t keep my mind away from the stages of human development proposed by Erik Erikson throughout the whole movie. Erikson postulated that there are eight different stages in a person’s life. People in each stage are assigned with specific tasks, or psychosocial crises as he named it. There are certain stages that I personally do not have hand-on experience and thereafter could only tell from my observation of the others and readings. One of the stages is the “Old Age” which roughly starts from 65 years old onwards. According to Erikson, people in this stage kept reviewing their life. The sense of ego integrity, which includes our acceptance of an unique life cycle, with its own history of triumphs and failures, provides a sense of order and meaning. When one couldn’t accept their life passage, one probably ends up in despair. Somehow the movie “A Prairie Home Companion” seems providing me a chance to taste the last stage of Erikson’s model.
While senescence may not be a contemplating issue to me at this stage of life, Erikson’s concepts do provides me the framework of how to perceive it. How one go through this stage of life when there’re too many stories to tell, memories to share and people to remember. How should one face the coming and leaving? What about those issues/buildings/programmes that used to be core in our life? When time passed by, earthly things dissipate. In what position should one take while facing all these things? Senior persons are the witnesses of life changes. It’s unpalatable that they have no choice but accept as it comes. The “Angel” in the movie simply carried a symbol of ‘thought’ for this group of people who prepares the last show of the long-serving live radio programme. This “thought” comes and go like the ghost. It can mean the end of life or the end of a particular state. Meeting the ends of something probably is the main task of the senior – one scares its occurrence while the other tries to repress* its existence. The woman in pure white jacket may not come to the attentions of all the crew members of the radio programme and yet no one can deny its existence – for this group of people or the ancient building. Isn’t it served as some kind of unconscious reminders? It’s there even though you may not really able to see it through.
The struggles in this stage of life are far more than that, I am sure. I look forward to be able to transcend it in the coming 20- 30 years or getting a chance to hear from a real person, preferably growing up in the mid-west of USA in Erikson’s old age.
*Freudian suggested that repression is also one kind of ego defense mechanism.
Movie website : http://www.aprairiehomecompanionmovie.com/
1 comment:
Absolutely fantastic topic! Great blog. Thanks for taking the time and writing this.
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