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PHOTO BY CHRIS BIIHEJMER
THE END OF THE WORLD
As our bombs fell on Afghanistan and our postal system mor
phed into another weapon against us, a movie and a rock and roll
band pointed a way through the death and destruction.
Movies and music are an America known around the world
regardless of language national boundaries and warring religions.
Movies and music are instantly understood in spite of age, color,
creed or national origin. Movies and music have done more than any
ambassador or multinational corporation to create a worldwide fas
cination with America. Movies and music are also as corrupt, self-
serving and sold-out as any of our institutions, sacrificing honesty
and integrity to money.
Yet here came a film to the Georgia Theatre Tuesday evening,
Oct. 18, of uncompromising integrity, unblinkingly observing life,
but fun to watch: a good movie. Here's a filmmaker wno uses his
craft not to get rich by pandering to our lowest common denomina
tors but to let us in on life, to show us people not seen in movies,
using his camera to expand our understanding and our enjoyment.
Jim McKay's movie Our Song showed us the lives of three girls in
the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn so skillfully it felt like a doc
umentary. He enlarged our lives. He revealed in a neighborhood the
universal longings of human life, and he reconfirmed the power of
art to transcend the commerce that disseminates it.
So. too, did our local band, R.E.M. The musically aware say it
wasn't a particularly good set, and indeed the players were having
so much fun that nobody was judging. This band is owned by the
same company whose CNN Network is recouping its fortunes while
America Strikes Back, and its appearance Tuesday night was as care
fully guarded and hidden from the press as the military strikes in
Afghanistan. Yet their music soars beyond corporate and govern
mental control, beyond boundaries.
These pure sources of art—unfettered film and music—show us
a path for the human heart. As wily as he is portrayed to be, Osama
bin Laden is a fool who just doesn't get it. He or his ilk can send an
airliner to a death-laden crash in the name of his version of reli
gion, but he cannot bring the life that pounded through that the
ater that night.
Nor can George W. Bush, with all his stealthy bombers, bring
that life. Our government and the terrorists are going backward,
trading violence, and our world will be set back a decade or
more; but R.E.M.'s music will endure and will still circle the
globe, and people will see Jim McKay's movie and know that
human life goes on.
Buoyed by those visions that night one could only feel shame
that hatred in the name of religion, justice in the name of oil. and
violence in the name of revenge are driving us and our enemies.
How silly to be momentarily distracted by rock and roll, by a
movie. But maybe not, for art reaches out and grabs hold of life
in the midst of death and points us forward while the world
slides back.
Mot so long ago when Russia was our enemy instead of our ally,
a friend walked into a Moscow hotel and heard R.E.M.'s “Losing My
Religion" playing in the lobby, penetrating the Iron Curtain. Such
music will continue to get through, no matter what barriers are
raised against it abroad and at home.
This music and the clear-sighted vision represented by Jim
McKay's films are not playthings or decoration. They are outpourings
of the human spirit, which, we must believe, will always choose life
and will confound those who try to twist it toward death. Out of all
this chaos and catastrophe life fights forward. “It's the end of the
world as we know it. and I feel fine.*
Pete McCommont (putx9fUgpole.com)
Th* Athens premiere of Our Song mos sponsored by Community
Connection, on organuaOon that Krtps people in need.
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