Love Story

About the sappiest movie about love ever made has to be Love Story.  In fact it was so sappy you might have a hard time finding it.  There was a time when theaters used to let you pay one price to sit in the theater all day if you wished.  But when this movie came out no one was supposedly allowed in within fifteen minutes of the end.  Everyone back then wanted to know what the fuss about.  And without going into the sappy details about it, I’m not sure it matters.

The movie opens with a young college grad sitting on a bench and slowly the story unfolds.  The young man reveals his story.  Ryan O’Neal plays the young man and Ali McGraw is the love interest.  And the movie is about their love story.  The last fifteen minutes shows him still sitting on the bench with everyone in the theater knowing she just died.  That is the clincher.  She dies.

Not that I’m thinking death is somehow not emotional but it’s just a movie.  But she was young, vivacious, and excited about life.  But it’s about their love story and trials of young love.  We are supposed to grieve with O’Neal as he comes to grips with her death.  I will admit the death of anyone so young is a blow.  But we aren’t supposed to know this about the movie until it’s over.  We aren supposed to grieve too. I still have the theme of the music stuck in my head as I write this.  

Back in the day it was a ground-breaking movie with the very mentioning of it might bring tears.  I’m not sure it’s the saddest of all movies, but it might rate pretty high up there on most anyone’s list of those who saw it.  But once word of it got out, no one wanted to see it.  The fact is it’s a sappy romance story.  Hopefully everyone has their own romance story.  

Many romances don’t end with someone dying.  I will admit this.  But instead of being loved, which the producers hoped would happen, it became an avoided cliche.  It was too sad to talk about.  The word quickly spread not to watch it.  Which is why I hesitate to mention it.  The movie is a real downer.  Will the young man move on from grief and find romance again?  We just hope he’s not on that park bench still grieving.  

Every year after Edgar Allen Poe’s death for a long time put black roses on his grave on his birthday.  We all grieve for loss.  Everyone does.  We never hope for our loved one’s death.  But when it happens we grieve and move on with life.  At the end of the movie we tell him to grieve but then just move on.  His isn’t the only love story that ends with death.

Are we to believe after some 50 years he’s still sitting there grieving?  Sure after 50 years of marriage I’d miss my wife.  But everyone who loves has that same fear.  She says I’ll go on.  I will.  I’m not sure I’ll ever marry again, but I’ll survive.  And she will do the same.  In a movie he’s just stuck there on that bench.  But we’ll celebrate life together as we have each other.  Today I’m celebrating life with my pipe at the moment with some Lavish English tobacco.  My coffee this morning is from Trader Joe’s.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave