Defining Moments of Our Time

Imbolc                                                                        Bloodroot Moon

Watching Margin Call while I workout.  This 2011 movie with Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and Jeremy Irons and a wonderful supporting cast gives me chills.  It sets

itself in 2008 in a company that sounds a lot like AIG or Lehman Brothers.  A rising young analyst, really a rocket scientist gone over to finance for the money, discovers the company  has already passed its margins of safety.  A coldly calculated retreat then follows.

What struck me, more than the historical period piece about the biggest financial disaster of our time, were some simple shots.  Demi Moore and the CEO of the local branch walking down a darkened corridor to a meeting with the chairman of the board.  They’re serious.  Their world is about to come apart, a world they’ve worked their lives to achieve.

And I thought.  Gee, step outside that darkened corridor.  Go down and walk on the sidewalks of New York or the trails of Yosemite.  Wander the blue highways of Minnesota or board a boat on Lake Superior.  The world in that corridor does not matter.  It’s not existentially important.  It’s a constructed, artificial world no different from an amusement park or a video game.  Everybody agrees to treat it with gravitas, putting it in a movie with serious music in the background and tension building.  That’s all it is, another way this animal lives its life, and not a particularly significant part of that life.

Kate and I got the first disc of Homeland a couple of days ago and we’ve watched the first four episodes of this Showtime series about the CIA and the war against terror.  Claire Danes, a favorite of mine among young actors, and Mandy Patikin, a wonderful and sensitive actor, give the series bite.  It’s an interesting peak into the world of spies and terror and contemporary events.  In that regard it’s similar to Margin Call.

The two works together summarize defining moments of this very young millennium, moments that have had a huge impact on all of our lives and will continue to effect us for years to come.  They will be historical documents a hundred years from now, a Rorschach on our hopes and fears, mostly our fears.  They’re both high caliber, sophisticated presentations worth your time.