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My passion for BBM - the ultimate (so far) story

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luigival:
Dear all,
here's the second part of my own BBM story:

I’d say the Loews theatre was almost 70% full, with a good mix of viewers. As soon as the movie began, it was as if I was seeing scenes I had already seen before, only enriched by the magnificence of the landscape, the masterful directing and the beauty of the actors – and I refer not only to the two main characters, but to their wives, children and most other players in the movie as well: I found almost everybody playing in BBM either beautiful or handsome -. Truly, almost every scene on screen had been meticolously recreated according to what Annie Proulx had imagined, and all the added items fit so perfectly that I couldn’t have imagined anything different.
I greatly enjoyed the public reactions along the development of the story: there were laughs at funny events - especially at the scene when Aguirre spots the two guys “fighting” after the second tent scene -, and you could feel the sorrow when things began to go the sad way.
After all the titles and both “The Wings”, “He was a friend of mine” and “The Maker makes” had finished, people slowly began leaving the theatre, and you could feel how anybody there had been touched by the movie. You didn’t see tears around, but you felt people had been deeply hit.
I left as well, with a strange sensation in me: I had liked it greatly, though I missed a part of the dialogues - not being a native speaker - but overall I was feeling a strange form of confusion. Was I expecting to be moved as much as to cry? Maybe, but it hadn’t happened. Was what I had seen a faithful reproduction of my own experience? Not really, though there were similarities, as along my life there had been periods when I had been feeling an exceptionally strong attraction - mostly intellectual, but I don’t deny it had been physical too - for a very good friend of mine, in circumstances not too different from those described in BBM. But life makes you review your thoughts, reposition your priorities, decide what can be right or wrong - maybe? -, and that had been a number of years before. So what? In the last few years I had been quietly living my single existence filling it with lots of different interests, so why should I care too much about an old story.
Overall, was I happy with my life in general? Yes, no doubt. Well, ehm, maybe...
I left, continuing my journey through NYC, and not thinking much - or perhaps trying not to think much - about BBM. The following day I arrived in Chicago and at a point, while walking in the city centre, the whole story began to resurface in my mind in all its powerful beauty and tragedy. In a few minutes I was swept away, unable to think to anything else but to this classic and tragical story of impossible love. Why? This was the first time I was experiencing the phenomenon I now call the BBM long-distance effect. It never hits me immediately after the viewing: on the contrary, after having seen it I feel somehow relieved, but after a few hours, or on the following day, and often for a number of days afterwards, I feel wrecked, as if the soul of the story has somehow subsided into my brain and worked out a slow chain reaction on my neurons...
Well, useless to say, the following days were a series of emotional ups and downs, with thoughts on the story continuously resurfacing along the day. I had never imagined a movie could harm me lke this. All too soon I was back to old Europe, glad for both the vacation and for having had the privilege of having been one of the first viewers of what I had now elected as my all times favourite movie.
But BBM fever, that Leslie Nicolls has so well depicted in one of her great posts, had hit me so deeply that I was now feeling the need to know more about the movie, the author, the actors and so on. Above all, I was beginning to feel the sensation that I had actually known both Ennis and Jack, as if they were two real friends of mine. I bought the Italian translation of the short story, in order to better understand a number of passages that still were not completely clear to me, and became an aficionado visitor as well as a poster at IMDB. Please note that I had never, never been posting anything on the internet in my previous 45 years of existence.
Christmas was now approaching, and BBM was now being released throughout the U.S.A. and England, but for the Italian public it was still a long way to come, its release date having been announced as January 18, 2006. And how long would it have been before it could reach the town where I live? Could I wait such a long time without seeing BBM again?
- end of part two, soon to be continued -

Aussie Chris:
Argh!  End of part 2???  I'm hanging on your story here luigival.  Beautifully written and riveting.  I can't wait for the next installment.

Salivatingly yours, Chris.

luigival:
Thanks Chris,
will do my best to continue my BBM saga soon. Luigi

Front-Ranger:
I can't wait for the Italian chapter! The Western is always being reinvented and coopted for the good by the Italians and now by the Asians. It's too bad if the Italians don't recognize BBM as having Sergio Leone among its progenitors.

luigival:
And here we are with part three or, the first Italian Chapter:

I had to, though, and I did eagerly wait to see it in my own language, in the meantime continuing to visit the IMDB site, often posting there.
January came, and BBM started to flourish on Italian cinema screens in major cities, as expected, generally being quite well perceived by the public, though without much talking about it.
It happened that I was planning to go to Catania, Sicily, on January 27, for a business meeting. A quick check made me aware that on that day BBM was being screened in two different cinemas there. Well, this was beginning to present itself as a non-missable opportunity: watching BBM in Sicily could have been somewhat of an interesting ethnical experience.
Having finished working at around noon, and my flight home leaving at 10.30pm, I had plenty of time for getting into town, leisurely strolling until 5.30pm, in time for the first show.
The theatre was an old one - seemingly built in the sixties - in a back street in the old area of the city, and quite a big one with a seating capacity of more than 800 in the viewing room allocated to BBM. I was there by 5.00pm, as soon as the theatre had opened, and to my surprise I was the only one sitting for the first ten/fifteen minutes. I was feeling quite a strange sensation and could actually choose and change any place I wished, finally opting for a central seat giving me the best possible viewpoint of the screen. Only then a handful of other viewers slowly came in: a couple, two singles, and two very chatty ladies in their mid-sixties.
The two ladies took their seats two rows behind mine and continued incessantly talking quite loudly for the remaining 15 minutes that were left before BBM actually began. After 10 minutes I already knew almost everything about their family’s average income, their more recent health problems and their relatives status: very interesting! They were two of those “very much” traditional Southern Italian ladies, who meet on weekends at the cinema, and love gossiping about the neighbours’ behaviour and so on, so I was truly amazed when I heard one of them questioning the other: “Di cosa parla ‘sto film?” (What does this movie talks about?), the reply that came being “Non lo so! So soltanto che ha vinto il Leone d’Oro a Venezia, e quindi deve essere un bel film” (Don’t know! I only know it won the Golden Lion at Venice, so it has to be a good movie).
Jeez! So these two ladies who were probably even afraid of pronouncing the word “gay” had ended up unknowingly at seeing the most debated wide-release movie in recent times. I felt this was going to be really an interesting ethnical experience!
At 5.30pm the viewing started, and while the story unrolled I could still hear from time to time the two ladies chatting behind me, although much more quietly, now.
BBM was great, even though dubbed in Italian. True, you lose a part of the emotions when a movie is dubbed, but Italy has a long-standing tradition of great movie voices (quite often very fine actors themselves) and this applied to the Italian voices for Ennis and Jack too.
After the first tent scene, the two ladies completely stopped talking. Ang Lee has opted for quite a shocking approach to the beginning of the love story between the two guys, a real initiation ritual to a “new life” which always takes by surprise the first-time viewer, and that was even more accentuated in the case of these two ladies, who were now probably questioning themselves about what could possibly go on afterwards.
During the short interval between the two parts (in Italian theatres movies are still usually cut in two, allowing for a two/three minutes break), no comments were there to be heard.
As for me, I loved this viewing: at the last meeting scene I didn’t cry, but happened to feel misty eyes, the images of that desperate final hug and those of hopeful and young Jack contrasting so much with the bitter looking of a much more mature, and disillusioned Jack, being too much to bear.
Too soon BBM was over: time to leave.
Nobody in the theatre was speaking, and the two ladies looked quite proven and wrecked.
I’m sure the spirit of BBM had hit and got them good as well.
- end of part three, tbc –

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