Rosebud

Jenny Diski (via):  "We’ll all go down babbling about some Rosebud or other..."

But nostalgia is a treacherous thing. It can make you teeter dangerously as you walk that thinnest of lines: on one side a clear-eyed assessment of how it was for all manner of people, on the other the pit of sentimentality. Merry Christmas everyone, and bless us one and all. The older I get, the less certain which side of the line I am on. Even less certain which side of the line I should be on. There’s something about nostalgia and its close cousin sentimentality that gives me the horrors, but also something that makes me suspect it needs a lot more serious attention than I’ve been prepared to give it. It’s a Wonderful Life enrages me – it’s not a wonderful life mostly, and James Stewart’s character is tragic, offered a simpering view of the good he has done to make up for never having got away from the town he longed his whole life to leave. A kind of Judeo-Christian-Islamic afterlife instead of, rather than after, life. Then again, while I rage at the movie, tears stream down my face. Got to get this sorted out before the last of the brain cell bubbles finally bursts...(more)