Let me Begin Again
I can't think of a better way to begin a new month. Yep: on a fresh, blank canvas — after a day filled with family, one of my best friends, a long adventure-of-a-run... and a brand new movie that I cannot get out of my head.
It has been some time since a film haunted me by its consistent and dense portrayal of truth and real human emotion. That’s the only way I can think to describe Begin Again, and the likes of Keira Knightly and Adam Levine and even Mark Ruffalo and their tangled, romantically musical relationships. Like I would imagine the producer’s first movie to be, Once, this was a story of the way that music tells human narratives. Music and the discovery, the fusion of ideas and moods and melodies, that also fuse people and lives - in the case of Mark and his wife, Mark and his daughter, Mark and Keira’s character, Keira and Adam in the beginning, Keira and Adam at the final farewell between them. Perhaps I’m relating to the story - in hindsight, after seeing it in theaters months ago - so strongly because of the way that music has accompanied by move to San Francisco and also the largest, most independent transition of mine to date.
It began with my BART rides into the city.
Part I
While I don’t remember my initial playlist for Week One of my new job, I do recall heading to the theater with Nanc and T for my first-ever, illegal “double feature” - in which we snuck into Movie #2 (Begin Again) after paying to see Movie #1: The Fault in our Stars. Talia and Brianna are too young to have been as heartbroken as Nanc and I were by the story of unrequited longing-for-life between Augustus, Hazel and their adulthoods. Tears were pouring from the deep, round pools that were my new-to-the-Bay eyes by the time the credits rolled - at which point I heard, for the first time, Ed Sheeran’s voice in a new light. He had written All of the Stars, about love and romance and the expanse of the world and Amsterdam, specifically for this film. That movie joined my ride-into-the-city playlist that evening.
Part II
The next layer of both my playlist and my musical epiphany during my time transitioning toward San Francisco arrived that same afternoon: beginning with Keira in the lounge late one weekend evening in NYC, at the start of Begin Again. I was first struck by the innocence and delicacy of her croony tunes - though in the plot, you don’t at first perceive her “innocence.” We’re then flashed backward to her persona as the devoted lyricist and girlfriend, who purely writes with and for Adam before breaking out onto a quest to discover her own sound. The best moments of the movie include the night that her team achieves utter reality on the roof of a New York skyscraper, and Mark invites his daughter to spontaneously join their set on the electric guitar simply whenever [she] feels the moment’s right. The result = "Tell Me When you Wanna Go Home."
The next best moment of BA took place on the night that Keira is tormented by a songwriter's insomnia: she simply can’t sleep, or go out, or forgive Adam, or move on - until she expresses her frustration. She sing-yells the moments-old lyrics into his voicemail… and every ounce of it is truth. I related to her sentiments: in different words, she tells him that she loved him and lived for him and for what? This journey of mine — through no such long-term partnership but several dates, some form of love and several prolonged friendships with the bad-kind-of-benefits — appears to have been meant to show me the same thing that Keira realizes by the final song (no spoilers here).
I forgot one great [and the last that I’ll mention] moment of Begin Again - in which Mark and Keira share a set of modest white earbuds and dance-walk around the streets of New York, jamming to their favorite songs of all time. They traverse nearly every genre, ranging from rock ’n' roll to Sinatra... and speak not in words, but in knowing glances every few paces. After seeing this movie, I moved through the streets of SF with a different perspective upon the people around me and the sounds in my ears. It’s like I’m looking from the outside at the music video that is my new life.
The fall took a new form when I began crafting my internal playlist in preparation for (new Vegas music fest) Life is Beautiful. My best friend Chels shared, of course, her favorites from the key artists whom we’d be enjoying. I learned doses of Little Dragon and MS MR, while reliving the sung heroes of my youth like OutKast and Foo Fighters. Just like my first year at the Festival, in 2013, I didn’t appreciate a single one of these songs nearly as much as I did on the first Friday night after the Festival had begun. I fell in love with young hipsters and local Vegas rockers. I relearned the definition of “serious girl crush” (see: Phantogram and MS MR). The was probably the primary feeling toward music that I left Vegas with last Sunday: in addition to food and sunshine and 20-year-friendship, Lady-rock sure is beautiful.
---------------
I loved Keira’s story and journey, and the friendship and rejuvenation she grants Mark Ruffalo, so much so that I can’t wait another second to re-watch this film. So I won’t. But what it’s helped me realize, recalling and reflecting upon it, is that her fresh start in the Big Apple reminds and inspires me around the ways in which San Francisco is allowing me to Begin Again.
It has been some time since a film haunted me by its consistent and dense portrayal of truth and real human emotion. That’s the only way I can think to describe Begin Again, and the likes of Keira Knightly and Adam Levine and even Mark Ruffalo and their tangled, romantically musical relationships. Like I would imagine the producer’s first movie to be, Once, this was a story of the way that music tells human narratives. Music and the discovery, the fusion of ideas and moods and melodies, that also fuse people and lives - in the case of Mark and his wife, Mark and his daughter, Mark and Keira’s character, Keira and Adam in the beginning, Keira and Adam at the final farewell between them. Perhaps I’m relating to the story - in hindsight, after seeing it in theaters months ago - so strongly because of the way that music has accompanied by move to San Francisco and also the largest, most independent transition of mine to date.
It began with my BART rides into the city.
Bay Fair BART platform, early July 2014
While I don’t remember my initial playlist for Week One of my new job, I do recall heading to the theater with Nanc and T for my first-ever, illegal “double feature” - in which we snuck into Movie #2 (Begin Again) after paying to see Movie #1: The Fault in our Stars. Talia and Brianna are too young to have been as heartbroken as Nanc and I were by the story of unrequited longing-for-life between Augustus, Hazel and their adulthoods. Tears were pouring from the deep, round pools that were my new-to-the-Bay eyes by the time the credits rolled - at which point I heard, for the first time, Ed Sheeran’s voice in a new light. He had written All of the Stars, about love and romance and the expanse of the world and Amsterdam, specifically for this film. That movie joined my ride-into-the-city playlist that evening.
Hazel and Gus in Amsterdam
Part II
The next layer of both my playlist and my musical epiphany during my time transitioning toward San Francisco arrived that same afternoon: beginning with Keira in the lounge late one weekend evening in NYC, at the start of Begin Again. I was first struck by the innocence and delicacy of her croony tunes - though in the plot, you don’t at first perceive her “innocence.” We’re then flashed backward to her persona as the devoted lyricist and girlfriend, who purely writes with and for Adam before breaking out onto a quest to discover her own sound. The best moments of the movie include the night that her team achieves utter reality on the roof of a New York skyscraper, and Mark invites his daughter to spontaneously join their set on the electric guitar simply whenever [she] feels the moment’s right. The result = "Tell Me When you Wanna Go Home."
The next best moment of BA took place on the night that Keira is tormented by a songwriter's insomnia: she simply can’t sleep, or go out, or forgive Adam, or move on - until she expresses her frustration. She sing-yells the moments-old lyrics into his voicemail… and every ounce of it is truth. I related to her sentiments: in different words, she tells him that she loved him and lived for him and for what? This journey of mine — through no such long-term partnership but several dates, some form of love and several prolonged friendships with the bad-kind-of-benefits — appears to have been meant to show me the same thing that Keira realizes by the final song (no spoilers here).
I forgot one great [and the last that I’ll mention] moment of Begin Again - in which Mark and Keira share a set of modest white earbuds and dance-walk around the streets of New York, jamming to their favorite songs of all time. They traverse nearly every genre, ranging from rock ’n' roll to Sinatra... and speak not in words, but in knowing glances every few paces. After seeing this movie, I moved through the streets of SF with a different perspective upon the people around me and the sounds in my ears. It’s like I’m looking from the outside at the music video that is my new life.
Dan and Gretta on that night
Part III The fall took a new form when I began crafting my internal playlist in preparation for (new Vegas music fest) Life is Beautiful. My best friend Chels shared, of course, her favorites from the key artists whom we’d be enjoying. I learned doses of Little Dragon and MS MR, while reliving the sung heroes of my youth like OutKast and Foo Fighters. Just like my first year at the Festival, in 2013, I didn’t appreciate a single one of these songs nearly as much as I did on the first Friday night after the Festival had begun. I fell in love with young hipsters and local Vegas rockers. I relearned the definition of “serious girl crush” (see: Phantogram and MS MR). The was probably the primary feeling toward music that I left Vegas with last Sunday: in addition to food and sunshine and 20-year-friendship, Lady-rock sure is beautiful.
My phantom SF crush and Sarah Barthel of Phantogram in Vegas
I loved Keira’s story and journey, and the friendship and rejuvenation she grants Mark Ruffalo, so much so that I can’t wait another second to re-watch this film. So I won’t. But what it’s helped me realize, recalling and reflecting upon it, is that her fresh start in the Big Apple reminds and inspires me around the ways in which San Francisco is allowing me to Begin Again.
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