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May 26th, 2008
10:58 pm - Art gives new images to understand the world
Since it was Memorial Day, it seemed appropriate to spend time outside (hiking in the morning, kayaking in the afternoon), eat veggie burgers, potato chips and fresh cherries, and watch a film that reminded us why Memorial Day is celebrated. In our movie collection we have some wonderful movies about the horrific cost of war : GALLIPOLI , GLORY, SCHINDLER'S LIST, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, for example. We considered a feel-good epic like THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, but decided to watch the 1946 film by William Wyler, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES. In case you don't know this film, it tells of three World War II soldiers who return to a small town in the United States and discover that neither they nor the people left behind remain unscathed by the war.
I'm sure many soldiers and civilians from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf Wars, Afghanistan Wars, and the current War in Iraq have had similar moments of disconnect. People who thought they knew each other well suddenly have no shared vocabulary to bridge the gulf between the ones who have served in conflict and the ones who stayed home with war safely at a distance.
Books, poems, movies, paintings and other art forms offer a lens through which we can find shared understanding of experiences not our own. In THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, a disabled veteran with hooks for hands struggles to prove his is still independent and whole; a soldier relives battles in his dreams; men cannot find their place in a country that has changed while they were away, and the women who love them feel helpless to provide healing.
Art can provide a neutral ground where we understand a reality that is not our own. Whatever our views and understandings, art gives new images that we can place next to our own, limited understandings. Our minds expand as we read a poem or look at a painting or watch a film. and through art, we become more than we were before. Hopefully, on this Memorial Day, we gain a wider world-view, become more compassionate, and recommit ourselves to work for peace.
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