Reminiscent of my recent “The Drop” experience, the movie “Frank”, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, leads to a slow boil. And while The Drop’s after effects were more about character and acting appreciation, my post Frank experience carried more emotion, especially when I saw the birth and death dates of the real Frank, Chris Sievey’s (1955-2010).
Being quite the inquisitive researcher, I always look up information (beats dealing with real life problems:) and was curious about Sievey’s life details. Pierre Perrone’s journalistic obituary from The Independent did the trick as well as truly profound lines that I think apply to every human on earth, “He was also an incredibly gifted and creative artist. Quite often, he would have brilliant ideas and never quite get to the execution of them.”
(“Chris Sievey: The man behind the papier-mâché mask of Frank Sidebottom.” The Independent. 25 June 2010)
Think about it, any one person with the privilege of working above a survival scale, certainly has fantastic dreams that for the majority, never quite come to fruition. And the lack of fruit, or ripening thereof, is not depressing. As Emerson said, and I paraphrase, ‘it’s the journey, not the destination.’
And now that I’ve been semi deep, let me say something (by which I don’t mean shallow, just not quite proven based on fact) that proves the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as my dad has been known to get conspiracy theoretical on how television commercial advertisements are slowly trying to acclimate ‘us’ to new norms (and I won’t be specific, choose your own specified new normal paranoia).
Here’s where I’m the conspiracy theorist apple; in “Frank”, Maggie Gyllenhaal plays an abusive member of the band, aiming her physical and verbal vitriol at men (she never clocks the other female band member nor tells her she’s ‘disgusted with’ her). My theory is that while there are certain areas of our world where people definitely do not treat women humanely, some woman in more civilized places MIStreat men and feel they are justified given these other places of inhumane treatment. Further, that slowly these ‘approved’ occasions emasculate the men who are basically good human beings.
So there’s my tip of the hat to both Larry (my dad) and “Frank” the movie, who are definitely both worth giving a damn about.http://www.imdb.com/media/rm754373632/tt1605717?ref_=ttmi_mi_all_sf_7
