Feilam: film
Author Rick Wayne has dissected a cadaver, jumped out of a plane, swam in the Mediterranean, and meditated in Japan. Prior to becoming a writer he was stalked by a mountain lion in Texas, kicked in the head in India, bombed by terrorists in Manchester, and worked for twelve years in media and market research. He lives with two hairy beasts, neither of whom are his wife, just outside the beltway in Washington, DC.
Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opened this weekend, which is occasion enough for me to pull out Tolkien’s classic and re-read it. It has the most wonderful beginning:
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole… nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole… it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.
Doors are indeed our portholes to the world beyond. Nice to find out I’m not the only one with a threshold fascination.
I never knew that doors could be so intriguing before this post!
You definitely aren’t the only one. My fascination started on a trip to Japan and grew after reading books like “The Hero With A Thousand Faces” and “Cosmos and History”. But it wasn’t until I started writing that I really understood.
Absolutely fascinating blog post on doors. Very nice writing. The doors that come to mind are the ones in Monsters Inc., which I thought was an absolutely original concept that was wonderfully executed, and a movie from long ago whose name escapes me. Perhaps “sliding doors”? It started Gwyneth Paltrow in another extraordinarily written movie.
It is rare that I watch movies at all. Even rarer that I pay attention to doors, of all things, but because Rick Wayne so eloquently pointed out so many nuances of doors, one can only go back into the recesses of the mind and thing about the rich symbolism that awaits.
Hi Amanda,
It is “Sliding Doors.” I remember watching that movie.
I’m a film lover, so I think this piece really resonated with me. I’m glad that you connected with it as well.
Thanks for the kind words. And sorry for the late reply–been enjoying the interstate highway system on holiday travel! I loved the Monsters, Inc. concept but I find some of the most evocative doors are the ones that slip into the background, and not just in movies but everywhere: literature, poetry, and art.
Glad you liked the post.
Jennifer, if you want to get all literary up in that … it’s called liminality, or the liminal.
There are a few scholars who do analyses of the power of doors in stories. Might be somewhere to take this passion next.
Great post, by the way. Sorry it took me so long to visit.
Hi Melanie,
Oh, I didn’t even know there was a term for that.
Congratulations go to Rick for a great job–I just sat back and watched him work his magic.