Yesterday, Where the Wild Things Are opened. It is a story about a boy named Max that has adventures with muppets. A large part of this story is taken up by Max running, a montage of which appeared, along with Arcade Fire's "Wake Up," in the film's trailer. It was considered by many, by which I mean me and one of my friends, to be possibly the greatest trailer ever.
Thankfully, the movie doesn't disappoint. Max does indeed do a lot of running. And it is quite poignant. It occurred to me, somewhere about the fourth or fifth scene of Max running, that there's something of a tradition of meaningful running in film. I thought it would make a good blog post. And so, in no particular order, a look at a few cinematic jogs that fill me with a certain happy sadness, and one that makes me laugh.
1) Forrest Gump
"That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run."
2) Immortal Beloved
This one takes a bit to get to the running (~3:00), but be patient. The stars are worth the wait.
3) Chariots of Fire
The film that inspired otherwise sane people to break into slow motion running whenever they hear classical piano.
4) 400 Blows
I saw this in a cinema class in college. The movie didn't quite click until this happened. It is, I suppose, a spoiler, in that it is the end, but that's okay. It's just running. You don't learn who framed the rabbit or anything. I might be thinking of the wrong film.
5) Where the Wild Things Are
The aformentioned trailer featuring the aformentioned montage. Soon after this came out, I met the aformentioned friend at a bar. He said did you see the Where the Wild Things Are trailer. I said yes. And he said, "The running killed me. What is it about the running that kills me?" I said, I didn't know, but that it killed me, too.
I still don't know, and now I'm dead again. Alas.
Happy weekend, readers.
ttfn.
yay running! beautifully constructed ramble you have here. i also liked the arrrooooooing on the cliff and so on in the movie. i thought of peter pan crowing.. and now i realize there is also the YAWP from dead poets society, and the unique moment yelling over the abyss in garden state. yay lists. but the running list is very complete. i thought of run lola run, but, it's just not spiritual in the same way :).
ReplyDeleteYes, Run Lola Run occurred to me, too, and I looked at clips and realized, as you did, that it's not the same because the whole movie is running and so maybe not as momentous, really, the running.
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