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A review by crankylibrarian
Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love and Die at the Movies by Tara Ison
5.0
How to review the perfectly written book? The language of the review can never adequately convey the power and beauty of the reviewee. Given my mediocre literary skills, how can I convey to you, the reader, the absolute necessity, the urgent imperative to absorb and savor and share Tara Ison's extraordinary essays, as you would prize chocolate truffles?
Is this a memoir or a work of film criticism? I can't even answer that (and depending on your bookstore or library you may find it in either section). It is definitely NOT a chronological narrative, either of Ison's life or of late 20th century cinema. Rather, in each of 9 essays, Ison reflects on an aspect of her identity, and how it was shaped (and often misshaped) by movies. Thus, "How to Be Lolita" "How to Lose Your Virginity" and "How to Be a Slut" contrast Ison's own experiences of sexual awakening with impressions she gained from watching films like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "How to Be a Jew" explores Ison's secular Jewish upbringing and how Fiddler on the Roof and The Chosen affirmed her connection to the complexities and bitterness of Jewish experience.
By far the most powerful essays are the two that reflect on aging and death: "How to Be Mrs Robinson" and "How to Die With Style". Elegantly weaving together images and dialog from The Graduate, The Last Picture Show and The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, Ison recounts, unsentimentally her affair with a much younger man, and the realization (gained from movies) that she must end it to retain any sense of self:
"So I tell my sweet young man that our time together has come to an end. That he's lovely, but this no longer works for me...Because this feels like the last elegant, self-assured, self-protective thing I can do. Older skin is thinner, more delicate. I bruise easily these days. This is the one way I can have any control over this narrative. it is the only way I can know how this part of the story will end--the only way I can sit on my own quilt, on my own bed, by myself, by choice."
Movies have warned her of what awaits the sexually aging female, the "sad stock character, the ridiculous figure of fun". But movies can also lie, and though they have helped Ison confront the inevitable tickticktick of her mortality, they have offered her a prettified, glamorized, artificially sweetened version of death: (Love Story) "Her death and her dying---was beautiful, peaceful, a lovely and loving thing or (Dark Victory) "Death is painless and glamorous, quiet and peaceful. A moment of ultimate beauty and fineness, indeed." Coming to terms with the horrors of death through the illnesses of her mother, grandmother and a family friend, Ison at last grasps the greatest lie movie have told her: there is no plan for death, there are no certainties, no death "on my own terms":
"I don't know how I will die, of course. Stylishly I hope. But still: Will I meet death head held high like a brave misjudged queen or convict? Will I be pretty and cherry-lipped in a white lace nightie, protesting that I am young and strong and nothing can touch me?
Will anyone be there to hold my hand?
Will I have lived a life that makes me ready to meet death beautifully and finely?
Or will I fight to the last, try to barricade that door, claim every last second, last breath, last beat of my heart before it is the end of the thing that is me, and the thing that is me disappears forever?
I don't know. I am writing, as all of us do , in the dark."
Is this a memoir or a work of film criticism? I can't even answer that (and depending on your bookstore or library you may find it in either section). It is definitely NOT a chronological narrative, either of Ison's life or of late 20th century cinema. Rather, in each of 9 essays, Ison reflects on an aspect of her identity, and how it was shaped (and often misshaped) by movies. Thus, "How to Be Lolita" "How to Lose Your Virginity" and "How to Be a Slut" contrast Ison's own experiences of sexual awakening with impressions she gained from watching films like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or Fast Times at Ridgemont High; "How to Be a Jew" explores Ison's secular Jewish upbringing and how Fiddler on the Roof and The Chosen affirmed her connection to the complexities and bitterness of Jewish experience.
By far the most powerful essays are the two that reflect on aging and death: "How to Be Mrs Robinson" and "How to Die With Style". Elegantly weaving together images and dialog from The Graduate, The Last Picture Show and The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, Ison recounts, unsentimentally her affair with a much younger man, and the realization (gained from movies) that she must end it to retain any sense of self:
"So I tell my sweet young man that our time together has come to an end. That he's lovely, but this no longer works for me...Because this feels like the last elegant, self-assured, self-protective thing I can do. Older skin is thinner, more delicate. I bruise easily these days. This is the one way I can have any control over this narrative. it is the only way I can know how this part of the story will end--the only way I can sit on my own quilt, on my own bed, by myself, by choice."
Movies have warned her of what awaits the sexually aging female, the "sad stock character, the ridiculous figure of fun". But movies can also lie, and though they have helped Ison confront the inevitable tickticktick of her mortality, they have offered her a prettified, glamorized, artificially sweetened version of death: (Love Story) "Her death and her dying---was beautiful, peaceful, a lovely and loving thing or (Dark Victory) "Death is painless and glamorous, quiet and peaceful. A moment of ultimate beauty and fineness, indeed." Coming to terms with the horrors of death through the illnesses of her mother, grandmother and a family friend, Ison at last grasps the greatest lie movie have told her: there is no plan for death, there are no certainties, no death "on my own terms":
"I don't know how I will die, of course. Stylishly I hope. But still: Will I meet death head held high like a brave misjudged queen or convict? Will I be pretty and cherry-lipped in a white lace nightie, protesting that I am young and strong and nothing can touch me?
Will anyone be there to hold my hand?
Will I have lived a life that makes me ready to meet death beautifully and finely?
Or will I fight to the last, try to barricade that door, claim every last second, last breath, last beat of my heart before it is the end of the thing that is me, and the thing that is me disappears forever?
I don't know. I am writing, as all of us do , in the dark."