How Getting Hit in the Eye Lead to a Love of Cinema

I alluded to this in the last entry. Thought about saving it for the appropriate season, but now feels like the right time for it.

Hard cut to Christmas Day. I was in…5th or 6th grade. I cant remember.

Christmas eve went off without a hitch. This was 3 or 4 years before that ended.

For some reason, we decided to spend the day at my other grandparents. I remember that kind of pissed me off cause I wanted to play with my new video games. But instead, I was stuck there for a long while.

Now, I can only assume that lead to what happened next. My brother got a Dallas Cowboys themed football that Christmas. He was outside throwing it back and forth with my dad. I…for reasons that escape me to this day… decided to run back and forth between them as they threw it. I did this for a little bit.

Then, I turned my head toward my dad at the perfect moment.

And I took the football straight into my eyeball.

Panic.

I started crying. My dad didn’t know what to do. My vision was completely blurry in that eye. The pain subsided eventually, and they were going to have me ride it out. Until my mom saw my eyeball. It was oval shaped. I had what is called a globe rupture.

My mom managed to call an ophthalmologist. I remember they covered my eye in all kind of goop. Made my vision go green.

I got stupid lucky. No damage to any of the important bits. The nature of the rupture was such that I didn’t need surgery. But, I did have some big restrictions. I had to wear a full eyepatch over the eye. Think Kano in Mortal Kombat. The idea was for no light to get in whatsoever.

For the remainder of the Christmas holidays, I had to sit in a dark room. I couldn’t read. Couldn’t play video games. Nothing to strain my eyes. The best I could do was sit in a dark room with a TV 15ft away and watch movies.

Given the circumstances, I really didn’t feel like watching my usual shows. I ended up picking up whatever VHS movies I could find at the house. That’s where it all started. Watching “old” movies with one good eye in a dark room. Something about the circumstances made me really connect with those movies. Taking me to some other place.

Had some kind of luck. Didn’t need surgery, healed just fine. After the two weeks, the Kano mask came off and I could see just fine. The doctor told me I would have reduced vision in that eye when I got older. Thats definitely the case, but I somehow don’t have glasses yet. I consider that a much better prognosis than I expected.

Sure, I finally got to play my video games, but I kept up the movie watching. It never ended.

With that in mind, lets close out with some of the movies I watched back then. The first one is a big curveball.

There are two types of movies that have John Wayne in them. Great films that are great often despite Wayne and “John Wayne” movies. I’ve seen most of both at this point, and I can firmly say Hellfighters is the best “John Wayne” movie. Most of the efforts where he controlled everything vary from the boring to the embarrassing. Don’t get me wrong, Hellfighters is not some kind of hidden masterpiece. Its just a solid 90 min entry into his oeuvre. And really thats all you can ask for out of it. Big shout out to Jay C. Flippen who basically steals the movie.

This was my first David Lean. And I couldn’t have asked for a better entry. Three hours of epic. It was nice to disappear to Great War era Russia and watch someone live through the tumult. This movie is just fantastic. War story. Romance story. Survival story. Whatever you want they have it. My favorite scene in the movie is the train ride out of Moscow with Klaus Kinski just eating the fucking scenery. I still watch this movie whenever I am sick. Takes me to another place.

So, definitely. Have a lean night.

Instead of telling one of my stories, how about someone elses?

Cut to like 5 years and change later. Film appreciation class in high school. I let a teacher borrow my DVD of Vertigo so we could watch a good copy of it.

Spoiler alert. If you havent seen the movie, you should see it.

When the fake Madeleine Elster falls the same way the real one did at the end of the movie…right at that moment when the nun scares her, one of my classmates yells, “OH SHIT” loud in the class.

Even 50 years later at that point, that movie has an impact.

Hopefully you go watch some good shit. No entry next week. I’ll be indisposed all week. Till the next time, I’ll see you at the movies.