Noemi C. Fetalvero
two empty bottles
GOLDEN Pond, Casablanca, Inherit the Wind, It’s a Wonderful Life, to name a few, are movies I would highly recommend. Documentary films top the list of my favorites. While fiction flirts with the imagination, documentaries capture the truth.
Schindler’s List, Evita, Nicholas and Alexandra, Amazing Grace, Inconvenient Truth, and the March of the Penguins did exactly that. I am intrigued by the life of the actors behind the scenes. How are they able to separate the reel—s a billion-dollar industry—and the real, which they face after the spotlight and cameras are off? How many of Hollywood stars manage to stay married to the same partner? What is it about stardom that make or break relationships?
Wild girls and bad boys in the movie industry magnify the fact that they are simply human and vulnerable even if the fans idolize and want them to be perfect. Peter O’ Toole—who got this line from a dry cleaning place: “It distresses us to return work that is not perfect”—told The View, a television program, that he would like these words on his epitaph.
The world is a big, dry cleaning shop that sometimes can't help us. There are stains made in the course of our lives that we just can't remove. They are forever instilled in the minds of those who are left behind.
When the actors stop appreciating and start to claim they are in full control of their lives, obstacles as big as their names on neon lights begin to confront them. Their sense of spirituality enters a dead end when they silently declare that they do not need Divine Intervention. They eventually end up taking matters into their own hands. It is at this point that I would like to give these celebrities their two empty bottles.
Actors have two choices. With a defeatist attitude, the future generation will remember actors as those who went in and out of rehab or ended up in jail, or in worst scenario, those who committed suicide or died of drug overdose. However, with positive things, actors can continue to shine even if the spotlight is no longer on them.