Truth Matters | linden-hills

THE TRUTH MATTERS

Realism is a thing. If you’ve seen the film Lucky, you recognize the line.

Lucky. The last collaboration between David Lynch and Harry Dean Stanton turns on this question: “Can’t we agree to disagree?” Harry Dean – age 92 – says: “No. The truth matters.”

It’s a film for our time, by two of our greatest living artists. Well... Stanton died a couple months ago.

But his art is still alive.

From the opening credits – the meta-perspective is evident. In western font/image, signifying "Gunsmoke," the credits read: Harry Dean Stanton is... LUCKY

We enter the world of a 92 year-old-man who does five yoga positions, 20 reps each, every day, for ten years. “Why did I fall down?” he asks his doctor. You’re old, says Ed Begley Junior. Lucky does coffee, and the crossword, in the local diner. He drinks in the local dive. And he has bad blood with somebody on 2nd street. He is rageful toward them.

"Realism is a thing," he discovers. And he reads from the dictionary:

“To participate in realism, one is required to recognize reality, and to act accordingly.”

Not appropriately. Accordingly.

To act accordingly is to act truly, through oneself.

But it doesn’t only matter to oneself – it matters to others. My truth is not your truth, yes, but your untruth affects me. Thus – sometimes – anger is appropriate.

But Lucky gets even farther than that in his spiritual journey, and he comes to a greater balance when the rest of the world, his world, begins to see his reality, a reality greater than the one they saw before. And then – Lucky gets to smile. And he smiles right at you.

If you know David Lynch, you know he's no cynic. And in this film, the truth has mattered – Lucky Harry Dean has a new kind of faith. He has seen his way to a victory, with no casualties. In life, and in all his relationships, he is happy.

AND --- whatever it was, whatever LIE those other people were about – That angry feud seems to have ended, too, both for Harry, and for those fancy people who have gone out of business.

The other bar -- Eve’s -- is closed. And the automatic sprinklers in their garden patio are still on.

I’ve seen Lucky twice. I want to see it again... Join me?