Love Helps Those

      I grew up around a mentally-challenged great aunt named Dutchie. We both “worked” at my family’s hardware store. I was a child. She was childlike––and would always be. I saw her daily for nearly two decades and had a great fondness for her.

            At her funeral I said that she and those like her were angels sent to us, that we think we take care of them, but the truth is they take care of us––to teach us, to test us, to inspire us, to give us opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have.

            Her funeral was nearly twenty years ago and I hadn’t thought of that again until this past week while watching Ricky Gervais’s sweet, funny, inspiring new show “Derek,” available now on Netflix.  

            “Derek” is a bittersweet comedy-drama about a group of outsiders living on society’s margins. Derek Noakes, a tender, innocent man whose love for his job at a retirement home shines through. Derek cares deeply for the home’s residents, because they are kind and funny and tell him stories of what life used to be like. Working alongside Derek is Dougie, his landlord who is one of life’s unlucky individuals; Kev, a lovable train wreck; and Hannah, a care worker in the home and Derek’s best friend. She is smart, witty and hard-working, but unlucky in love, and, like Derek, always puts other people first.

            Derek and the Dalai Lama have the same religion.

            The Dalai Lama puts it this way, “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

            Derek puts it this way, “Kindness is magic. It’s more important to be kind than clever or good looking.”

            Kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. It involves care and compassion, and as far as religions go, I’d say it’s about as good as it gets.

            Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

            Henry James said, “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” 

            Derek fits firmly in the ancient tradition of holy fool. He’s an innocent, childlike in his honesty, purity, and love.

            Derek and his misfit, marginalized friends are among the most inspiring and entertaining I’ve ever encountered on television, their interactions and reflections make me laugh out loud and move me to tears––usually several times within the same short episode.

            “Derek” is the sweetest, kindest TV show I’ve ever seen. It achieves realism and real goodness while avoiding ever being shallow, overly sentimental, or maudlin.

            I absolutely adore Derek and Hannah, two precious souls, the likes of which I would love have looking after me were I ever to be put in a retirement home. 

            The kindness of “Derek” brings to mind a simple song I’ve loved since I first heard it some twenty-five years ago. It’s by Paul Overstreet and I’ll leave with just one verse and the chorus:

            A little helpless baby child was born into this world

            She didn't have a daddy and her mother was just a girl

            But there came a young man willing to give both of them a home

            The girl he married the child he cherished as though she was his own

            'Cause you see

            Love helps those who cannot help themselves

            It cares about those hearts that's been put up on a shelf

            It will introduce a lonely soul to a lonely someone else

            Love helps those who cannot help themselves

Moviocrity

            I spend a lot of time watching movies.

            Something regular readers of this column will no doubt not find surprising.

            What might be surprising is the amount of time I spend searching for movies to watch.

            Finding a good film is far too often a daunting, time-consuming, tiresome task.

            For a short while when I was in college in Atlanta in the late 80s I collected movie memorabilia, and the thing I remember most about it was the sheer volume of time it took trekking around the metro area, traipsing through flea markets and speciality shops and trade shows, sifting through trash in search of treasure. A landfill of rubbish might yield something remarkable. Might. It was just as likely not to.

            Since that first ill-advised foray into collecting, I have spent countless hours in dusty old bookshops amassing the tens of thousands of titles of the library that surrounds me now.

            And I’ve taken the same approach to film––spending untold ticks of the clock scouring trade publications, newspapers, magazines, reading reviews, writing down recommendations, following the fledgling careers of filmmakers.

            All the above has been made a million times easier by the Internets. And yet that has only made finding a good film only slightly more likely.

            Why?

            Because of the dearth of good films being made. 

            Why?

            For a number of reasons. Here are a few.

            First and foremost the film industry devalues good writing. Everything begins with the screenplay. Sure, it’s possible to make a bad movie from a good script but it is impossible to make a good movie from a bad script.

            Film has become a director’s medium. Maybe it always was. But far, far too many directors today know how to make pretty pictures but not how to tell a moving story.

            Because writing is so undervalued in Hollywood so is reading. Too many people in power––with the power of the green light––read coverage of the script rather than the script itself. 

            The script is the foundation. Fix the foundation, fix the film.

            The best screenwriting being done these days is for cable television not for feature films and until that changes good movies will continue to be a challenge to find.    

            Another problem is that of too many cooks in the kitchen. Collaboration is one thing. A multi-headed monster is another. Less committees more auteurs would go a long, long way toward fixing this dysfunctional industry.

            In many ways Hollywood is like congress. Insularly. Incestuous. Corrupt. Self-serving. Juvenile. Facile. Meretricious. Shallow. Egotistical. Full of power- and money-hungry whores. Both bodies are far too influenced by those with money.

            There is way too much spectacle and not enough story. Too many movies try to wow an audience instead of move it. CGI, special effects, and 3-D are too often distractions, attempts to divert our attention away from the lack of credible characters and solid storytelling. They are sound and fury signifying nothing in an effort to keep our attention off of the sad little man hiding behind the curtain.

            Unless a work of art moves the human heart it has very little merit beyond momentary distraction. Unless art imitates life, unless the characters on the screen are deeply, profoundly, recognizably human, unless that same screen reflects life and the paradox and complexity of the human condition back at us there will continue to be more mediocre movies than any other kind.

            And that’s the thing.

            Most of the movies made aren’t terrible. They’re far too safe and cynical to be terrible. What they are is far worse than terrible. They are merely mediocre. Lukewarm leftovers of some vague something that almost but not quite resembles something we once could but no longer can quite recall or remember.

            That something is humanity and the sacred stories we tell to both remain human by remembering and to become more human by inspiration.

            At its best the silver screen is both a mirror and a window.

            Too often today it is neither.

            It is instead a glass darkly, a dimness that no longer sees us and in which we no longer see ourselves.