Bridges ....

When I get to feeling a certain need, I put Bridges of Madison County in my DVD player.  There's just something about this movie that works for me.  Clint Eastwood is a wonderful director.  He knows how to take a scene and make it say so much without words, using light and long looks. 

But I popped this in tonight because ... well, in the past I've always identified with the female character, know what it feels like to love someone you can't have.  But maybe I have been looking at it all wrong.  Francesca is the one married, who can't leave her situation.  And Robert is the one who loves her enough to walk away from her life.

The goodbye scene is very moving; Francesca talks Robert through her reasons for not being able to leave.  She can't hurt her husband, or her children.  But her best point is this: 

What about us?  he asks.
You have to know, deep down, the minute we leave here, everything will change.
No matter how much distance we put between ourselves and this house
I'd carry it with me, I'd feel it every minute we're together
and I will start to blame loving you for how much it hurts
and even these 4 days will seem sordid.

Some people search all their life to find this;
others don't believe it exists at all.
This kind of certainly happens but once in a lifetime.


I'm wondering if I shouldn't be taking a lesson from his point of view on this one.  The last scene between the two of them is a rainy street corner.  She's in town picking up a few groceries, and Robert is about ready to leave.  He sees her in the truck, and stands on the corner in the pouring rain, and says his non verbal goodbye as he looks long and hard at her, then turns and climbs into his truck and drives away.



It had to be that hardest thing in the world, to walk away from that love he was so sure was 'it' - that deep abiding love that reaches our soul - the one most people wish they had.


(Odd isn't it -- that my fortune was about my perspective changing, and a I have an "AHA" moment when I watch Bridges...???)