Weekend Cinema Spotlight: Splendor in the Grass

"Splendor in the Grass" (1961)

Do you recall that crush you had when you were a young? That kind of crush that was so dramatic and crazy and almost desperate-you would do anything to be able to be with that person. Of course, at the time we may believe it's love. Thankfully the maturity that may come with age allows you to have a better understanding of what you might have felt all those years ago (or a few months ago). Most likely it was a variation of love or what love could have been or even just simply-a crush.

Directed by Elia Kazan and stars Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. This is story about young love, sexual repression, heartbreak, and manic-depression. How romantic right? But this story really is. Love is like roses and sometimes the thorns prick us and bring us pain. This story is like a right of passage to where love can take us. Sometimes it takes us on a path that we never imagined and sometimes it takes us on a path and leaves us with someone entirely different. And usually at the time we don't understand why all of these things are happening, but when we end up exactly where we are supposed to be, we are able to look back with a sense of peace. It's only then that we can understand why everything happened the way it did and find extra joy in the realization that the life we have now is so much better that what could have been.



"Splendor in the Grass" Trailer

Set in Kansas in 1928, Deanie and Bud are two High School sweethearts who love each other deeply. Unfortunately,so many people get in their way-her mother, his father, peer pressure, and let's not the forget the "experienced" girls too. In typical teenage fashion all they want is each other and they face great adversity. Deanie's parents are average folks but Bud's father is the richest in town. You want them to fight for each other but if you don't have the courage or the knowledge of how to fight for something you love-you just don't know how.

There are a few tragic turns and it does have some adult/mature scenes that are not for children or pre-teens. There is no nudity, just many moments of suggestion. The film includes topics of rape, promiscuity, suicide, depression, mental illness, and much more. It's not your typical romantic film but I wanted to share with you a film that is about how love can come full circle-especially in this Valentine season. Love stories don't always have a happy ending and although this ending may not be what you would hope it would be-it is happy.

Wood and Beatty were an item on and off screen as well.

I have to be honest, every time I see it, it makes my heart ache. It brings me to that time of wanting and not having, of loving and not being loved in return. I don't like to revisit those feelings too often but it reminds me to be thankful of what I have now and makes me happy that I crossed those bridges and came to a place where I can rest my heart in good and loving hands.

xox

PS The words spoken by Deanie at the end of the film. Written by: William Wordsworth 

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;