In a world where to run for office or interview for a job or find a mate seems to mean "putting our best foot forward," (which is really just a sugarcoated way of telling us to hide our faults and brokenness, right?) it can seem that to be fully known excludes us from ever being fully loved.
In the new Bruce Springsteen song, The Wrestler, a track Mickey Rourke talked The Boss into writing for the movie of the same name, Springsteen sings,
"Have you ever seen a scarecrow filled with nothing but dust and wheat?
If you've ever seen that scarecrow then you've seen me[...]
These things that have comforted me, I drive away."
In the simplicity and the beauty of a classic sounding Springsteenfolk ballad The Boss captures the complexity and contradictions ofhumanity's desires to be fully known and fully loved... but with thelast line quoted above seems to be asserting that when we are fullyknown that we drive away love. And in some ways, when we're honestwith ourselves and with our own shortcomings and brokenness, its hardto argue with that.
In the movie, The Wrestler, a solid script is turn beautiful and heartbreaking and profound by director Darren Aronofsky and leading man Mickey Rourke. Rourke's character is a broken-down oldpro wrestler who is loved by scores of people... except those who knowhim (his daughter and his love interest, Marisa Tomei). The tension of the film is found in the three major characters' (Rourke's Randy "The Ram" Robinson, Tomei's Cassidy, and Evan Rachel Wood'sStephanie (Randy's daughter)) desire to not just be loved or not justbe known, but to be simultaneously known AND loved. We see this in somany ways throughout the film, but maybe the simplest is Randy "TheRam" Robinson and Cassidy living their lives responding to names thatare not even on their birth certificates and W-4s.
Over and over the film begs the question, can we be fully known andstill fully loved? I will add to that, can we fully know someone andstill fully love them? And maybe just can we ever be FULLY knownand/or FULLY loved on this earth? As you would expect from a filmwritten about by rednoW we can't promise that this film will answer anyof these questions, but the beauty and pain of the asking is somethingyou need to go see in this film and listen to in Springsteen's song.
Trailer:
Springsteen's The Wrestler:
