51 birch street .. has anyone seen this ??

[frenchy]

this is a documentary that i saw on pbs the other day and its stuck with me .. the basic premise was a son who was a wedding videographer had a mom who had died suddenly and his dad three months later decided to move to florida . and remarry .. and it turned out to be his secretary from years and years ago .. so at first it was supposed to be just somethin for the family but as he got into it he saw that there was a lot more to it .. they found some journals that his mom had been writin all those years .. about 30 years worth and in it she talks about havin an affair and bein in love with another man .. all this led to the guy wonderin how well do we really know our parents ?? about a year or so ago i saw the pbs documentary about an american family .. the louds from santa barbara and at first i thought this is gonna be so dull .. but after watchin it for about 20 minutes i was hooked .. and had to see it all .. it was the very first reality tv .. but it wasn't staged like what they do now .. they just let the cameras run and edited it down to 12 hours .. this 51 birch street is a lot like that in that it was real and honest .. and you could relate to what they guy was feelin .. i know my mom was a very secretive person and if i ever found a diary she wrote and shared it with anyone i think she'd be horrified .. but there's a point in the film where he asks his moms best friend who probably knew more about her than just about anyone how he thought she would feel and her friend said after careful consideration i think she would want it to be shared.. she wanted to be known and understood.. now keep in mind that this a a lady that would be our moms ages cause the guy who did the documentary is about 60 years old so times back then were different .. divorce wasn't as easy or as common .. so this lady was not gonna be the stepford wife .. even tho she wasn't bella abzug either she wasn't your regular garden variety 50's and 60's housewife .. she talks about pokin smot and hangin out .. she just wanted a bigger life .. so i guess the question i'm tryin to ask is this .. how well do you really know your parents ? i mean really ?? if you found out later on that your mom or dad had affairs or were pokin smot and tryin to expand their consciousnesses .. or maybe goin to a key party ? ( key parties were somethin that some grownups tried in the early 70's where they would put their house keys in a fishbowl and whoever's keys the lady picked out was who she'd go home with that night .. see the movie the ice storm with kevin kline and sigourney weaver ) anyway this is gettin kinda long .. lookin back i know there's a lot about my mom that i'll never know .. how about you ??     

[crestofwaves]

Nah.  I watched it and cried and cried, but I would have done the same.  There was nothing wrong with her husband.  Yes, she was "stuck" but it was her choice.  Sometimes you have to look at the whole situation.  She had her memories for her whole life.  I don't think she died unhappy.  Many people never have what she experienced.

[ProblemAgain]

at least she had the knowledge that there was someone who REALLY got her...who adored her as she really is or was and not for what she did for him or because it was just expected...

[crestofwaves]

I think her husband loved her that way as well, maybe even better in a different way because he lived with her .   She  probabaly chose not to show him all of who she was. I hold back some because I think my poor husband would be scared, but in my first marriage, I held back to the point of resentment--but who did I really resent?  Myself.  It was just a bad relationship between him and me.

But, yes.  And that's really all that's needed in life, no matter how brief or scant it may be, we need to know that someone loves us just the way we are.

 

Oh, how I Loooooooooooooove this song.

[ProblemAgain]

i thought you would....have to admit i think this is one of the absolute best movies ever made...everything works together...the storyline..the acting ...the direction .... the music...

[ProblemAgain]

[crestofwaves]

You know, problem. You start problems in my head with these songs!!!!  The book was trite, but the movie IS very very good.  But here comes this guy out of no where and he expects her to give up her life for him?  I don't think so.  If the husband were abusive or she didn't like him or there was no physical attraction or whatever else goes wrong in a marriage it would be a difficult choice to break up the family.  But here was a good good man vs a gadabout. I think Francesca knew that.  That would have been big trouble in River City.

[ProblemAgain]

gee i must be a problem....again....

i'm not saying she shoulda or he shoulda or any of that...it's just really a lot like real life...people bump into each other in life like bumpercars colliding at the fair..and what people do is who they are...and life is so very very full of what might have beens...

[ProblemAgain]

and that is a compelling piece of dialogue.."i don't want to need you if i can't have you"

[crestofwaves]

See what she said?  It's not human not to be afraid.  It's not human not to feel lonely.  In the last scene where she was angry, she reminds me of me, lol.  I touch things when I am really really mad.  I push chairs, bang walls.  I haven't felt that kind of anger in a long long time.

[frenchy]

i suppose some people push their emotions outward and move the furniture all about when they get angry .. but some just turn it all inward .. it doesn't mean that they too don't feel .. they just express it in different ways .. i know i sometimes get very scared when i lose my temper because i know what i can do and i don't like myself when i'm like that .. i try so hard to keep that part of myself hidden .. i could be mad as hell but just because i'm mad doesn't mean i want to hurt anyone .. at least thats what i keep tellin myself over and over .. i find the older i get tho the better i can express my anger without stompin someone or trashin the house .. but every now and then i feel it might get away from me .. so i have to get away before i do somethin i know i'll regret.. lucky for me i haven't been that mad in a long long time either .. 

[ProblemAgain]

at least not without a dark night and a shovel

[T2Friends]

My mom, came from a family of 9, she was the third oldest and was born in 1920 and grew up during the great depression.  At some point in the middle of that her mother and father split and her mom raised the kids on her own.  You might imagine it would be kind of difficult and my mom would tell me stories of cooking potatoes over the furnace and other struggles that the family faced.  But despite that she was able to get an education for herself and trained to be a nurse at St. Vincent's in NYC and went on to study for her degree at Columbia University.  Pretty unusual for those times when you think about it.  My dad on the other hand was 13 years older than my mom, and was the son of immigrants from Ireland.  He would tell me stories of collecting coal along the train tracks and selling it on the corner.  He lived in NYC too, and grew up in the hell's kitchen section, which was not trendy back then.  He regaled me with stories of many different jobs, but for most of his life he was a bartender and would also tell us stories like you would see on the show the Untouchables.  Anyway, let me get to the part about secrets.  As I kid I never really noticed that my parents never celebrated their anniversary.  I never even knew when they got married, my mother never really talked about it.  And there were never any wedding pictures or anything. They were both practicing Catholics and I remember her saying that she got married in the church, but there was something about it happening at a side alter.  I never understood what that meant.   Long story short, it seems that they didn't celebrate their anniversary because it would have given away their secret...she was pregnant when they got married.  Not a big deal in this day and age, but it was a big deal in 1944/5, when my mother was 25 and my father was 38.  This was not discovered until one of my brother-in-laws was doing a little family history and was interviewing my mom.  He was going over some dates with her to make sure he had timelines right, when she opened up enough for him to stumble upon the truth.  She never talked about it with any of her daughters.  I don't think this was her only secret, but they are both gone now and what ever secrets they did have they have taken to their graves.