As Gregg had mentioned last week in class, the most important part of reading the newspaper is making valuable connections. Taking a story to personalize it, or show it’s relation to another story, or idea: the synthesis of the information is where the true value lies.
Reading the Times this week I found an individual who has done as such. Enter Milos Forman. Foreman is a Czech filmmaker who is screening his 1971 comedy Taking Off this Thursday at the MoMA, kicking off a two week retrospective of his work. At the end of the article Forman recounts the tale of a friend trying to discourage him from taking on One Flew Over the Cockoo’s Nest( he went on to win an Oscar for his direction in the work): “While I was reading ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,’ ” Mr. Forman recalled, “an American friend of mine said: ‘Don’t go near it. It’s such a piece of Americana that you will never be able to express the Americanism of the story.’ “I said: ‘What are you talking about? For you it’s a book, it’s fiction. But I lived that story. For me the Communist Party was Nurse Ratched. And everything that is described in the story of that book I lived. So to me it’s a Czech movie. It’s a documentary.”
There was never any doubt, though an unshakable believe that Forman held on to: This Story, is my Story. Forman personally connected to the work and refused to let go. While Gregg spoke more of making analytical connections, the personal connection is just as important. Forman saw himself and his story in every aspect of Cuckoo’s Nest; enough to say that is was a story he has lived.
Connecting. Attaching. Fusing. These are not simple things to do. Though remarkably important.