Lessons from Cinema Past

I found myself watching Flight of the Phoenix again this afternoon, (one of the advantages of being a man of leisure is the ability to watch daytime TV), the 1965 original of course, not the inferior 2004 remake.  It occurred to me that this is one of the earliest films I have clear memory of watching on TV as a child.  Then, I was entranced by the way they built a new aircraft from the wreckage of the crashed plane, rather than the various character conflicts.  Nevertheless, I still remembered the essence of the conflicts - the alcoholic navigator, the cowardly army sergeant, the by-the-book army captain and, most crucially, the rivalry between stubborn and egotistical pilot Jame Stewart and Hardy Kruger's arrogant aeronautical engineer - so it must have made quite an impression.  Indeed, it is still a film I enjoy to this day, despite knowing every twist of the plot - it still gives me a kick when they finally get their makeshift plane airborne and escape the crash site and get to safety.  Anyway, it occurred to me while watching it again today that it was probably down to my early viewing of this film that I've always maintained this streak of insane optimism in my character that believes that, no matter how badly the odds seem stacked against you, no matter how many obstacles are thrown into your path, there is always some way of surmounting it all through one's ingenuity.  

A form of insanity which has undoubtedly been reinforced by other films I saw at relatively young age. (My Darling Clementine, when Wyatt and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday unhistorically take on hordes of the Clantons at the OK Corral - in reality, the odds were more even, four on four, although Ike Clanton wasn't actually armed - for instance, or The Magnificent Seven, when those seven gunfighters take on fifty odd bandits.  Sure, I know that only three of them survived, but they still inspired the farmers to defend themselves against superior odds - and all for only twenty dollars apiece).  All of which explains why I keep getting into conflicts where I really can't win, but I just won't back down.  But rather than head on conflict, I instead spend time finding some ingenious way to outmaneuver my opponent.  (I'm embroiled in such a conflict right now, albeit one that is essentially trivial - yet it has become both a matter of principle and a challenge to me).  The funny thing is that every so often I win. More often than I should, really.  It might just be luck, but I'd like to think it is because of those lessons that Flight of the Phoenix taught me - that from the wreckage of a complete disaster, a triumphant escape can be engineered.  Like I say, sometimes it works.  Sometimes quite spectacularly.  Like that time I took on a whole army and won - but that's another story for another time.  (It wasn't an actual army, obviously, but it did, at the time, feel like I was taking on a metaphorical army.  But, in the end, I came out on top).  Of course, some might say that this has nothing to do with the films I watched and that I'm simply bloody minded by nature.  Which is also true.  But those old films showed me a way to channel this bloody mindedness.  For which I'm grateful.