classically

I was just thinking about what I’d like to write about in my post for this week, so I browsed through my Filing Cabinet (not an actual cabinet – the one on the side of the blog with various blog categories), and realised that I haven’t published anything under the television category in a while. Having another look, I realised that I haven’t published anything movie-related in almost an entire year! Well, one day short of a year, so I can probably round that up.

The reason for this lack of movie posts is simply that I have not watched many movies in this past year. I seriously cannot remember the last time I watched a movie in the cinemas. I feel like maybe it was mid last year, but I’m not sure, and I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was.

I do know that the most recent movie that I watched (outside of the cinemas) is, in fact, “The Sound of Music” but only because I just watched that on Christmas, and only because it seems to be some sort of crime against humanity to have never watched it. Ok, maybe that’s a bit extreme, but I guess it’s just one of those sorts of classics. I actually wasn’t paying that much attention to it – just enough to get the idea of what was going on – and the other day, when I was talking to a colleague about it, I didn’t even recognise the name of one of the main characters.

It seems that I don’t tend to do well with “classic” films: “Chariots of Fire” and “Casablanca” are two that come to mind. Incidentally, they were both films that I watched in high school English classes…

One classic that I don’t mind too much is “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, although, admittedly, I don’t remember an awful lot about what happens in it. But my memory’s not great on these sorts of things anyway, so it’s hardly indicative of how good it actually was. It would seem that the memory of enjoying something is generally greater than the memory of the actual event. I wonder if there’s some sort of neurological explanation for that…

Anyway, thinking of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” brings me to another thought (surprisingly for me, it’s not about breakfast). Despite the fact that Audrey Hepburn passed away at a time when a lot of the people of my generation were still learning to speak, she seems to be quite widely quoted on social media. Imagine having that much impact on people that, almost 22 years after your death, people are still quoting you as if you’re the authority on living life. Well, it could be said of other famous people who are now dead, but that’s beside the point.

As I was thinking about this, I realised that I knew nothing about Hepburn other than she was an actress famous for “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and good quotes, so I did a quick internet search. Some of the things I discovered that I had not previously known include: she was born in Belgium, she could speak five different languages, and she was a UNICEF ambassador. Also, according to IMDb, she lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, during which she suffered depression and malnutrition.

Before this, I had contemplated finding and reading a biography about Hepburn (considering her stature, I’m sure there are plenty out there), but after finding out a bit more about her, I definitely want to read more about her life. But, don’t worry, it’s not that I’m suddenly idolising, or even trying to emulate her; I’m just curious. Besides, doesn’t it sound like her life would be interesting to read about? Well, the main problem is finding the right biography to read. There’s a lot riding on this because I don’t read a lot of non-fiction (I would just much rather read fiction books), so one boring or poorly-written biography could spoil this entire category of books for me. If you have read an Audrey Hepburn biography before, or otherwise have a good recommendation, please do share!

Actually, in the spirit of generosity, I’ll also accept suggestions for biographies about people who are not Audrey Hepburn.

(After re-reading this post, I realised that, although I started off intending to write about movies, I finished this post by writing about books… Typical…)

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