Mickey Rourke. My god, this movie utterly blew me away. I’ve seen a handful of his efforts, but in none of them had he so affected me as in this one. I am not a wrestling fan at all, but in this movie I saw a heart and passion and soul that, yeah, just about made me friggin weep. Is that what a wrestler’s life is really like? I suspect that the real wrestlers would not want it known, and it WAS a movie, but I’m betting it wasn’t far off.
Staples? Really?
His character, Sam “The Ram” Robinson, was a veteran wrestler at the end of his career. Literally, a broken man in more ways than one. Not a stupid man by any means, he got to the top of his game for a reason, and had done it well. But he also had the luxury of perspective--life perspective. Someone who’d gone through life doing what he did best. Not a humble, virtuous, nor unblemished existence in any sense of the words, but it had been HIS life. Problem was, he’d made a lot of mistakes along the way and lost sight of an important element or two. Found himself alone. It reminded of my college Philosophy of Religion course, of Soren Kierkegaard, in particular. Kierkegaard had said (and I severely paraphrase, it’s been a few years) that humans cannot really, truly know God until just before the moment of their death. On the Internet I also found another quote: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” (see link, below). This came to me as I watched The Wrestler. He lived his life forward...lived it hard and fast and was true to his soul. Didn’t know how messed up he’d become and how badly he’d treated people until he looked back on his life.
And he was lonely.
I think there is a lot to say for that. In my younger hubris I probably would have said, “Hey, you made your bed--now you gotta sleep in it,” and to an extent that still applies...but I now also have the addition of having lived about half of my life and can see that sometimes you do just have to live your life as well as you can--you try not to step on too many people’s toes (or not!)--but you have to be true to yourself. Hopefully you can catch yourself in the act of living early enough to mitigate your mistakes--or at least acknowledge and apologize for them.
But not always.
The point is, there’s something to be said for apologies and forgiveness, even if what brought them about was loneliness. Is loneliness any less an emotion than forgiveness? Guilt? Sorrow? Love? It is still something earned. Felt. And to trash someone just because they’re lonely (“Well, you should have thought about before you done it...”) I think is overharsh, and may surely come back onto the purveyor of said words. We all need forgiveness. To forgive. I also think that whether or not the receiver of apologies ever accept them, it is powerful that the apologizer give them. Important to do so. Because, let’s face it, that person had so changed as to realize the NEED for the apology, and had GROWN. No action is ever lost...and it is needed for someone to apologize and make the attempt at making right wrongs that had been perpetrated. Those that refuse the apology, perhaps acting on their own hubris, perhaps acting on what they truly feel is right, have their own lessons to learn, and that is subject for future discussion. But the act of the apology is critical in and of itself. What comes around goes around, but even more so, to be Human is to GROW. To not forgive, is to stunt and continue to live “where you are” until you learn your lesson. And one way or the other, we all DO learn our lessons.
The Wrestler--Mickey Rourke--was moving and tragic His was a powerful performance of what it is to have made some mucho mondo mistakes in your life then try to correct them (you can’t always glue the broken pieces back together again, if you can even find every one of them...)--yet try to remain true to yourself and be who you truly are. Mickey’s real life was a rough one, I’d read, and he’d also realized he’d made some mistakes, but now he’d like to return to the Big Screen and do things better. Did you know he was a professional boxer? A pretty kick-ass one at that! And, good Lord, you could see it in absolutely every nuance in him. You could SEE he wasn’t always (if ever) ACTING. You could see the hurt and pain and toughness in his eyes. How he sucked up his pride to cut meat and deal with demanding little old ladies. How he willed down pain. I was in utter awe of his performance. I’m stunned he didn’t got the Oscar (though he did get the nod). For crying out loud, he did far more than just open up a vein, he took staples to the chest--and opened up his SOUL.
