“What you have achieved will be revealed only when you breathe your last.” – Seneca
Rather than seeing our self as some everyday run of the mill ‘shmuck’, what if we tweaked this derogatory term into ‘chuck’ instead, as in a real down to earth kind of person; would that rearrange our self-concept, might that change the way we conceive of others and the world at large? Such permutations can help us to redefine our lives. Vital questions at their core are philosophical, existential and perhaps even exponential! They indicate that there is a sphere between source and material; an openness, a freedom of expression and choice.
—
Each Sephirot along the Tree of Life contains a dark side that we must acknowledge as our own and on the other, a puritanic sense of righteousness which can also keep us alienated as well as separated from one another, an us and them mentality. Locating and preserving the middle way between these dualistic forces allows for restoration and transformation, a way to ascend our base selves, whereas Nietzsche’s notion of going beyond good and evil runs the risk of rendering man as either animal or monster if not something by far worst.
—
To this day Stephen King remains par excellence in the genre of horror. Nobody can be King or do King except for King. He captures and refines the various modes/aspects of our human predicament into literary art without walling us off into estranged carceral cells. Mike Flanagan, on the other hand, perhaps even King’s right hand for that matter, keeps his vision fantastically flowing and pontifically glowing. There are not enough words in human history to describe the quality of synergy taking place between these two souls.
—
Every fibre of my being wants to praise these two chaps up into heaven on high but this commentary is meant to be about you, the reader; that is to say The Life of Chuck. It’s as though the creators themselves felt the need to momentarily pause the entertainment industry and remind us that we are the ones that largely determine what is being projected onto the big screen. The life and death of Chuck is about you and me. It’s the primary meta-story and cautionary tale that reminds us to be careful of what we put into our heads. We are that and so much more, multitudes in fact, and everything that came before.
—
As the pendulum swings back and forth between the extremes of existence —be it vice & viciousness, dogma & anarchy, the beginning & end— we can also pause to take in the variety and diversity of life, and rather than resist it or divide it or compartmentalize it or cut it off, we can embrace the beauty of it all. For me that is The Life of Chuck, the essence of being who and what we are, the breath and dust of a rising and/or falling star.
—
All in all Flanagan’s rendition of King’s novella of the life of Chuck was simply amazing in every sense of the word. The most astonishing part of this movie was when Marty made his way back to his ex-wife Felecia and how they spent their final moments together. Every millisecond of this scene utterly engaged me and filled my heart with renewed anticipation and wonder. It felt like the highlight of Stephen King’s signature that first made me fall in love with film as a boy. Today I am immensely grateful to Mike Flanagan, his crew and especially for the returning actors who appear in his other films. You guys feel like family. Keep up the perfectly splendid work and live each day as though it can be your last!
