THE MOVIE DANCE NO ONE ASKS FOR

This is a movie dance we all ask for.

HOOWA.

The one’s we don’t ask for?

Sonny Corleone at the tollbooth, Bonnie and Clyde in the car, all getting hosed.

As a responsible blogger, a baby boomer blogger, I’m sad to say I remember how it felt learning about President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee, and waking up two months later to hear news about Senator Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles.

The news wasn’t good for any of them. It’s still not good.

These men found their way into the history books in a most awful way, their names forever linked to Lee Harvey Oswald,  James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sirhan.

To say this should never happen in America is ignoring history. We don’t do that.

But, it happens.

 

The Godfather Dance With Sonny

The Godfather came out in 1972, a long time ago. Fifty-four years.

The scene at the tollbooth was horrible, yet it was Sonny, a gangster living the life.

Not all gangsters get drilled at the tollbooth, but he sure did.

Things happen. In the movies.

No one wants to think of a life being snuffed out and a body twitching from bullet strikes.

But, Bonnie and Clyde did their dance of death in 1967.

 

These aren’t the only movies showing the movie dance of humans on the wrong end of a gun, but they are the scenes that have stuck with me over the years.

In The Godfather it’s about rival gangs getting even; in Bonnie and Clyde it’s something else.

Desperados getting their just deserts?

Murderers who don’t deserve their day in court?

Law enforcement sending a message?

 

The Third Of May, 1808

Before movies there was Goya and the French firing squad executing Spanish insurgents in Spain during the French occupation.

There they are in a line all blasting away at a man standing.

If this were Minnesota they’d all be firing into the man on the ground.

That squad pounced on a guy, a gun went off, and they took a step back from the guy on the ground and opened fire.

Ten shots?

As historical events go, this one feels bigger than the moment.

Ten shots?

It makes death by knee on the neck sound civilized.

A movie dance of death is one thing. It’s called ‘drama.’

 

 

PS: Movies like Platoon are made to make you feel something.

 

PSS: Ten shots on a Minnesota street? How are we feeling? He wasn’t a gangster, a bank robber, or a soldier. Not a movie star. He didn’t hop up after the director called out, “CUT.”

He was an American doing American things, like joining a protest.

Ten shots?

No one asks for that dance.