Wait; Season of Love

Sondheim Lyrics and romance at the movies

Slow, love, slow
Time's so fast
Now goes quickly
See, now it's past
Soon will come
Soon will last
Wait

- Stephen Sondheim, 1979

“Wait”

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Rachel Zelger as Maria. / via: Amblin Entertainment

I’ve sobbed at the cinema two times in recent weeks. The first was the final ten minutes of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Licorice Pizza. PTA has become one of my favorite American directors in recent years after fixing my Magnolia and The Master blindspots during quarantine. I’ve found a deep appreciation of melodrama in his work and none is more present than in the romance between Alana Kane and Gary Valentine in this film. It stretches the boundaries of a romantic film. It’s about the kiss, but it’s not about the kiss. PTA makes you wait for that, makes you earn it. It feels classic, it feels like earned romance, it feels like something I’ve missed from the cinema since its return (maybe since before). Romantic dramas, formerly called “women’s pictures” when Sirk and Cukor made them, aren’t in vogue as blockbusters bust there’s more magic in them than Marvel’s Eternals. And I love super hero films (I fully expect to sob during Far from Home, but then again, there’s romance), but I’ve been left wanting. The best blockbuster I’ve seen this year has been Spielberg’s West Side Story, which is a beautiful tribute to Sondheim without ever knowing it would have to be. Spielberg is a beautiful director. One that we don’t perhaps treat with the respect he deserves (I was admonished at drinks this evening for not revering Lincoln, but someone who finds it a classic), until he churns out a beautiful masterpiece like West Side Story. And that’s what it is. I love, love, love this film. I love the original. I love the stage play, in theory, though I’ve yet to see a good production of it, two Broadway revivals included. But this film respected the text. The text being, “Hollywood classic.” This felt like a Hollywood classic. Like the films of yore that pulled people into their seats because they wanted to be swept up in love like they didn’t have in their own lives and characters that felt larger than life, like they were a part of something bigger. Rita Moreno tells Tony in this film that life is more important that love, but I think she’s wrong. Without love there is no life. I want to love more. Licorice Pizza and West Side Story made me want to love more. Want to write about love more. I cried the last ten minutes of Licorice Pizza. I cried the last hour of West Side Story. Because I knew what was coming. And I knew how much my heart needed it.