Starting with that Bogart movie, after which I realized I was (a) older than Bogart got to be and (b) heavier than Toro, that heavyweight boxer, I’ve been on an “old guys with their boots on” kick, not consciously intentionally, so much as by following suggestions.
Robert Duvall is a connecting thread.
Rosalie adores his movie The Apostle, which I saw with David the humanist (he wasn’t thrilled by all that preacher talk, but hey, it’s all Duvall’s character knew — work with what you’ve got, right?).
Given Secondhand Lions is a flashback by a stereotypical youngish artist who draws Calvin and Hobbes type comic books for a living, we understand from the outset that we’re watching fictionalized history though his eyes. The moral: believing in fiction is OK.
If I had to surmise the real story, I’d say Duvall’s character died after a heart attack in that hospital (archetypally half in the “next world”) and the Michael Caine character was likely entirely fictitious, a dramatic device meant to express two sides of the same old guy “uncle” (very cantankerous apparently, like some old people get — not naming names).
No doubt he had a floozy mom and was getting back at her (what drives a lot of comics I’ve noticed — funny). She left him with her kooky uncle that time and he started up his fantasy life, making a career out of it eventually.
So what happened to the pig? It disappeared from the story. Based on breakfast clues, they ate it. But not the dogs. Dogs are not considered food in American movies, even if pigs are smarter (they say), like in Animal Farm (Orwell).
Duvall is also in Apocolypse Now let’s remember. My film studies are starting to pay off.
It’s OK to believe in stereotypes to the extent these channel archetypes, as “emanations” one might say. We’ve all met Urizen types (Blake’s terminology) and see them in that movie Brazil.
These days I’m weighing less than Bogart’s prize fighter (from Argentina?), thanks largely to the elliptical, a Christmas present.
