Tonight's marathon is about experiencing loss and personal grief but transforming that grief into something more than just guilt. We follow four main story arcs involving some of the screen's most iconic heroes and witness the events that bring them large amounts of grief, watch them cope with guilt, and then ultimately transforming that guilt into something much more. Whether that grief turns into the will to survive, the will to stand up for what you believe in and fight crime, or the will to save humanity from an alien invasion, it does nothing but make the characters were following in the film much stronger than when we first see them. We have on our menu for this evening:
Cliffhanger 1993, Batman Begins 2005, Gravity 2013, and Aliens 1986
This is probably the most appealing way to get the message of overcoming loss and personal grief across, with the only film truly missing is The Lion King. But as Gandalf the Grey would say in Fellowship Of The Ring, "All you need is to figure out what to do with the time that is given to you." That time only allows for four films tonight, so critical decisions had to be made on which films were the most effective. There is probably no better way to begin this marathon theme than with the opening scene of Cliffhanger. In this film, Sylvester Stallone plays Gabe Walker, a mountain climber with a troubled past full of grief. During an attempt to rescue his best friend and his girlfriend, a tragic accident occurs where the girls line becomes loose and leaves her dangling over a cliff for dear life. Gabe does the best he could to save her but ultimately loses her grip when the glove she's wearing slips off. Gabe places guilt on himself for not doing enough to save her, and has to live with the notion that his best friend blames him for her death and Gabe's love Jessie tries to convince him that it wasn't his fault. The trios differences are put aside when a plane transporting three cases of 100 million dollars is intercepted by another plane full of terrorists. Their attempts to slide the money from one plane to another fails when the rope attached to the two planes breaks, forcing their own jet to crash into the snow. Making a phony distress call for help, Stallone and his buddy Hal played by Michael Rooker climb the mountain to rescue them, only to find out what the groups sinister plans are. Gabe Walker is a classic case of a hero who undergoes huge levels of loss and grief, but ends up shedding that grief through his heroic actions in the film when trying to save his best friend and the love of his life. This is one of Stallone's biggest and most iconic films as it led to a career reboot in 1993 following the trainwreck that was Rocky V.
The second film of the lineup is Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed reboot Batman Begins. The second major character who experiences transformation from grief victim to hero is Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale. In Batman Begins, Nolan chooses to go back and show Batman's early roots, explaining how he got to where we see him in The Dark Knight. Bruce Wayne is shown as a young boy who loves his family and has a special relationship with his father. One night while coming out of a theater performance, Wayne witnesses the brutal murder of his parents at the hands of a street criminal, which forever changes his life and fills him with guilt. Bruce thinks he is responsible for his parents death and wants vengeance for what happened. Seeking training from The League Of Shadows, Bruce Wayne turns his grief into a fight towards injustice, while facing his worst fear and using it on his worst enemies. In this case, his worst fear appears to be his fear of Bats. He uses this fear as his alter ego and becomes immersed in his crime fighting stature, who later becomes known as The Dark Knight. Of all three films in The Dark Knight trilogy, Batman Begins is the one film that deals with the issue of experiencing tragedy and the character of Bruce Wayne being reborn through his grief as Batman. By the end of the film, he understands that his parents death was not his fault, and will continue to fight crime to ensure that never happens to anyone else again.
The third film in the marathon is Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. The character of Ryan Stone played by Sandra Bullock is a medical engineer, who possesses personal grief in her life prior to the space mission with the tragic loss of her four year old daughter. During their mission, George Clooney's character Matt gets her to realize that what happened to her daughter is in the past, and that she needs to find the will and the strength to overcome her grief and fight for survival. Their mission takes a dramatic turn for the worst after their shuttle is destroyed by debris from a satellite, leaving them adrift in space. Gravity is much more than just an IMAX 3D space experience, it is a great story arc about a woman fighting for survival and overcoming adversity. By the end of the film, she manages to find that will to survive and move forward with far greater strength than she began with at the beginning of the movie.
This is a perfect bridge into the finale of the marathon with James Cameron's Aliens. Aliens places the timeline 57 years after the events of Alien, in which Ellen Ripley awakes upon rescue to discover that everything she ever loved or cared for on Earth is gone. Her daughter on Earth died of old age, her crew on the previous mission has been wiped out by the Xenomorph, who she still lives in fear. No one really believes her story and leaves her having nightmares that someday the alien will make it's way to Earth and wipe everyone out. Ripley's worst fears are put to the test when she is asked to lead a mission with a group of marines back to the planet where the eggs were found to rescue a group of colonists that have fallen captive to the newly discovered creatures. Ripley's transformation in Aliens is the most significant of all four character arcs because she not only has to face her worst fear head on, but gets a second chance of being a mother when she comes across a little girl named Newt, whose parents fell victim to the Xenomorph. Newt is a central figure in Ripley's life because she not only gives Ripley back her humanity, but encourages her to fight for not only their safety, but to wipe out the alien species.
It can almost be said that tonight's marathon represents a rebirth for every main character because they all experience such dramatic transformations during the course of their story arcs, making them almost entirely different people by the end of each film.
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