One Beautfiul Yet Infuriating Moment

You know what's worse than bad art? Bad art that contains a glimmer of outstanding beauty. Seeing that diamond in the rough makes our hearts ache for what could have been - the art as a whole with the same magnificence from beginning to end. We wish we had been there to tell the artist, "There it is! Make everything else just as moving and good and pure!"

When I was a kid and teenager, the art I cared most about was movies. There were good movies and bad movies, and for a long time, I didn't think much about what differentiated the two. I just watched them. 

Then there was The Matrix. When it came out in the spring of 1999, I was almost 14, the film's target demographic. I was captivated. I'm happy to report that the film holds up well nearly 20 years later. The sequels...not so much.

Yeah, the sequels were lemons, all but for one beautiful yet infuriating moment in The Matrix Revolutions. To my 18-year-old-skipping-school-so-I-could-see-it-on-opening-day self, the scene was a punch in the gut, not only for its beauty but as a reminder of just how mediocre the rest of the film turned out to be.

It's still a beautiful scene, the premise of which could probably land a film deal if it hadn't already been done. Elevator pitch: "Six-hundred years after a technological disaster that blackens the sky, a woman becomes the first human being to see the sun." I don't know about you, but I'd pay to see that movie.

Thornton Wilder's Our Town is another example of art that could have been so much better if it had embodied the perfection of a single moment. I taught Our Town twice during my career as an English teacher. To be honest, the students didn't care for it. To be even more honest, I cared for it even less. (I eventually switched to teaching Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.) Yet even then I recognized how Act III was a step above the rest of the play. Within Act III, the play's most significant moment appears in a few lines of dialogue:

EMILY: "Mother Gibbs?"

MRS. Gibbs: "Yes, Emily?"

EMILY: "They don't understand, do they?"

MRS. GIBBS: "No, dear. They don't understand."

Yes, this exchange successfully ties everything the play together. In the first two acts we observe the daily lives of various characters, and at this crucial moment in Act III, we realize how important those moments, like those in our own lives, actually were. However, each act should stand on its own two feet, and without Act III, Acts I & II don't have much redeeming quality. I think this disparity has a lot to do with the fact that Wilder struggled immensely with Act III, and wrote it only after having a long conversation with his professor/tattoo artist/pornographer friend Samuel Steward.

Everyone has their own "If only the whole thing had been as good as this one part!" moment from literature, film, music, etc. For all the artists out there, I encourage you to examine that moment, distill it down, and make something beautiful.

That's what we should all be trying to do.