tribute to adrian lyne

i rarely watch tv nowadays... i would rather spend time in my room catching up on my readings. anyway, two sunday nights ago, for some reason, I felt an urge to check out if there’s anything good on cable. i was just flipping through channels until I came across hbo. indecent proposal was being shown and I read somewhere that it’s an adrian lyne film. to those who don’t know who adrian lyne is… he is the director of fatal attraction, jacob’s ladder, lolita, and unfaithful. pretty good resume right? i ended up watching indecent proposal and was amazed again. adrian lyne has this gift for making financially/commercially viable mainstream movies without turning off film buffs like me.

what makes a good film? a good film still lingers on after the movie credits stop rolling… it stays in your head. sometimes it even makes you feel uneasy… uncomfortable, restless. and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have a concrete ending. the absence of a clear cut ending can be the focal point of a film. with this definition of a good film, i can say with confidence that adrian lyne has created a bunch of them. he likes creating complex characters in difficult twisted situations. most of his characters are people in which we can relate to… we see a colleague, a neighbor, a friend, or even ourselves in them… and he takes us to a ride where we begin to question our morality, principles, and values. what would you do if you were in their place? you tend to ask yourself. and as human beings, we have the tendency to be voyeuristic. so we let ourselves be immersed in their world for an hour and half, or two... and we come out of it affected by what we’ve seen and experienced. this is the magic of cinema.