Among the hundreds of DVDs I own, there’s a select few that I think about a lot and manage to watch at least once a year. There’s no reason or rhyme as far as I can tell for any film to insert itself in this list, and they don’t seem to have anything in common.
One of these is called Ronin. It was directed in the late Nineties by the late John Frankenheimer, who was responsible for the original Manchurian Candidate, and the French Connection, and many other films. It brought together Robert de Niro and Jean Reno, sadly for the only time, and was about a group of unemployed ex-Cold War agents in an uncharacteristically drab and colourless France, recruited for a very dodgy assignment. The film is full of great scenes, including the best ever car chase.
Stabbing the map
There’s also a speech by de Niro, explaining why he needed to reconnoitre the area before planning an ambush rather than relying on a map. ‘The map is not the territory!’ he said, vehemently, stabbing the map with his finger, in that de Niro way. Twice. I always loved that moment.
Ronin was scripted by the great Davit Mamet, and I always thought he wrote that line. My good friend Wikipedia tells me that the philosopher Alfred Korzybski said it first. It’s a good line.
Layers of meaning behind the obvious
I was having one of those conversations with a friend recently about what I would do if I won £148,000,000 on the Lottery. I was saying that it would be wonderful to buy a large building in need of refurbishment and open it up as a theatre, art house cinema, restaurant and arts centre and then run it for fun rather than profit.
I’d love to own a cinema. Deep, deep down, that would bring me close to Heaven. My friend reminded me that winning the Lottery is just a dream, and I realised while I said it that it isn’t about the winning for me (although that would be nice). Paying attention to the direction my dreams are following is a way of finding out how happy and integrated I am.
There are always layers of meaning behind the obvious. The map is not the territory.
Very large hands and feet, and a huge tongue
I also had a conversation recently about attractiveness. I was trying to explain what I understand attractiveness to be about. Have you ever seen one of those drawings where a person is represented not by actual size but by the concentration of nerves in the skin? There would be very large hands and feet, little spindly arms and legs, and a huge tongue.
What makes a person attractive is not how skinny they are, or what they’re wearing. It’s a whole package of knowns and unknowns.
Semi-colon heaven
It’s their heart, their sympathies, their sense of humour, the things they’re enthusiastic or knowledgeable about; their smell and the feel of their skin; the sound of their voice and the way they use it; their capacity for love and their reaction to being loved; their generosity and their engagement with others; their intelligence and/or common sense; their imagination and delight in new experiences; that look in their eyes; their artistry, clothes sense and colour, the way they move; there are so many other things.
The map is not the territory.
I love maps, but I’m a territory man through and through.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
Image: Zabdiel under CC BY 2.0
Image: Striatic under CC BY 2.0
