Friday, February 6, 2009

I picture my Wealthy Benefactor looking like Gilbert Blythe

I turned my tv on before going to bed the other night and there was Anne talking to Gilbert in the gazebo in Anne of Avonlea. Which meant that I wouldn't be going to bed for another 30 minutes because I can't be expected to not watch the end of Anne of Avonlea. Even though I've watched it hundreds of times.

I actually did the calculations. I've probably watched all 8 hours of the series* at least twice a year, every year, for the last 20 years. And there have been periods in my life when I've watched it once a month, because sometimes you just really need Anne. But that still only puts me at about 100. But the ending of it all, on the bridge with the "diamond sun-bursts and marble halls", that I have watched way more times than I can probably count. Because it's almost mandatory that after you're done with the whole thing you watch the ending a few times. You have to! You've just watched 8 hours of Anne shunning Gilbert with a firm hand, and then finally, when he's on his death bed, she comes around. You need that bridge scene. You've earned that bridge scene. So it's only right that at the end of it all, whoever has the remote control hits rewind for a few seconds and you watch it again. And maybe again. Okay, and maybe again. You deserve it.**

I couldn't rewind it that night but I did, even after 20 years and hundreds of viewings, clap as the credits rolled.

*I don't count that last one. What was that? An abomination, that's what.

**To be fair to the books, I've read that same scene in Anne of the Island hundreds of times too. Even though it's in a garden and not on a bridge, and there was a different guy in love with Anne (who's with me that Roy Gardner would have been a better choice as a romantic rival in the movie than Super Old Morgan Harris?), and Gilbert was never engaged to Christine Stuart. As if.

8 comments:

Emily said...

Amen, Sista.
...the gazebo scene also merits rewinding a few times.

Wendy said...

I like the movies, but really, you know I have strong feelings about filmmakers altering books - enormously popular books - to their own liking. The books were popular for a reason. Don't mess with something that works.

Rach said...

Are you counting the once-a-week viewings at Moon apts? Because I remember debating almost every Saturday, watch Anne or practice, and I always chose Anne over my fluting abilities. Over the course of 2 years of living there together, and watching it once a week, that's a lot of times. (I'm too tired to do the math. Someone else figure it out.) I got those movies for Mother's Day last year. I haven't bothered pulling out the last thingy with the war and Anne and Gilbert being way too old. I never will.

Anonymous said...

i have never, not once, not one time in my whole sheltered lifetime seen this movie. never. not once.

don't shoot me.

Andrea said...

My favorite! I always secretly wished I had red hair and that Gilbert Blythe would call me Carrots.

AJ said...

Love it. I met at guy at USU who looked just like Gilbert. Apparently every girl told him that. Unfortunately his attitude was far less Gilbert than his looks.

But oh that there is a bridge sceen in my future (!)

Valerie said...

Yeah, I never got the reasoning for the Roy Garner/Morgan Harris switch-up. I agree that Roy is a way better foil for Gilbert, because he was so humorless and un-fun, which painted Gilbert in a way more flattering light.
And yeah, Gil and Christine were never engaged, but remember that part in (is it Anne of Ingleside) when she comes back all divorced up and puts the moves on Gilbert? That vixen.

Janna said...

I typed "R" into my browser window and your blog came up. Weird. Who are you? And does my husband read your blog, or does my computer? More weirdness. But I have to agree with all my heart that Morgan Harris was my least favorite part in one of my favorite movies. Oh how I love Marilla.