The Epic Nature of Life
Last night, for the umpteenth time, I snuggled on the couch and let myself be engrossed, mesmerized, entranced, enraged, impassioned, and yes, infatuated, by the movie Last of the Mohicans. James Fenimore Cooper on the big screen - frontier romance writ large, bigger than life, panoramas that spread from horizon to horizon, close-ups that show every vein on every leaf, every scar on Magua's face. It's hard to find an onscreen villain more frightening than Wes Studi. And h ave you ever seen such romance as that between Hawkeye and Cora Munro? And what about the clash of cultures? Stolen land? Nation against nation? Each time I watch the 1992 movie based on the second book in Cooper's The Leatherstocking Tales , I ask myself if I am brave enough to WRITE BIG. Not safe, but BIG. Fearless. After the movie last night, I came into my office and without turning the lights on, typed this declaration: There is nothing more beautifu...