Hacker Cinema
Shine
1996 · Film · 105 min
Directed by Scott Hicks
Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.
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3 comments on Hacker News
Hi, Simone! Great question and "short" reply.
Love and trust. Set wide boundaries. Be an example, Live what you say. Kids pick up on hypocrisy immediately.
Protect and teach discernment, protecting oneself against harm (some martial arts, especially for girls) while understanding trust, and who earns it. We deal with this every day. Not easy. Above all be trustful yourself --- something very complex and deserving of a long examination (some other time). At least, kids will have a good standard of comparison.
Be a calm, tolerant and understanding person. I refer to the 4 great Buddhist virtues:[0] Loving Kindness (acceptance), compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, (the no anger part, except for righteous indignation against injustice)
Share activities. Kids may pick up on one or more, or not! Give them the chance. Naturally I am a techie, but Mom and Dad hadn't a clue. But Mom taught me cooking (Italian, of course) and introduced me to radical literature (Walden!). Dad was an artist, which I never pursued (clean brushes? Nope!) but as soon as Mom bought my brother and myself little cameras on a Christmas sale, I went to town with photography.
Dad was also a musician, and loved music. So did Mom, and I grew up with the classics and the BSO on the FM dial. I have paid that forward to my daughter. At the very least, let kids hear the classics. They may never hear them in the cacophony of life. Soul food. Perhaps kids ignore it, but I have never heard of on regretting the hearing. (Somewhat by contrast, the movie based on real-life, "Shine", about a controlling Dad. But after some agonizing times, David Helfgott returned to music in a loving and sharing way.) [1]
Put yourself in their shoes! You were young once. Grab old photos and think of what parents did for you, perhaps clearer in retrospect. If there were bad memories, get help so you don't pass them along. New life means new life, not just for your kids, but for you. My life took on vast new meaning when I became a Dad.
Travel some. My Dad traveled little, but I remember one beach trip, where he found and bought a purple cow creamer, WAY before Seth Godin. I still have it, one of the few mementos I hang onto. Little things can spark wonderful memories, not only of events, but your unique personality. Who would think to buy it? An artist? Likely so.
Grow WITH them. I saved this great piece on a teacher learning along with students. [2]
Be excited about things. Pre-internet, I vividly recall getting my daughter "Gizmos and Gadgets" [3] which now runs in emulation (I forgot how at this moment)
She didn't turn out to be a scientist, but it was great fun.
[0] https://www.learnreligions.com/brahma-vihara-the-four-divine-states-449717
[1] http://www.davidhelfgott.com/
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49333385 https://archive.is/KXIYN
[3] https://archive.org/details/SSGWINCD
You have my email address.
It's just too easy to find counter examples to this claim. Hard to take it seriously. I think the author was just very good at finding data points to fit his theory.
Take the movie "Shine", for example, from 1996. The story of David Helfgott. There's a dark side to be sure, but nothing like villainy. The classical music in that movie, in fact, comes to symbolize a kind of redemption or transcendence over madness -- not a succumbing to it.
As for the decreased symphony attendance, drawing a connection to his claim seems pretty outlandish to me. A more likely explanation is that the symphony as a live concert format is just really outdated. It was all the rage in the 1700s and 1800s in the western world. But that was a long time ago.
For inspiration, I tend to prefer movies rooted in a real life story. A couple of movies already mentioned that fall into that category: The Pursuit of Happyness and October Sky. I also really like Shine, Cool Runnings, and Take the Lead.
Favorite scene from Shine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-QrSc_Jw3g