Saturday, July 20, 2019

He's Still Standing

We saw Rocketman today. The fanciful musical biopic of Elton John made me look at his music so differently. It seems impossible that all those songs could have been so autobiographical, especially since the lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin, but... there it was.

After the closing credits we stood in the lobby and chatted with our friends about the movie. "Wow! You really seem to know a lot about Elton John!" someone told me as I was able to plug a few of the gaps she saw in the narrative.

I shrugged. I guess it's true, and it's probably because not only was I alive at the time and recall many of the events, but also because like Bohemian Rhapsody, this film told the story of a person not that much older than I am who nearly ruined himself because his sexuality was considered unacceptable by a society I remember well.

Watching John's struggle was painful, but the underlying anachronism of those times was meant to show how far we have come in the last 50 years. I suppose there is consolation in that.


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