Splendor in the Grass: Մարգամիջի պերճանք

Vaհe H Apelian

 

Our house in Cincinnati, painted by Arin Ch Artwork  in Lebanon.

For a generation the movie Splendor in the Grass remains unforgettable. I was fifteen years old when I saw the movie in Beirut.  Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood remain imprinted in that generation's mind, as the actors who played the teenage lovers that circumstances and youthful follies kept them apart. I do not think they outgrew the roles they played or could change that perception.

A comment on the Youtube about the film read: “I guess I have never grown up yet as I am always looking for SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. God, please forgive me!” Every now and then I watch glimpses of it on Youtube too. I have friends who have told that they do the same, including Ara Mekhsian who translated the segment of the William Wordsworth’s poem that was central to the movie. 

But I have another reason to continue to relate to the movie.  After her recovery, Deanie saw Bud for the last time. He was married and was doing farm work. His family had lost the fortune they had. She asked him if he is happy. He said, he does not ask that question any longer. What is the point? He said, you got to take things as they come along. She said she iis get married in Cincinnati. She too, she said, does not ask that question. Both were from a small Kansas town. Cincinnati may have looked for them a world apart.

It so happened that twists and turns of our lives would have me and Marie move to Cincinnati, where my job took me. We lived in Loveland, a suburb of Cincinnati for almost a quarter of century and created a life there. I look back with tender memories of wonderful friends we never thought we would have, and for a way of life we never thought we would create.  It became the last station for us together as a family. 

That was what Williiam Wordsworth's poem was all about. That “nothing can bring back the hour, the splendor in the grass.” But, we need not grieve ” but “rather find strength in what remains behind.”

I attached  Ara Mekhsian’s translation and segments of the movie that pertained to the poem and the final scene.