Legend was the place I found to be my own when I was about 17 and one night switched on the television, there was a forest there... I didn't know what it was, what the movie was called or anything about it... it was just there, and the music grabbed my heart and dragged me in. I was lost in it completely... I believed from the beginning, and still do now... that it was a real place, about real people... and that it was a story about the truth I knew existed, unfolding all the time in front of me, but up until that point had thought only I knew of and sensed in the world.
It was a true revelation to know that other people in this world knew of my dreams.
The magic of the film is eternal... it's time could be any time, it's location anywhere... it's reality undeniable, even though it is far from reality. The story dances around something that even it knows it can never come close to... something so much bigger than it can contain, and it does not even try to contain it... it just opens your eyes and lets you see it for yourself. It is a whole world, put onto film that wasn't created when the film was created and doesn't need the film in order to exist.
Like a unicorn, it exists with such certainty that it has no need to ever prove that it exists. (I believe that a unicorn itself is a creature of belief, and that there is no question that they are living, breathing creatures which roam our world... they simply don't need to ever prove to anyone that they exist, so they do not... when you believe, they are there.)
The story to me was about a young girl who had shattered the world... but who was not to blame. These were forces far beyond contol, and a story had to unfurl... one of good and evil, one of magic and belief.
One of love.
I see no hatred in the film... even though
the introduction suggests it is there.
Even Darkness himself is
a part of the magic, and the love
in the story... as he says himself, "What
is love, without hate"
and even he falls, to love.
This is not a love simply about 'people' however... or one that can be shared directly between people - as is proven by the whole disaster of the film, the turning of the world onto it's dark side... Jack's mistake of taking Lily to see the unicorns, and her touching one were the cause of this shattered world... and only after a long battle did the world go back to normal.
Jack and Lily had lost their innocence, but it was not about them... this story was one about the fragile world of belief.
Belief in love, and magic and the universe they create inside this one that we all 'think' is reality is something we can only find in ourselves, and not something we can find in, give, or share directly with, other people.
This is such stuff as dreams are made of, this is Legend
I hope you keep it to yourself, as close as I keep it to myself.
Footnotes (Linked to throughout text):
Real...
Not in the sense that I've lost my mind and don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, but somehow Legend is very 'real' in the sense that it's about something true and eternal... a kind of reality that does exist, and is as worthy in my mind of the title 'reality' as our dreams are - for if you deny the fact that you have dreams what kind of reality are you living in!?!
Music...
The version I saw first, and fell in love with was the TV version with the soundtrack by Tangerine Dream - and with the vocals of Jon Anderson, my favourite singer!... this soundtrack to me holds the film together and builds so wonderfully alongside the story... reaching a climax at the end with the beautiful song 'Loved by the Sun'.
I was hurt and disturbed when I bought the video tape here in the UK later, only to find Jerry Goldsmith's terrible, pathetic and meaningless score obliterating almost all of the magic of the film!?... why!? - at no point does his score come close to the film and even come close to touching the magic, meaning or storyline. I have since come to accept his score as it seems to be the only one available here in the UK... and I have lost the version I taped from TV, but yeeesh!
The Euro version is still worth a look - and you can now order it online from the Video Shop here!
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