This is a rant on one of my favourite fictional characters,
Mr. William Forrester. Those who are looking for find something exciting down
below will be sadly disappointed and those who read whatever trash I write
diligently would definitely want to watch ‘Finding Forrestor’. So Enjoy…..
The scene opens with a bunch of kids playing basket ball in
the neighborhood court. On the third floor of a neighboring apartment a curtain
mysteriously opens and closes at weird hours…. Kids will be kids and they want
to know.
As days pass the kids grow curious and they sneak in the
apartment at some god forsaken hour. The kid who had the courage to go inside
and act all Inspector Clouseau was a kid named Jamal Wallace. A product of the
ghetto, whose mother worked as a maid and his brother worked at a parking lot
at the Yankee stadium.
Jamal while going through the apartment hears some movement
and rushes out…. He forgets his backpack in the house, the next day after
school while playing ball he finds his backpack hanging out of the apartment he
broke into.
After a few days his bravado kicks in and he climbs up to
the apartment, the door opens and his backpack is thrown at him. At home when
he opens his pack, he finds his personal notebook tampered with. As Jamal’s dad
had left them at an early age, he had a habit of penning his thoughts on his
notebook, he looks into the notebook and finds it corrected. Each page
meticulously read and corrected.
Jamal visits this mysterious teacher of his the next day;
he walks up the apartment, knocks and is welcomed by a gray gentleman, Mr.
William Forrester.
From there on the journey of Jamal unfurls, a journey where
he understands the Pulitzer Prize winning Forrestor and why he chose to write
only one novel “Avalon Landing”.
William Forrester is shown as a recluse, a person who
hasn’t left his house for roughly 30 years, a man of great intellect but Jamal
does not know who his mentor is. Forrester tells Jamal never to ask him why he
chooses not to step out of the house and their relationship is purely academic
and they are not to delve into each other’s personal lives.
Their friendship grows and Jamal begins to understand the
tremendous complexities of this man. In a discussion between Jamal and William,
Jamal tells him about the writing competition he has entered and that the prize
is worth the effort, to which William replies that he does not understand the
concept of an end result of writing, writing is for one’s joy.
Jamal :- “Yo William, did you ever win a prize?”
William:- “yes, of course, once I won”
Jamal:- “When, what was it”
William:- “Oh, once I wrote a book, I won the Pulitzer..”
Jamal is stunned, he does not know how to react, his
reaction is of a kid who is watching a lion, awed by his presence but fearful
of someone who might rip him while he stands there admiring him.
As laymen, as people who read we might never understand why
a great talent like him never chose to write again. But as the movie unfurls
his logic seems correct though his madness is evident. According to him people
who lack talent of writing become critics, a whole universe of critics will sit
down and try to rip up your creation in trying to understand what the inner
meaning of the book is. Why people don’t understand that each writer is not looking
to present a deep hidden meaning, they just write. And when such heartfelt
creation is subjected to criticality, even positive reviews and criticism can
really psych people out.
William is in the process of teaching Jamal the art of
writing. He asks Jamal to sit down on his typewriter and start typing whatever
comes in his mind. He tries but finds his logic insane, hence he is not typing
with conviction. William shouts and urges him to type faster…. And he types,
the typewriter hums like a true beauty it is. And with months of typing he
creates his first creation ‘A Season of Faith’s Perfection’.
Watching this scene actually helped me write, what we
create in any way is our own, the way a parent cannot reject their children
similarly our creation no matter how trashed out it is, is ours in the end.
The movie and William teach us that what might seems
eccentric and not normal is not eccentric all the time, the fact that we assume
and we perceive hides the truth from us. When a 360 degree view of his
apartment is shot, there is written material piled up everywhere. He writes
four hours a day but does not publish anything. Why should he? He does not lack
money then how come his choices make him an eccentric? A man or a woman has a
right to choose his/her path. The motto is simple that our decisions should not
make us regretful.
One memorable line of the movie is when Jamal is trying to
woo this girl who studies with him. Jamal asks William what he should do. To
which William replies “a girl can be wooed with an unexpected gift at an
unexpected time”. It works…. It does.
And thus the story of William Forrester, portrayed by Sean
Connery as honestly as any man could. And thus the line, “our choices make us
who we are and how the world will remember us”.
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