I hadn’t thought that I was much affected by the death of Carrie Fisher this past week. Hearing of her heart attack and subsequent death certainly made me think twice – after all, she was three years younger than I – but I had felt little connection to her over the years.
And then we went to see “Rogue One,” the not-quite-Star-Wars movie. Typical “Star Wars” fare, though, the action and story line grabbed me and sucked me in from the beginning. Before we entered the theater, I had been tired and out of sorts, developing a cold that Max has tried twice to give me and has now been successful, and even a little sleepy. When the music began, however, I felt wide awake and alert, thinking, “What sore throat?” and smiling in the dark.
I shed my usual tears when the good guys came through like the U.S. cavalry in old time westerns and tensed up when one battle scene was played on a beach – imitating D-Day. One young African American actor reprised a portion of Denzel Washington’s role in “Glory!,” and on a lighter note, this movie had a “lounging lizards” scene similar to the one in the first movie. Because I had a pretty good idea about what was going to happen, I didn’t suffer my usual stress reaction – having to pace in the back of the theater when the suspense becomes unbearable.
I wasn’t suspecting, though, that Princess Leia would make a cameo appearance, and when she did, I surprised myself by gasping and tearing up. It seemed as if those 40 years since “Star Wars” first appeared had just melted away, and she was young and beautiful, yet unscarred by the things that would shorten her life. And of course, “Rogue One’s” writer and director had no idea that when the film would be released, Carrie Fisher’s “cameo” would be a shocking posthumous appearance.
After the first “Star Wars” trilogy, we learned that the brave, intelligent, powerful Princess Leia, as Carrie Fisher, had very human troubles and foibles. She revealed that she suffered from bipolar disorder and that she developed a drug addiction. Through her semi-autobiographical movie “Postcards From the Edge,” we discovered that on top of the addiction and mental illness problems, she had a tempestuous and troubled relationship with her famous mother, Debbie Reynolds. An accomplished writer, Fisher wrote and starred in plays that tracked both life’s difficulties and her philosophies about them; she also played parts in other more mainstream films, such as “When Harry Met Sally,” that showed she could act.
When she reappeared in last year’s “Star Wars” movie, this time as General Leia Organa and not as just a Princess, this time either separated or divorced from the dashing Han Solo, whom she had married and with whom had borne a child, I remember reading the same stuff that women of a certain age hear whispered as they walk past: “She hasn’t aged well, has she?” As if that is the most important thing a woman can do, the thing that gives her value, as she accumulates experience and navigates a life that may not always be kind: age well. And that, of course, is a euphemism for “not looking old.”
Well, Carrie Fisher may not have “aged well,” but both as herself and in her iconic role, she offered all of us a look at ourselves over the past 40 years, as we dealt with life’s difficulties, fell into habits that could have been destructive, felt estranged from those who were supposed to love us no matter what, tried to be good parents, and generally tried to be the best we could be.
I wept for her yesterday, all she had been through, all she had overcome, and all that she had offered those of us who try to make it successfully through one day at a time. In the meantime, she gave us an escape in a darkened theater, time to get lost in a story where the good guys win, and an honest look at how we grow and change over a lifetime – a life well, if not easily, lived.
