Saturday, June 25, 2005

The Lesson of Bagger Vance

I just watched the Legend of Bagger Vance again recently, and it struck me that the dance was the central theme of the movie. Junuh asks Bagger if he’s going to hit the ball or dance. Bagger says he’s kind of partial to dancing himself. When Junuh asks Adele what it was that she liked about him, she tells him, “I like the way we danced.” A few scenes later, angry and frustrated, Adele asks Junuh what pleasure she can take, knowing she deprived him of in the long absent years, he tells her, “I like the way we danced.” (Incidentally, Charlize Theron apparently had no problem mustering the tears and delivering the line, but Matt Damon couldn’t bring himself to saying it until a three hour counseling session with director, Robert Redford, compelled him to “take a shot at it.” Stories here and here.) When Bagger walks off, proud of the man he restored in Junuh, he does a little jig. And the big resolution of the story is Junuh and Adele dancing, just the two of them.


Bagger says, “A man’s grip on his club is like his grip on life.” The dance. When you dance with life, you don’t strangle her, you hold her gently, and she holds you, moving and flowing as one. Do you find you swing or does your swing find you? Bagger claims both in the movie. It’s a dance. I think we have given too much to the theologians and taken too much away from the dancers. Do I choose or am I chosen? Do I hold on or am I held?


One other thing I noticed this time around was Junuh’s victory over the A-Team. His ball moved when he removed the impediment. It clearly moved. But his A-Team (the other golfers, his caddy, the referee) tried to talk him out of being too hard on himself, to ignore what happened, shade it gray with a nuance, maybe look for a way out (it was after all at night and the only light was car headlights). Their reasons seemed legit: the golfers didn’t want to win on a technicality; the crowd would be greatly disappointed; Junuh’s fans wanted more than anything for him to win; pity, mercy, compassion, leniency, tolerance, discretion. His young caddy, Hardy Greaves, who worshipped him, pleaded with him to ignore it, but earlier in the movie, when Junuh was down Hardy encouraged him with:


It’s the greatest game there is. Ask anybody. It’s fun, it’s hard. You stand out there on that green, green grass and it’s just you and the ball. And there ain’t nobody to beat up on but yourself. This is the only game I know of where you can call a penalty on yourself, if you’re honest, which most people are. There just ain’t no other game like it.


Junuh knew in his heart what was true. Bagger was silent, watching. When Junuh calls the penalty on himself, Bagger smiles, shakes hands with the judge, takes his $5 guaranteed, exchanges a knowing glance with Junuh, and leaves. I imagine that in Bagger’s mind he was thinking as he walked off, “Another masterpiece,” which to me brings a final touch on the beauty of the dance: there are steps; there is a standard. A two-step goes like this. A waltz is like this. A tango is done like so. The rules are not the same thing as the dance, but the dance is off without a pattern to follow. But a dance is primarily to be enjoyed, not executed, not judged, not analyzed, not criticized. And what a relief that "it's a game that can't be won, only played." If you misstep, you repent and get back to dancing.


The lesson of Bagger Vance for me this time around was to dance. Personally I’ve tended to reach out and grab what I wanted, make it happen, work longer, and squeeze harder. God has been showing me how to let my swing find me, how to be held, and how to loosen up. But sometimes I go too far the other way. For others I think the other side of the coin rings true: the need to step up, ask her to dance, take the plunge, get in the game, get a grip, go find your swing. But when we are truly dancing, and everything’s in balance, when it all comes together, when we become part of the whole thing, how sweet it is to hear Bagger’s response to our question: Is there anything else? “Just bash the living sh** out of it.” Man, that’s where I want to live the rest of my life. God, give me moments like those, days like those, years like those. Amen.

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