Desire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubVc2MQwMkg


The music is called, "The Ecstasy of Gold." I had thought it was "desire for," or "lust for" gold.

I have watched this dozens of times. Two things strike me.

First is the expression on Eli Wallach's face when the camera focuses on him. What do you think: desire or lust?

Second is the vastness of the cemetery and the ever more insistent and frenetic pace of music and scenery (it becomes a blur), as the character chases round and round after his lust/desire.

Is Sergio Leone attempting to tell us something here?

If you've experienced these two emotions, you know they are two quite different things.

A subject of endless fascination for me is the differing angles from which males and females approach these two things and the confusion that results.

I deal in generalities here and am subject to error. Forgive me.

Outside the setting of marriage, the tendency is for the woman to confuse the man's (a)lust for (b)desire for (c)love. "He wants me," has two different meanings. Nothing but heartache can come from this confusion.

Within the marital setting, the man believes that his wife's love for him is expressed always in desire underlaid by the same lust he feels. Hmmm. Sort of but not really? Maybe part of the time?

The other error inherent in this attitude is his failure to perceive the need to express his love verbally. To perceive, in other words, the emotional need (or desire) that must be fulfilled. Nothing but heartache can come from this confusion.

There is a saying: "He's talking out of some other part of his body (I paraphrase), cause his mouth knows better." Again I beg your indulgence and forgiveness as I always do when I speak of these matters which may be over my head.

My point, you wonder? Or perhaps my take on Leone's point in this scene.

Simply that I have known people (myself among them) who engaged of this confused and frenetic chasing after their desires/lusts. To their own harm.

When Jesus said we must seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things would be added unto us, could this have been one of the things he had in mind? But what we NEED, rather than what we WANT.

Or you can enjoy this film sequence simply as: a great film sequence. If that is your desire.

I am my beloved's and his desire is for me. -Song of  Songs 7:10