By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

EVERY morning, I open the sliding doors of the veranda to see the different shades of the sky and the mountains before sunrise. The gradation of colors of the mountains enthralls, appearing to be on top of one another, defined by lines that blur with the passing of clouds. These lines give the illusion of separation from what we see and what lies beyond, slowly disappearing at some point as one gets nearer to it, and eventually disappearing, as I realized when I was traveling by plane.

Years ago, on a plane above Turkey, I saw the sun rising in the east, and a moonset on the western window of the plane. Where the sun emerged and where the moon appeared to descend lies the limitless unknown, territories where possibilities can be explored by the imagination. The visual boundaries, from where we currently stand, do not indicate the immense possibilities beyond it.

In the movie, The Fabelmans, where Steven Spielberg retells the story of his childhood, he recounts a scene with John Ford (John Martin Feeney) one of the most influential filmmakers during the Golden Age of Hollywood:

“So they tell me you want to be a picture maker. You see those paintings around the office?” Spielberg said he did. Ford pointed to a painting and asked, “Where’s the horizon?” Spielberg said it was at the top. Ford asked him where it was in another painting. Spielberg said it was at the bottom. Ford said, “When you’re able to distinguish the art of the horizon at the bottom of a frame or at the top of the frame, but not going right through the center of the frame, when you can appreciate why it’s at the top and why it’s at the bottom, you might make a pretty good picture maker.”

Spielberg did not only become a “pretty good picture maker”, he was regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time and is the most commercially successful director in film history, receiving many recognitions for his art, including the President Medal of Freedom in 2015. Seven of his films have been inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.

At the age of 77, Steven Spielberg still pushes the horizon further than normal people can dare imagine. He shares his vision, wit, perspective and warmth in the art of his filmmaking. In the film, The Fabelmans, he portrayed the transitions, the tensions and raw agony of his family, with loving sensitivity and magic.

The horizon represents the possible future we can lay our hands on, immense possibilities our imagination can explore, limited only by the limits of our capabilities.  It is important not only to lay our hands on it, according to John Ford, but more importantly, to recognize the “art of the horizon”.

 

The sea, beyond

beyond these mountains
the blue sea beckons
clear and pristine
where curses become swords
of mermaids, sharper than
obsidian blades
able to slit the tongues
break the horns
dispel the evil eye
in one swift flagellation

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