The Dig
Karl and I decided to check out Netflix tonight. It’s been a while since we watched a movie (not counting the experience of watching In and Of Itself, which felt much different than simply watching a movie). Popping up immediately was The Dig, a movie based on actual events that played out in the late 1930s.
I was unfamiliar with the archeological trove discovered in 1937 at Sutton Hoo, an estate in Suffolk, England, and I enjoyed imagining the excitement of unearthing such an extraordinary discovery.
The funny thing is, just after we finished watching the movie this evening and, Karl went to bed. I began perusing my email just to get myself in the frame of mind to write my post, when an email from Smithsonian Magazine caught my eye. Didn’t it contain an article on this very subject?! I’d not checked my email in several hours (a discipline I’ve been trying to cultivate), so I hadn’t seen it before watching the movie.
I’m including the link to the article, above, but you might want to watch the movie before reading it.
A Welcome Change
I have to admit, watching The Dig this evening was a welcome reprieve to the mayhem that seems to permeate our culture right now. I’m complicit, for sure. After the 1/6 Insurrection, or right around that time, Karl and I started watching The Sopranos. We’d never watched the series back when it was airing for the first time, in 1999-2006.
While the series was addictive, Karl and I were crystal clear why we’d not watched back when it first aired. There was no way we would’ve wanted our kids to watch that. As it was, we cringed (and I turned my head) at some of the violence. Blecccch.
Then after watching that series, we started watching the series on Hulu (it’s a Showtime series, though) Your Honor, featuring Bryan Cranston as a New Orleans judge who…well, I won’t disclose any of the plot. It’s compelling viewing as well; but damn – it’s violent.
And then there’s the Insurrection itself and the rhetoric we’re being exposed to day in and day out, and which is becoming normalized in our political discourse.
It’s disconcerting.
There’s a Book
After reading the Smithsonian article on the greater details of The Dig, I think I’m going to read the book of the same name*, upon which the movie was based. It sounds like an interesting aspect of the owner of the estate, Edith Pretty, was left out of the movie: her ‘spiritualism.’ Hmm.
Mrs. Pretty’s interest in the afterlife is only alluded to slightly in the movie, in a wonderful scene with her son toward the end of the movie. That scene reminded me of a particular type of journey I’ve taken with shamanic friends in Ireland. I’ll leave it at that. That scene is also connected to the photo, above, I’m using to illustrate this post.
*affiliate link
(T-294)
I especially enjoyed this blog. I have a FB friend who is an archaeologist and is going to be one of the guides when (if) we go to GB in the fall. This reference to The Dig was on our OBOD FB page and I thought it was interesting.
Love the sky picture, btw. I kept looking at it and I swear i could see the clouds moving across the sky and the trees blowing in the wind.
Oooh, that sounds like a great experience to look forward to, Donna!
I wish I could post my photos in the ‘live’ mode that I take most of them in on my iPhone. They (the ‘live’ photos) remind me so much of how I imagined photos looked when I read about them in the first Harry Potter book.