A Memo on  the Movie At First Sight
관련 비디오 자료 : Brian Friel의 희곡 Molly Sweeney와 동일한 비슷한 주제를 다루고 있으며 똑 같이 Oliver Sacks' case history "To See and Not See"를 토대로 하고 있는 영화가 [사랑이 머무는 풍경](At First Sight)이라는 작품으로 시중 비디오 가게에서 쉽게 구해 볼 수가 있다.

이 작품은 남편과 이혼했으나 여전히 같은 사무실에서 동업자로 일하고 있는 건축설계사 에이미가 과로로 인해 쌓인 피로를 풀기위해 온천지역에 휴양을 와서 마사지사로 일하는 버질이란 남자와 사랑에 빠지게 된다. 그는 아주 어릴 때 시력을 잃어 지난 20년간 소경으로 살았다. 에이미는 의사를 소개하여 수술을 받게 한다. 수술은 일단 성공적이었으나 촉각과 후각에 의존하여 사물을 인지하던 그가 시력을 회복하였더라도 자신이 보는 것을 인지할 수 있는 체험이 없으므로 자신이 보는 것을 믿지 못하고 만져 보아야 사물을 알아본다.  버질의 경우 시각이 발달되기 전에 시력을 잃어서 깊이, 거리, 색깔, 모양, 크기 등을 인지하지 못하는 정신적인 시각장애(mental blindness 또는 전문용어로 visual agnosia) 를 겪게 된다. 그는 또한 상대방의 미세한 표정의 변화 등이 무엇을 의미하는지 알지 못한다. 말을 배우는 것처럼 보는 것을 새로 배워야 하는 입장에 놓인 것이다.그 때문에  매우 혼란스러워 하던 버질은 나중에는 모처럼 회복한 시력을 점차적으로 잃어가게 되고 종내에는 다시 맹인 상태로 되돌아 가고 만다.

그런데 이 영화에서 '본다'는 말의 진정한 의미는 단순히 눈으로 보는 것만을 의미하는 것이 아니다.  우리 삶에서 진정으로 중요한 것은 보이는 것 보다는 보이지 않는 것이며 눈으로 볼 수 있는 것보다는 마음의 눈으로 볼 수 있는 것이 우리 삶의 본질과 핵심에 근접하여 우리에게 삶의 의미와 기쁨을 준다는 것이다.

영화에 나오는 기억할 만한 대사들:

"말의 핵심은 눈이 아니라 마음이다."

Amy : "You see a lot but none of that matters if you lose sight of what you want."

Virgil : I came out here trying to see the horizon that you described so beautifully.
Amy : Oh, you can't see it from here. Too many buildings.
Virgil : But that doesn't mean it's not still here, right? Just because things you can't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Amy : Right. Just because you don't see it, it doesn't mean they don't exist. That's what faith is.

Virgil : I am blind. I can't see. I don't belong here. I am not meant to see.
Amy : God damn right, you are blind. I am standing right here for you and you don't even look.

Virgil : We didn't get what we wanted.
Amyt : I wanted you.

Virgil : I can't even imagine the things you gave up for me. I just want you to look at me. Look at me, Jenny. I want to say thank you. I love you from the bottom of my heart. I want to give you your life back.
Jenny : I can't.
Virgil : Yes, you can.

Virgil : The only thing I've ever wanted was to be whole.

Virgil : As a blind man, I think that I see a lot better than I did when I was sighted. Because I don't really think we see with our eyes. I think we live in darkness when we don't look at what's real about ourselves, about others, about life. I think no operation can do that. And when you see what's real about yourself, you see life, you see life. And you don't need eyes for that.

Virgil : I saw the horizon. It's out there. I may not ever be able to touch it. It's worth reaching for. You showed me that. Thank you.


 미라 소르비노Mira Sorvino와 발 킬머Val Kilmer주연이고 감독은 어윈  윙클러Erwin Wingkler이다. 서울시립대학교 영문학과 사무실에서도 빌려 볼 수가 있다.

Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney

I am particularly indebted to Oliver Sacks' case history "To See and Not See," and the long, strange tradition of such case histories.

1. Oliver Sacks' case history "To See and Not See"
2. Harold Pinter's A Kind of Alaska
3. December Bee
"Learning to see is not like learning a new language.
It's like learning language for the first time."
                                        --DENIS DIDEROT

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant--
        Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
     The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
        With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
     Or every man be blind--

                    --Emily Dickinson
   

Extracts from essays by various philosophers on the relationship between
vision and knowledge, between seeing and understanding. p. 7
마을의 헬스 크럽에서 안마 치료사로 일하는 (working as a massage therapist in
a local health club. p. 6) 눈먼 Molly와 그녀의 남편 Frank는 삼십대후반 또는
사십대 초반의 부부다. 그녀는 생후 10개월째부터 시력을 잃게 되었다 (She has been
blind since she was ten months old. p. 6.) 시력이 완전히 없어진 것은 아니고  
희미하게 빛과 어둠을 구분할 수가 있다. 판사인 아버지와 정신질환으로 병원을
들락날락하기를 자주하던 어머니의 외동딸이다. (An only child. Father a judge.
Mother in and out of institutions all her days with nervous trouble. Never been
sent to a blind school. p. 5) 맹아학교에 보내지 않고 5살때부터 아버지가 맡아
키우면서 촉감으로 사물을 인식하는 법을 가르쳤다. 아빠의 정원?
p.2 "We're in your garden."
"Exactly what part of my garden?"

p.3 nemophila are sometimes called Baby Blue Eyes.
p.3 "Molly! Daddy! Dinner!" I never heard her call him anything but Daddy
and the word always seemed to have a mocking edge.

pp.3-4 And sometimes, just before we'd go into that huge, echoing house,
sometimes he'd hug me to him and press his mouth against my ear and
whisper with fierce urgency, "I promise you, my darling, you aren't missing a
lot; not a lot at all. Trust me."
that huge, echoing house???

p.4 Of course I trusted him; completely. But late at night, listening to mother
and himself fighting their weary war downstairs and then hearing him grope
his way unsteadily to bed, I'd wonder what he meant. And it was only when I
was about the same age as he was then, it was only then that I thought--I
thought perhaps I was beginning to understand what he meant. But that was
many many years later.

 

p.4
아버지가 Molly를 왜 맹아학교에 왜 안보냈을까?
엄마가 병원에서 퇴원해 집에 오면 함께 있어줄 사람이 필요해서?
돈에 인색해서?
p.4 Rice박사는 Frank와 Molly부부를 "What an unlikely couple!"이라고 했다.

헬스 크럽에서 Frank를 만나 그와 결혼했다. Frank는 현재는 이렇다할 직업이
없어 실직 상태이나 매우 유별나고 특이한 사람이다. Molly: "I've never met a more
enthusiastic man in my life." p. 28
The very idea of appearance, of how things look, can't have much meaning
for you. p. 32 top
And because of my blindness--oh, yes, that fascinated him. He couldn't
resist the different, the strange.  "All part of the same pattern, sweetie:
bees--whales--Iranian goats--Molly Sweeney." p. 32 bottom
Frank는 매우 정열적이고 열성적이고 탐구적인 인물이다. p. 28 bottom 그는
Molly를 만나고 나서 도서관에서 몇주동안이나 눈, 시력, 눈병 등에 대해 공부한다.
Molly's world isn't perceived instantly, comprehensively. She composes a
world from a sequence of impressions; one after the other, in time. What is this
object? These are ears. This is a furry body. Those are paws. That is a long
tail. Ah, a cat! In sequence. Sequentially. p. 29

If by some wonderful, miraculous good fortune her sight were restored, even
partially restored, she would still have to learn to see and that would be an
enormous and very difficult undertaking.  She knew dozens of flowers; not to
see; not by sight. She knew them only if she could touch them and smell them
because those tactile engrams were implanted in her brain since she was a
child. p. 10
Frank의 Iranian goats를 사육하느라고 고생한 경험담 pp.8-9
engram: I had those goats for three and a half years, and even after all that
time their metabolism, their internal clock, stayed Iranian; never adjusted to
Irish time. Their system never made the transition. They lived in a kind of
perpetual jet-lag. p. 9

그는 London에 사는 친구 Dick Winterman으로부터 전화를 받는다. Nigeria에
있을 때 알던 친구인데 Inviting me to set up and supervise a food convoy to
Ethiopia. p. 18 bottom 실직상태의 그에게는 매우 매력적인 제안이었으나 수술받는
Molly의 곁을 떠날수가 없어 거절한다.
Abyssinia is Ethiopia! They're the same place! pp. 26-27
He said that there was no necessary connection at all between the tactile
world--the world of touch --and the world of sight; and that any connection
between the two could be established only by living, only by experience, only
by learning the connection. pp. 11-12

So, if her sight were restored, everything would have to be learned anew:
she would have to learn to see. p. 12
seeing but not knowing, not recognizing, what it is they see. p. 13

 

Molly는 자신이 시력을 회복하게 될 가능성에 대해서 듣고도 별다른 감정의
변화를 보이지 않는다. 자신의 눈이 멀었다고 해서 그 때문에 특별히 피해를 입는다고
생각하지 않았기 때문인지도 모른다. But at that stage, I never thought of it as
deprived. p.14
오히려 시력이 있는 사람들 보다 더 삶을 즐기고 자신의 삶에서 기쁨을 느낀다.
특별히 수영을 좋아해서 수영대회에서 우승하기도 했다.
And how could I have told those other doctors how much pleasure my world
offered me? From my work, from the radio, from walking, from music, from
cycling. But especially from swimming. p. 15
I did believe I got more pleasure, more delight, from swimming than sighted
people can ever get. p. 15
The sighted people, that in some way their pleasure is actually diminished
because they could see, because seeing in some way qualified the sensation;
and that if they only knew how full, how total my pleasure was, I used to tell
myself that they must, they really must envy

me. p. 15 bottom
그러나 수술하기 전날 밤에는 두려움을 느낀다. 수술이 성공하면 자신이 여태까지
알고 있었던 세상이 달라지리라는 것 때문에 두려움을 느낀다. p. 23
제2막에서 한쪽눈을 수술하고 붕대를 풀기전에 Molly가 하는 말:
For God's sake of course I wanted to see. But that wasn't an expectation,
not even a mad hope. If there was a phantom desire, a fantasy in my head, it
was this. p. 36 bottom this land of vision에서 영원히 살기는 싫고 잠시 수학여행
삼아 다녀갔으면 좋겠다.
Mr. Rice; 한 때는 매우 실력있는 안과의사ophthalmologist로 장래가 촉망되던
사람이었으나 one of the most brilliant ophthalmologists ever in the country.
Worked in the top eye hospitals all over the world--America, Japan, Germany.
Married a Swiss girl. They had two daughters. Then she left him--according to
the gossip, went off with a colleague of his from New York. p.13 부인이 남편인
자신의 절친한 친구와 사랑에 빠져 집을 나간후 (A phone call from Roger
Bloomstein All I could think was: He's c

onfusing seeing with undersanding.) p.
26) 폐인이 되다싶이 하다가 They say that he had a breakdown; that he worked
as a labourer in Bolivia; that he ran a pub in Glasgow. p.13 bottom 이 Donegal
북서쪽 지방병원에서 안과의사로 근무하게 된 남자다.
그의 판단으로는 "Molly Sweeney wasn't born blind. She was functionally
blind and lived in a blind world for forty years. But she wasn't clinically
blind."이라고 생각한다.
Molly의 시력이 수술로 회복될 수 있다고 믿고 p. 16  지난 천년동안에 수술로
시력을 회복한 환자가 20명을 넘지 않으므로 통계적으로는 수술이 성공할 가능성이
매우 희박하다고 말하면서도 수술로 Molly의 시력을 회복시키는 일이 과거에
안과의사로서 화려했던 자신의 경력을 되찾을 수 있는 기회가 되리라는 기대를
갖는다. (the chance of a life time, the one-in-a-thousand opportunity that can
rescue a career p. 8 top)
그러나 한편으로는 그것이 자신의 환상 phantom idea에 불과하다고 생각한다. I'm
ashamed to say that within a week I crossed the frontier into the fantasy life
again. p. 19 top

 
Of course I made no calls. . . What has she to lose for Christ's sake?
Nothing! Nothing at all! p. 20
Molly의 아버지가 Molly에게 해준 말:
"I promise you, my darling, you aren't missing a lot; not a lot at all.
Trust me." p.4
Mr. Rice: I suddenly knew that that courageous woman had everything,
everything to lose. p. 34
nemophila sometimes called Baby Blue Eyes p.3

p. 44 p. 45 p. 46 pp. 47-48  pp. 49-51
pp. 54-55, 56
mother's old hospital p. 58 bottom  p. 59 top

The meaning of the incident Frank and his friend's vain effort to move two
badgers to a place safe from the danger of flood. pp. 60-61
p. 66
African bee p. 68 top
My little old snuff man p. 69


KRAUSE, DAVID
The Failed Words of Brian Friel  Modern Drama, 40 (1997) pp.359-373

1999년 6월 20일

Dancing as if language no logner existed
because words were no longer necessary...
--Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa(1990)

여러 가지 문제점들 중 가장 주요한 문제점은 Brian Friel이 생기있고 탄력있는
언어(vital and resilient language)를 창조해내는 능력이 없다는 점이다.
It is a "story" more than a drama because Friel made the crucial decision
to narrate rather than dramatize his premise and its unfolding; 작가 Friel은
이 극에서 극중의 세인물들이 각자 따로 그들의 실패한 삶에 대한 독백을
늘어놓게 했을뿐이다. They never talk to each other; they narrate or emote
their hopes and fears to the voyeuristic audience.

그러므로 이 연극은 세사람이 각자 혼자서 하는 경우에 따라서는 한페이지가 훨씬 넘어가는 긴독백들로   주로 이루어져 있다. 그래서 그러한 독백 장면을 연출하고 연기해 내어야 하는 연기자와 연출가에게는   엄청난 부담을 안겨준다. 무대위에서 인물 상호간에 극적 행동과 반응을 연기해내기가 매우 어렵기 때문이다.