Corvallis is letting go of its old, cheap buildings and housing in favor of newer, less financially accessible stripmalls and condos. Many Corvallis citizens are clinging to the idea that this is still the sleepy hamlet that birthed our land-grant college known as Corvallis Academy in 1856, now known as Oregon State University. But problems that were once the province of big cities have come home. The cost of living has most of those who serve our organic fair trade coffee and artisan craft beers living paycheck to paycheck. Downtown residents are stratified binarially between the reasonably wealthy on-up and the classically poor on-down. Street people fill many of the doorways at night and scream obscenities in the alleys at all hours. Corvallis is in this strange adolescence. Traffic is near saturation of the infrastructure. We no longer have the right to dawdle along under the speed limit. Being tailgated causes stress and the ripple of impeded traffic behind the slower traffic brings even more anxiety to the table. This means we don’t see bicyclists and pedestrians and this takes the incentive out of being one. It’s safer to just drive. And so it goes.
Gentrification is all the rage in our country. It has been bubbling up in Corvallis for a few years now, as evidenced by more and more “rabbit hutch” housing blooming where less trendy digs once squatted. By rewiring a town for a more affluent demographic we do get lovely non-nationally branded restaurants, boutiques, stores, bars, and weed dispensaries. It’s unfortunate we have to step over the street people to get to them.
The Darkside Cinema is now showing BLINDSPOTTING, which uses the gentrification of Oakland, California as the hook on which to hang the story of two people born and raised in Oakland grappling with their identities in a place that’s changing its identity. This is one of the best films of the year, and could be a cautionary tale for the future of Corvallis.
The Darkside Cinema has had lousy luck in the past with films that centered around the urban experience, especially the experience of people of colour. When MOONLIGHT came out a couple years ago we made damn sure it stayed around long enough to get noticed. It started off weakly here, but ended up strong, and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture (You’re welcome, A24). MOONLIGHT’s success was helped by a script and acting so precise it granted access to the characters’ lives, even if those lives were many times removed from the viewer’s reality. BLINDSPOTTING is not as refined as MOONLIGHT, but it can grant the same access to a distant world. Spike Lee’s BLACKkKLANSMAN raises the bar on issue-oriented filmmaking with solid acting and directing that doesn’t overseason with the “us and them” mindset. BLINDSPOTTING didn’t have the budget or the same pool of talent from which Mr. Lee could draw. So, they take the viewer on a ride to places the locals go and where the old culture still rules. They do it with humor and spoken word staccato, punctuated with intensity that rivals BLACKKLANSMAN. All three of the above films return us to a place of hope before rolling the end credits. If not by their story, by the fact such films exist and are being seen.
Perhaps the Darkside and movies like BLINDSPOTTING grant hope. Corvallis is changing into a place where the Avalon and Darkside Cinemas would never have had a chance to root. But we are still here and planning for the future. The movie business centers around multiplexes and big name product (movies) tied into shameless promotion. Yet, a quietly promoted movie like BLINDSPOTTING gets made and is picked up by one of the biggest distributors in the world. And they gave it to us rather than to a multiplex. And you keep coming.
I’m seeing my summer vanish into fall without having done some serious summering. When I start to get pissed about how busy I’ve been, I remember that the other day I ate almost a pound of perfect blackberries off the vine. They were just as unwashed as my hands were after installing the new sway bar link in my van. I never give a thought to parasites or bird poop on the berries because it’s summer and in Corvallis our summers grant us immunity to such things. Blackberries poached from the needled vines are an inoculation against the wet winter. So is goat yoga, I guess. I like berries more than goats. Also, I saw a fox while picking the berries. We agreed it was a fine day and with no drama wandered off in our own directions.
The blackberries in all their invasive-species glory are still a gift of summer. Kids still come from all over this hamlet to play in the riverfront fountain, splashing in the water and sunlight. And the Darkside is still playing movies like BLINDSPOTTING.
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