Who's your favorite character from a book, play, film, or other work of art?

Alex (Jeremy Irons) - Stealing Beauty (1996)

I'm a film girl so it's fitting that I choose the film character that I have connect with the most out of all the films I have ever watched (believe me it's a LOT!).


While watching this Bertolucci masterpiece I believed that Jeremy Irons was Alex. I felt I had known Alex all my life and that he's still a friend of mine.


This is truly the mark of great writing, in my opinion, when the characters are written with such grace and detail that we believe that they actually inhabit our world and can be seen in the people we surround ourselves with.


As a dying man, Alex is constantly aware of the beauty around him in a way that very few living people do. It's almost painful for him to watch the environment around him as it is taken for granted by those without a timer ticking at their backs.


He rejoices in the youth and innocent beauty of Lucy (Liv Tyler) who struggles to come to terms with her age and the widening possibilities opening out in front of her. Yet, while he rejoices he also frets and grows angry at how wasteful she is with the opportunities and chances she has to live a full and honest life right now.


While his anger may be justified from his point of view, it is lost on those around him who find it hard to see him as much more than a dying man, bitter at the hand life has dealt his ending days.


I believe I especially connected with Alex because he is a writer, a renowned poet whose flashes of brilliance frustrate him all the more in that he cannot locate what he believes is his best work, leaving him only with memories of the brilliance so many now remember him for.


He appears at peace with his own death, but unwilling to stop trying to persuade those around him to live better.  I admire him for this. I believe it is so important to accept that death is inevitable in order to more fully open to now and the present moment.  Otherwise, as for Alex, it will turn out to be too late and we'll be struggling to figure out the best of what we will have left behind.


I wish I had known Alex.  I only hope I can die as gracefully as he tries and that through character's such as his more people will strive to fear death less and live more before it's too late.


Theme for blogging in February: Character