Revoltionary Roads Poem by gershon hepner

Post-traumatic stress disordered marriages
may fall apart for many reasons but
can rarely be repaired by baby carriages.
Once revolutionary roads seem shut,
unhappy spouses go their separate ways
before they separate. What seems dramatic
when they enter the forensic phase,
is only stressful since it’s post-traumatic,
the problem not divorce but all the traumas
preceding it, for marriage is a gamble
whose losses priests and rabbis and reformers
cannot correct when lovers must unscramble.

Inspired by Rachel Abramowitz’s article on Sam Mendez in the LA Times, December 14,2009:

There are those who will see 'Revolutionary Road, ' the long-awaited reteaming of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, as some deeply troubling coda to their famed cine-love in the top-grossing movie of all time, 'Titanic.' In that film, the duo played two dreamers whose lives are dashed by a gargantuan iceberg. In 'Revolutionary Road, ' they repeat as dreamers, of the 1950s variety, only this time their future is sabotaged by conformity, fear and the acrid taste of self-loathing. It's as if Jack and Rose ran off together but it didn't end happily ever after.From the look on his face, it's clear that this reading of the film has occurred to director Sam Mendes. 'I'm not going to say that, but you can! ' he says with devilish glee. With a thatch of black curly hair and rounded features, Mendes is pointedly not going there. That's messing with cinematic history, our complicated feelings toward icons in their iconic performances, and sometimes a movie is just a movie, a universe unto itself…. Films about family have tended to migrate away from the big screen recently, but perhaps it's Mendes' gift to make ordinary, relatable life events feel big, even operatic, the way they feel to the people who must experience them. And he's deeply interested in love. 'He's very romantic. He has a romantic way of looking around the world, ' says producer Scott Rudin, who has done a number of plays with Mendes as well as 'Revolutionary Road.' 'The moment-to-moment detailed calibration of an emotional reality is what Sam does brilliantly.' 'Revolutionary Road' certainly sears the mind––it's like a post-traumatic-stress-disorder flashback for those who've experienced the troughs of married life, made all the more poignant by the real sensation that the young Wheelers of the film are actually groping to stay together, not fly apart. 'In the middle of it is this ache, this longing to make it work, ' says Mendes. 'This is a movie about people wanting to stay together and not being able to.'

1/6/09