The past becomes nearer.

I was watching a documentary on the great cinematographer, Jack Cardiff. It was interesting, enough. But what really caught my attention was how the man's career went from the silent era right through to a couple of years ago. He died at 94.

He was the camera man for The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. But also for Rambo. It's obvious from the interviews, that into his 90's he was still on top of things.

I don't know -- it just changes my entire perspective of cinema. How relatively new it really is.

If you've seen Hugo, it seems like a quaint bygone era -- and yet, here was the guy who filmed Rambo, also was already well into having a career at that time.

As I get older, a strange thing happens. Things from farther ago, become nearer. Things that seemed like ancient history when I was young, now seem like the recent past. I was born only 7 years after WWII, and yet through my entire childhood it seemed like something from long ago, when people were different, and they acted and dressed funny.

Yet, Star Wars seems almost like yesterday for me. I was in college went it came out. But -- it's far, far more distant now, than say Kennedy's assassination was when that movie came out.

Anyway, any of you longer-in-the-tooth people know what I'm talking about, but younger folk won't give it a moment's thought.

Nor should they.