Movie Music Monday, Flying Over Africa, Out of Africa, quotes

Movie Music Monday, “Flying Over Africa”, music by John Barry, from “Out of Africa” Quotes Movie Music Monday

“When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music.”(Karen Blixen, “Out of Africa”)

It has been many years since I first watched “Out of Africa”, yet what made a big impression on me then stayed with, helping me outline an era, sketch what it takes to be a resilient woman in an unfamiliar land and remember that nature’s beauty as well as people’s surprising humanity are everlasting treasures within reach.

“When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them.”

Memorable aspects: John Barry’s music, Meryl Streep’s flawless Danish accent (she practiced her accent by listening to recordings of Isak Dinesen reading her own stories), Karen telling the story based on Denys’ first line:

“There was a wondering Chinese named Cheng Huan living in Limehouse and a girl named Shirley…”

the breathtaking views of the African game, the greatness of Ngong Hills, the coffee plantation with its noble Kikuyu people.

“Where did you get it?”
“Mombasa. Get in!”
“When did you learn to fly?”
“Yesterday.”

Out of Africa -Flying over Africa movie clip.

Isak Dinesen (the pseudonym of Danish author Karen Blixen) lived for seventeen years in British East Africa (now Kenya). Her autobiographical book “Out of Africa” together with additional material from one of her subsequent books, “Shadows on the Grass” adapted into a screenplay and directed by  into what we know as the magnificent movie we all know.

Below are a few of my favorite quotes from “Out of Africa”.

Karen’s precious memories of Denys shining a light on how deep their relationship was :

“He even took the Gramophone on safari. Three rifles, supplies for a month and Mozart. He began our friendship with a gift. And later, not long before Tsavo, he gave me another. An incredible gift. A glimpse of the world through God’s eye. And I thought: ‘Yes, I see. This is the way it was intended.’ I’ve written about all the others, not because I loved them less, but because they were clearer, easier. He was waiting for me there. But I’ve gone ahead of my story. He’d have hated that. Denys loved to hear a story told well.”

Perhaps one of the most widely known movie quotes of all times:

“I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up; near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”

A concept I try, how I try every day, to live by:

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”

 

“People who dream when they sleep at night know of a special kind of happiness which the world of the day holds not, a placid ecstasy, and ease of heart, that are like honey on the tongue. They also know that the real glory of dreams lies in their atmosphere of unlimited freedom.”

Is this quote below unveiling an optimistic side of Karen Blixen, or a life-long, concealed, low self-esteem?

“Now take back the soul of Denys George Finch Hatton, whom you have shared with us.

He brought us joy, and we loved him well.

He was not ours.

He was not mine.”

“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plains quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?”

Have you ever dreamed of flying out of your daily routine and over Africa?