Of course, as noted here, autumn is the season of nostalgia. It is the season of nostalgia because it is the season of passing to nothing, of slipping away. It is the season of old age and death, and in our old age we are nostalgic. Spring is the season of birth, summer the season of life, autumn the season of death, and winter is the season that corresponds with nothingness. Birth, life, death, nothing: these are the conditions we pass through, and each has its season.
Autumn is the oil wheeze of the family car, or the leafblower engine.
A note: Sidney Lumet, commenting on "The Verdict," said he wanted autumnal colors in chiaroscuro for the story of a middle-aged man pulling himself out of a drunken half-death. The character is not nostalgic -- except, perhaps, for the black-and-white photograph of his ex-wife -- but the movie itself has a timeless feel. In the colors, the leather, the suits, the whiskey, it lives in an eternal past. Only in a Polaroid can Frank Galvin see the life of his vegetative-state client: only in a photograph can he see the long-forgotten spirit of life. And yes, Polaroids are the color of autumn, of memory, of nostalgia.
A note: I've forgotten almost everything from Professor Burrows' "Photography and the American Novel."
An of-course note: as Bart Giamatti tells me every year, autumn breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.
A polaroid from Pepi Ginsberg:
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