The movies are about what we’re too scared to do in real life; or perhaps what we can’t do in real life. How else would we do what we can’t in life but absorb it through the movies? As I’m currently studying film and learning more about what film theorists have said about the film-vieweing experience, I’ve been particularly interested in what happens to us as we watch a movie. Theorists like Shobchack and Merleau-Ponty argue that we play an active role as we watch a movie, and experience it with all of our senses and throughout our whole bodies. We can, in a sense, feel what is going on screen and relate to the characters and the narrative in a way that we can’t with other art forms. That is because film is the art form that most closely resembles our reality; not only that, film can recreate reality because of its nature as a moving picture. It can take reality and rearrange it by juxtaposing certain things in side by side shots in ways that reality does not allow. Even in its ability to recreate reality, it is still the art form to display reality most like our own, and in this way, we can place ourselves in a movie for a couple hours ‘do’ what we can’t in real life. We can pause our lives for a couple of hours, fantasize, and then return to our lives, perhaps bringing some of what we absorbed from the movie to our real lives.
Tag Archives: movies
“I Follow Rivers”
0A nice little video encapsulating Blue Is The Warmest Color, such a beautifully emotional film, along with the best song in the film, Lykke Li’s “I Follow Rivers.”
The movies
0It’s interesting how much time people spend talking about movies even though they’re not real. But I suppose this applies to literature and TV shows as well. But there’s something about the movies and how you can hear the rumblings of people sharing their opinions at the end of a film as the credits start rolling and the lights come on. Growing up, I vividly remember my parents and I going out to dinner after the movies and spending a majority of the dinner talking about the movie we just saw. It’s interesting to hear different perspectives from everyone and how thoughts about a movie come to you little by little, so there is always something else to say about it.
Movies represent life. We can see so much of ourselves in them, and not only us but others as well. This is what makes them seem so real to us even though they are completely fictionalized. They are, of course, based upon life as many of them represent true stories, but the way in which those stories are captured and put into a movie format is created and stylized. Movies that are based on true events are not organic, but are thoughtfully produced in every aspect from the sequence of the plot, to the characters, to the soundtrack, to the costumes, etc. Movies, even those based on true events, transport us to a different time and place, but are still connected to reality and that is why we can see ourselves in them so vividly.
What we can’t do in life, we live through the movies
0What we can’t do in life, we live through the movies. This is what came to mind as I watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Watching Walter Mitty go on his adventures was inspiring, but also unrealistic. We would all love to undergo a drastic change in our lives by going on adventures of that magnitude, but unfortunately there are a myriad of reasons why we can’t – work, money, family, responsibilities, time, and fear to name a few. But this is what the movies are for and what makes them so remarkable. Even if we can’t do something in our own life, we can watch it on screen and in a small way experience it ourselves. Having adventures like going to Greenland and hopping on a helicopter only to land in the ocean before being rescued onto a boat, or going to Iceland and experiencing a volcano eruption, or going to the Himalayan mountains to witness the sighting of a snow leopard are made possible by the movies, even if only in our imagination. And this is why I love the movies.
Walter Mitty’s transformation throughout the film stood out to me as the focal point and it was apparent in everything from his clothes to his personality to his interactions with those around him, including the woman he was trying to impress by his adventures. The soundtrack, which included David Bowie, Arcade Fire, Of Monsters and Men, and Rogue Wave really made the film. It added so much feel-good sentiment that I don’t know if the adventures would have been quite as exciting and inspiring without the soundtrack or had there been different song choices. It was just perfect. It was definitely fun to watch, although a bit confusing at times because of Walter’s zoned out tendencies, which sometimes made it hard to decipher what was actually happening and what was just in his imagination. It did, however, become more clear after his first couple of zoned out episodes. Ben Stiller, as the main actor and producer of the film, did a great job, and Sean Penn’s small role added just enough oomph. I would say the moral of the film is to embrace the person you would like to be and just go for it. Also, to go on adventures.
gooollysandra 