Motion Pictures
I feel almost at a loss for words when it comes to discussing movies, the newest art form and one which seems to incorporate so many others. It is truly awesome in every way, both in its power to hold an audience's attention and in the potential for a work to be seen by everyone in the world, even at the same time! Everything on TV and much of what one sees on a computer or phone — as well as in stores, taxis, billboards, and almost everywhere you look — is also a kind of movie, in that it is a moving picture of something real or imagined. And all this has developed in just the past hundred years or so, completely transforming the world and to such an extent that it seems almost too obvious to mention.
At the same time, i feel overwhelmed by it all and spend most of my days without looking at any movies or videos or TV. And when i do feel the need for it as entertainment and look at what's offered on over a thousand channels, more often than not none of them are worth watching.
Still, it is impossible to deny what an incredible achievement a Hollywood blockbuster really is, involving the collaboration of hundreds of people and hundreds of millions of dollars to create what is essentially a collective dream, so for about two hours people can totally forget who and where they are and experience anything the human mind can imagine: beautiful, fantastic, horrifying — and utterly convincing, vividly real.
And like dreams, movies are completely passive experiences that take over the imagination rather than requiring it, like theater does or — perhaps an even better example — radio plays. It's the opposite of reading, an act entirely done in one's imagination, as one's eyes scan markings like these on a page and turn them into images and feelings in the virtual reality of one's brain. To me that's even more miraculous.
Sometimes I think movies have too much power over us. I think the movie makers have a responsibility to show images that help and educate people. I think it is irresponsible to produce a movie that shows violent scenes, for example, but offers no images of people working to end the violence. I am sure of the potential for harm, as well as, good in movies and TV. When I was a child, I loved to watch "I love Lucy." One day I got very upset because I realized that I did not look anything like Lucy, and in fact, did not look like any of the female characters in the shows I liked: I did not look like Jeannie, in I Dream of Jeannie, I did not look like either Ginger or Maryann or Mrs. Howel in Gilligan's Island and I certainly did not look like one of The Brady Bunch. I started to get sad. I looked everywhere for some character in a movie or TV show I looked like. One day, as I watched The Wizard of Oz, as I sat there lamenting that I did not look like Dorothy, I started to think I sort of resembled the Wicked Witch. Not Glinda, the good witch of the North, but her mean sister who they ended up melting at the end of the movie. She was the only one with dark curly hair. Ok, my skin is not as green as hers. But I still felt her aquiline nose made her look like a relative. I decided, then and there, that I was a rebel, an outsider, a woman of conviction who would have to stand her ground against a tide of nay-sayers and scoffers. But I still had to get some black clothing, a castle and some flying monkeys.
ReplyDeletePS oddly enough, another similarity between me and the Wicked Witch was our mutual aversion to water. I used to be terrified of the water coming out of the shower head and had to stand just out of its reach.
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