Posts
, but all of them. Whether it’s the latest new movies or the classic films in our DVD collections or the movie download that’s just arrived through the ether.
“Film lovers are sick people.” François Truffaut
Films are people pretending to be other people who (often) have never existed. These imaginary people start out as words on a page, scratched there by a writer spinning stories by listening to the voices in their head. The words become characters which are acted out by people trying to be someone else, the images and sounds captured in a little box and screened for our viewing pleasure - and it’s hoped that the watchers will care. It’s ridiculous. There’s a world outside, full of remarkable people and places, so full that none of us will ever experience it all. Why spend what little time we have on this planet sitting on our arses in front of screens of various sizes watching pretend people in made-up stories?
And yet...we are drawn to stories like a fly to a pitcher plant. Tempted to try it once, but getting so addicted to the nectar so that we’re never full. We want more and more, sliding deeper in until it’s far too late to escape. We can’t seem to stop.
Through our lives we trade and barter in stories. Anecdotes, jokes and tales bind us to each other in friendship and love. We remember the stories we were told as kids all our lives, often the most vivid, before we realised that heroes and villains don’t really exist, it is, sadly, just us. The people in our lives who are no more become stories themselves that we tell to each other to remember - “What about that time when Dad...?” We tell stories about ourselves and our everyday lives, to others and back to ourselves. Eventually finding it hard to distinguish between the real event that inspired the story and the story that we have rewritten, reshot, panned out of, cut and edited in the telling. We’re drawn to stories in all their many forms, but why film? Why do we seem to need to watch stories on a screen? There’s a fashion at the moment to tell us that we’re becoming increasingly disconnected from each other on a fundamental level. That we don’t communicate. That we're cold, iphone addicted drones who don’t care. If that’s the case why do we seem to have the need to watch stories that millions of other people are watching/have watched?
Films are people pretending to be other people who (often) have never existed. These imaginary people start out as words on a page, scratched there by a writer spinning stories by listening to the voices in their head. The words become characters which are acted out by people trying to be someone else, the images and sounds captured in a little box and screened for our viewing pleasure - and it’s hoped that the watchers will care. It’s ridiculous. There’s a world outside, full of remarkable people and places, so full that none of us will ever experience it all. Why spend what little time we have on this planet sitting on our arses in front of screens of various sizes watching pretend people in made-up stories?
And yet...we are drawn to stories like a fly to a pitcher plant. Tempted to try it once, but getting so addicted to the nectar so that we’re never full. We want more and more, sliding deeper in until it’s far too late to escape. We can’t seem to stop.
Through our lives we trade and barter in stories. Anecdotes, jokes and tales bind us to each other in friendship and love. We remember the stories we were told as kids all our lives, often the most vivid, before we realised that heroes and villains don’t really exist, it is, sadly, just us. The people in our lives who are no more become stories themselves that we tell to each other to remember - “What about that time when Dad...?” We tell stories about ourselves and our everyday lives, to others and back to ourselves. Eventually finding it hard to distinguish between the real event that inspired the story and the story that we have rewritten, reshot, panned out of, cut and edited in the telling. We’re drawn to stories in all their many forms, but why film? Why do we seem to need to watch stories on a screen? There’s a fashion at the moment to tell us that we’re becoming increasingly disconnected from each other on a fundamental level. That we don’t communicate. That we're cold, iphone addicted drones who don’t care. If that’s the case why do we seem to have the need to watch stories that millions of other people are watching/have watched?
We talk about the films we've seen at our desks, in our lunch breaks, down the pub, we text, we tweet, we blog, we pass these stories on like little gifts to each other because...because maybe we’re not disconnected. If we didn't care anymore I’m not sure that we would watch stories about other people - rooting for them, hoping for them and getting lost in them. We may be sat in our living room watching a film on our own, but that doesn't mean we are alone. We may watch the film on the bus on our phone, headphones in blocking out the commute, but that doesn't mean we’re antisocial. Perhaps we’re trying to find something, and when we do we’ll look up
and report back to the world?
We seem to have always loved stories - where ever there have been people someone's been telling a tale, and someone's been listening to it. Stories show us, or try to show us how the world works and how we work. Films can show us how it is to live someone else’s life for a brief time, and at their best they can show us our own lives back at us. They give us comfort, because deep down maybe we don’t really know what the hell is going on, but that’s okay, because no one else knows either and if millions of us watch this story on this stupid screen then maybe, maybe we’ll get an inch closer to working some of it all out. Is that the point?
“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad, but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.” Alain De Botton [collected works on Amazon]
Or are we so deep in the pitcher plant that we just don’t notice anymore?
and report back to the world?We seem to have always loved stories - where ever there have been people someone's been telling a tale, and someone's been listening to it. Stories show us, or try to show us how the world works and how we work. Films can show us how it is to live someone else’s life for a brief time, and at their best they can show us our own lives back at us. They give us comfort, because deep down maybe we don’t really know what the hell is going on, but that’s okay, because no one else knows either and if millions of us watch this story on this stupid screen then maybe, maybe we’ll get an inch closer to working some of it all out. Is that the point?
“The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad, but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be.” Alain De Botton [collected works on Amazon]
Or are we so deep in the pitcher plant that we just don’t notice anymore?
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