Movies and Life
“Cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.”
- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Art is the most important thing we as humans do. Art is how we say to ourselves and everyone after us, “We are!” Art is the peak of human creativity, and as we move through time, art is the record of human experience.
Film is one my favorite ways we create and experience art. A few years ago I realized that in all of humankind’s existence, we never knew how humans before us acted and sounded, what they really looked like, and how they really interacted. When I was born, “talkies” were only about thirty years old. Many of the artists who made the films were still alive. Now we are closing on on one hundred years of talkies. When you look at a film from the early thirties, every person associated with the movie is gone. The actress who played “Zuzu” in It’s a Wonderful Life passed away only a year or two ago - she was the last actor who was still alive from that movie. Olivia de Havilland passed away just a couple of years ago. I fell in love with her when she played Maid Marian in “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” We now, as humans, for the first time in history, know what people looked, acted, and sounded like four or five generations before us. We are living the time when this milestone has been reached. We get to see how people were who are no longer around. Movies and film makes this possible. I find it fascinating that we can see how people were, and fall in love with people over the distance of decades, and see performances that otherwise would have drifted into the ether, never to be seen again.
Movies bring fiction to life. Really early movies scared the hell out of audiences because they thought it was real: the train heading straight to the camera, the gunslinger drawing and shooting at the audience. We humans create universes in our stories, and film makes it look like these created universes are real. Even “real-life dramas” have characters who are not real people. We willingly suspend belief when we go into movie theaters. The filmmaker creates worlds for us, and we walk right into them.
I love to rewatch my favorite movies. I have rewatched certain movies probably 100 times or more. I love that we can do that now, that we have the majority of films ever made just a couple of clicks away. We can even watch movies on our phones if we want. Marvelous!
Why do I rewatch? Because the story is great, and because the movie is beautiful to watch, and because the characters are great. I love the characters. I want to spend my time with these wonderful people on the screen. Revisiting favorite movies is visiting friends. If you watch a movie enough times it becomes part of your life, and you are in it, and it is in you. I am there with Tracy Lord, Macaulay Connor, and C. K. Dexter Haven, when I watch The Philadelphia Story. I am staying at the Grand Hotel with the dancer Grusinskaya (“I want to be alone!”), Baron von Gaigem, Flaemmchen, and Otto Kringelein. I feel welcomed when Dr. Otternschlag says to me “The Grand Hotel. People coming, going. Nothing ever happens.”
Some movies are just beautiful, and many times I won’t appreciate how truly beautiful they are until several watchings. I always sit in awe at the end of The Third Man when Anna Schmidt walks down stark the tree-lined avenue past Holly Martens, and then goes off camera. Every time I see that movie I can’t believe how beautiful it is. Perfection is unobtainable, except for The Third Man.
I believe works like these should stay alive, be celebrated, and more importantly, be experienced. Here’s a starting list of movies you need to watch. Believe me, these will feed your soul:
The Adventures of Robin Hood
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Philadelphia Story
Grand Hotel
The Third Man
There are many more. I’d love to hear about the movies that move you. Please comment!