Film and the Love Affair we have at the Movies

by Christopher Barr

 

What is it about films that we love so much?  I have a slew of films that are my favorites, many belong to the understood list of great films and some are my little love affairs that others may not agree with. 

Star Wars was the earliest that I can remember as a child.  I’m sure there might have been some lame afterschool special that hit all the emoto-notes of my under developed disposition.  But as an adult looking back, I see Star Wars as the start.  I don’t mean the start of film critique, I mean noticing film as something really special.  Stars Wars in my stage in life opened up a world with such detail, that my little open mind was blown away by it.

Now I am very much aware of the impact the 1970’s cinema had on culture as a whole, but as a child just growing up at that time, I had no idea.  That’s why the 80’s were so important.  The 80’s birthed a form of cinema that was relatable and fun.  I think of films like Back To The Future and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as a huge part of my childhood film experience.  The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, of course were tent pole events in my movie experience as a kid.

I think film impacts us on our varying levels of development.  The Goonies and E.T, Weird Science and The Lost Boys are but a few that held me down as the great moments in existence.  That’s bold I know, but they affected me, they changed me.  Growing up, we have loads of ups downs and what have you, but we hopefully learn and add to our current understanding of the world and our place in that world.  

Goodfellas came out in 1990, but I was still too young to totally grip the impact that film had on me just a few years later.  In that respect, it was Goodfellas that introduced me to the films of Martin Scorsese, along with the birth of the independent films and Quentin Tarantino.  The early 90’s is when I started to get film on an intellectual level.  I was growing up and was beginning to understand this medium as being more than ‘it’s just a movie’.  I saw it as being a poetic window into the human psyche and the plight of modern society, along with all the fun and joy it brought me and still brings me.

Pulp Fiction was the iceberg that hit me with a massive blow that thankfully I have never recovered from.  I, at that stage of film understanding, couldn’t quite get what I was watching.  I knew instantly that I loved it but I wasn’t sure why.  So thankfully at that stage I was a curious person, so I set out to understand why.  I studied the source of this genius…..screenwriting.

To get film I started studying the blue print, so I read all of Tarantino’s screenplays and many others.  Also enrolling in film school and studying the art of filmmaking, camera angles and the depth of field.  I wanted to learn it all. 

So with that education and an understanding into human behavior, I set out to understand film beyond the sum of its parts and tried to read the filmmaker and dissect what was being communicated.  This led me to the works of filmmakers David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick and many other filmmakers that dared to artistically and intellectually test their audiences.

With Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven along with Oliver Stone’s JFK came a shift in film for me.  These films severed the beloved but silliness 80’s films held over me.  I will always be grateful to have grown up during the 80’s but maturity was inevitable and I ended up being the right age for the early 90’s shift in cinematic direction.

When 1995 happened I was elevated to a new realm of filmmaking understanding.  The most impactful, Se7en with a close second being the Usual Suspects, films that transformed me from the kid that got screenwriting to the man that understood film.  I eagerly waited for the next great film, reading everything I could on filmmakers and screenwriters.

Fight Club and American Beauty happened at the end of the 90’s.  The Truman Show and The Big Lebowski happened.  The Matrix did as well.  This point I was beginning to realize that hope was alive and well but it had no real ground to bind itself to.  This notion was confirmed with the years that followed.

What is it about film that we love so much as I previously asked?  Sure the escapist value is obvious but what else is it?  We learn and continue to learn.  Film is not film.  Film is more than that, as things are more than the words that represent them.  Film is the defining moments we all experience, but also they are enjoyable and educational. In spite of the fiction, film provides an amount of fact that is often overlooked as being just a movie.  For me though, film will always be that poetic window into the lives and hearts of other people.  Films will always add to what my experience on this planet is.  I’m going to stop writing this now because I’m heading out and going to the movies.   And buying popcorn…..with extra butter.