What Is It About Those Movie’s? – Part 1 of 2

Photo taken by the author

“People have forgotten how to tell a story. Stories don’t have a middle or an end any more. They usually have a beginning that never stops beginning.” –Steven Spielberg

Movie’s have a profound effect on a person’s psyche.

Sure, when watching a movie, you might say to yourself, “This is just entertainment”, or, “It’s Friday night, it’s just for fun”, or, “I just need to relax”.

That may be true, but it’s more.

Movies are stories, and in stories is how we understand the world around us, and the people and objects in it.

More importantly, it is in stories that we understand our place in the world and what our role is in it.

At a deeper level, stories reveal things about ourselves, that we may never have learned anywhere else, except in watching a motion picture.

Movie’s reveal to us clues about who we are. What we love doing. The core desires we long for, that are written on our hearts – even if they have been locked and buried away for some time.

Films unearth something in us.

They move us, rather profoundly.

The characters, the storyline, the moving scenes, the cinematography, the subtle forms of communication, the music that is perfectly timed to activate a response from our hearts.

Throughout the movie we are watching (especially if it’s a really great one), we get moved to experience any number of the vast human emotions.

We cry and the tears flow, we feel joy and happiness, anger or rage wells up in us, laughter and our own unique sense of humour (including the occasional and random snort) bursts forth, and deep sadness overcomes us.

All of this happens within a roughly two-hour timespan.

During that time, it feels like I’ve lived a decade or so, with all the emotion the film lurked out of me.

It’s unbelievable, really.

You know the scenes that move you – that grip you:

Whether it’s the young maiden falling into her lover’s arms after a long and very intense rescue mission for her heart;

Or when lover’s are once again reunited, and the hero goes in an all-out battle against her enemies where he emerges victorious – all for her;

Or when justice is finally granted for the afflicted and the oppressed;

When a person – old or young, male or female – is set free from the prisons of their own soul, be it their mind, will, or emotions (or a combination of any or all of them);

When the underdog high school basketball team wins the championship for which they were not expected to win even one game during the regular season;

When a city is saved in the midst of great evil and darkness, all because of an uncompromising and courageous leader;

When a person, place, or thing is totally redeemed and fully restored.

The list of these universal, yet deeply intimate, themes goes on.

Of course it goes on – why else would Hollywood be pumping out so many movies, year after year? For what other reason except these universal themes do screenwriter’s have to go off of for their scripts?

And it is these themes that, like clockwork, always strike a nerve within our hearts and in our minds – and we think for a moment, and believe – even for the slightest second, that this could be us.

It can be me. It must be me.

For what other reason was I born than for this?

To experience this grandness. All of it.

As you may recall, each of us only has one life set before us – to live.