I was thinking the other day about how I’ve come to appreciate my world through film.
How I understand everything in terms of movies.
I’ve come to understand economics in terms of the film industry and capitalistic ventures, politics in terms of documentary and politically twisted plots. I’ve become well-versed in the use of silence from Bande à Part, and was taught admiringly how to love by Charlie in City Lights.
I’ve come to see the significance of human folly through Dr. Strangelove, and acknowledge the idiosyncrasies of my waking dreams to my intellectual value through Waking Life. I’ve learned that every day is as important as an un-birthday, and that the purpose of life is to be curious, (and curiouser), from Alice in Wonderland. I know what dreams are made of because of The Maltese Falcon, and understand that we all go a little mad sometimes from Psycho.
My role models are fictional: Anna Karina in Alphaville, Alain Delon in Le Samouraï, and Celine in Before Sunset/Sunrise. Not only do films like Before Sunrise and Annie Hall influence my own writing style, but the plots influence my life. I know not how to hold a coffee cup from my parents but from an actress. My idealized dream of New York City is entirely based on how it’s depicted in Woody Allen movies; everything I know about Europe and Paris is from movies. I want Clementine’s spunk in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to be loved with the intensity Elaine feels in The Graduate, to be as womanly worthy as Marian in The Adventures of Robin Hood. I want to hear “you had me at hello.” My morality, my idealism, my cynicism, my dreams, goals, aspirations, limitations, hairstyles, fashion, thoughts, perceptions, perspectives, and opinions are all shaped by film. It doesn’t hurt that I submerse myself in as many as possible, but apart from a few reality/fantasy boundaries I can’t differentiate, I don’t feel tainted by my cinephile ways.