The thing about movies, we don’t have enough of them that come along and challenge the way we see the world in which we live in. Every year we have any number of movies that would be releases for the express purpose of being entertaining. That is not a bad, thing in fact that is a great thing because that’s what movies are meant to do, show us the grand and an overall escape from reality. Yet sometimes we want to watch movies, to just move us and show us a side of the world that we live in that we didn’t really realize was there. It can be the smallest things like, how we say good bye to the people we love or deal with a changing world in our own ways, it’s what the magic of film allows us to do, just look at things with a different lens. Give things a frame of reference we didn’t think that they had and, maybe just maybe see something in ourselves that we might have missed.
When thinking about this, movies like the 1940 Chaplin Classic The Great Dictator, And last years the Artist come to mind as they are both depictions of changing times and how the worlds the occupy left their main characters wondering how things got the way that they had. While the great dictator dealt with changing times of cultural reform, and how we would treat our fellow man in the face of adversity, with regard to the barber, The Artist, dealt with the changing times of a Silent Actor transitioning into a talking world, could not cope. Both roles shone a relatively light hearted spotlight on their respective topics but both dealt with a time period in which they took place and they were representatives of their days and showed us a different side of life.
Yet, it can’t be helped to think that movies with such whimsy and elation like Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris could, connect with their creative audience more than the average film. It was somehow able to transcend time and give us a sense of scope with regards to our favorite creators in their crafts, just looking at the Ernest Hemingway of that world would make you think twice about the story told in the Old man and the sea, but you’re okay with it, because it makes him more human. It also allows someone who reads into the movie as much as Allen would theoretically be inclined to, would give them a fresh reflection on their priorities in life.
However, all movies can’t (and shouldn’t) be reflections on life, like last year’s best superhero movie, X-Men: First Class, as it was a fantastic piece of entertainment without sacrificing a good view the troubled nature of a good chunk of its characters. That is in stark contrast to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, as it was not a bad action movie, quite the contrary actually, but what it lacked on the other side of action, it could not make up for in cohesion and was inevitably been seen as a mindless action film, with little soul.
It’s the movies that move us that give us a shot at seeing things differently after we watch them. They are important to us in more respects then just existing as individual parts but rather parts that came together to form a fantastic whole that you can just cherish. Many we do Cherish, and many that we do cherish we go on to give them Awards such as during the Winter Film Festival, being held in New York , from the 9th -12th of Febuary.