Relationship to Cinema

I love movies. I've always loved movies. And since taking a film appreciation class in college, I've always loved "cinema." It was in that class that I realized movies could be more than just passing entertainment.

No, scratch that. It's been the years SINCE taking that class, after connecting to so many great films, that I realized movies could be something special. Meaningful. Powerful.

People who say I don't like movies just don't know me. I don't know many people who love movies more than me. I don't know many people who connect to films at a level that I do. People who accuse me of elitism don't know the relationship I have to cinema. It's a relationship that has been developing - unfolding, maturing - for a long time now. Going to film school really cemented this relationship because I was now able to be a participant, not just an observer. And since then, it's impossible for me to separate the filmmaker in me from the film viewer in me. They are one entity and it is this culmination that has created this special relationship.

Recently, I watched a film (a French film called "The Father of My Children") that had such a profound impact on me that I didn't want to watch anything else for the rest of the weekend. I wanted to just let the film sit with me; marinate in my head for awhile, to let inspire, provoke, ponder. Do many people do this after watching a film? I don't know. Given the way people flippantly discuss movies, I doubt it. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who can walk out of a theater and feel like I just had a religious experience.

In spite of the fact that I like arguing and debating cinema, my relationship to the art form is a very personal and achingly private relationship that I don't share with many people. In fact, only a few have any idea the level of importance cinema plays in my life. I go to a lot of movies alone and this is one of the main reasons; I enjoy being by myself so that I can connect to the film quietly and on my own terms. I don't think many people understand what cinema means to me (and I don't think people really care) so I usually forgo meaningful expression for shallow ramblings.

I've learned that the best and most fulfilling way of expressing this relationship is through the work. There is nothing more fulfilling to me than creating. The act of creating is in and of itself an expression of love. Therefore, there is nothing more fulfilling to me than the expression of love. And so all the talk, all the bloodshed fought over some insistence of worth is irrelevant to me. No one can ever take this relationship away from me. It is mine and it is what I get out of it that feeds my desire as an artist.