Every single thing you see on-screen came out of somebody’s creativity. It doesn’t exist. Nature didn’t deliver it to us. Everything had to be dreamed.
Jeffrey Katzenberg
“Every movie has a message. Do you think they’d pour millions of dollars into two hours of entertainment if there weren’t multiple purposes for it…?”
She said something like that. My art teacher, who once had dinner with Bob Dylan when he was Bob Zimmerman. She also said I was a fairly talented artist and needed to further explore that area of my life. And then I enrolled in college as a Sociology major.
I wish I believed her about that art stuff.
I did believe her about movies, though. And about Bob. And I’ve never forgotten those Movie lectures, and watching a few clips in our class, and digging for deeper meanings.
This changed my viewing experience. I’d go so far as to say it actually enriched it.
Which is one of the reasons why I have no problems with movies that might have harsh or offensive content (horror movies, in all their excess and unnecessary-ness, excluded). And now every time I watch a movie I look for the message.
Happy Feet, Wall-E, I Am Legend, Castaway, Date Night, Avatar, Gran Torino
All of these movies have profound layers of meaning. Yes, profound. Some of their messages I agree with, and some… well… not really.
That doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m aware.
It’s interesting how, at a moment when our defenses are down and our feet are up, we’re being handed a message. Somebody is trying to say something to us, and sometimes it is flat-out propaganda.
Have you noticed the hidden messages in movies? When is the last time you watched something and caught the message behind it?
