Film is
the ultimate art.
Combining
the written and spoken word, music, and visual expression in a way that nothing else can, the world of film is a world in
which all things are possible. Film isn’t reality; it’s more than reality: bigger, brighter, louder, faster.
In films you can go anywhere, or to any time; you can meet anyone and experience everything.
The film
that you watch in the theater or your living room the result of an amazing collaboration between people with widely divergent
views and abilities, but somehow, it all comes together. Every moment in a film is purposeful, and every frame represents
the creativity of at least one individual. Watching a movie – even a bad
one – is like getting inside someone’s mind and looking at the world through his eyes.
When I was
growing up, my father was a movie projectionist. These were the days when the projectionist was a trained specialist, before
the days of automation when the popcorn guy can also be the projector guy by just pressing a button. My father spent years
in the projection booth, loading reels, perfecting focus and getting picture and sound into perfect sync. When the film broke
he took pride in careful splicing so as to minimize any distraction for the future audiences.
There were
three really cool things about having a dad that was a projectionist. One was hanging out in the projection booth, a tiny
room with a deafening noise that eventually would affect his hearing, but that I found exciting. The second was getting tiny
pieces of film that had been cut out during the splicing process; over the years I filled an album with .35 mm images of everything
from “Bongo” to “Jaws.” The best thing was getting into
movies for free (something I took for granted at the time). We could see any film we wanted, and if we liked it, we could
see it again.
Probably
my earliest memory of a movie is watching the first few minutes of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” released in 1968 when
I was four years old. I remember something about monkeys and a stick and a big stone thing, and then I remember curling up
on the seat and going to sleep. I found out only recently that my mother had seen the film numerous times, trying to “figure
it out,” and bringing me with her each time.
This web
page isn’t meant to be any sort of official film critic site, but simply a place for me to store and share my own thoughts
about various films that have affected me in some way. My taste in film is nothing if not eclectic – among my “Top
Films” are everything from “The Sound of Music” to “Pulp Fiction.” No doubt the list will grow
over time.