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Post by JenGe on Mar 12, 2004 14:10:34 GMT -5
I've been wanting to discuss this topic every since I first saw Wimmer mention in several interviews his thoughts that films are legal drugs. It really hasn't had a place for me to do so until now. "...I can tell you this, films are legal drugs, and I want to make some of the most addictive drugs around." - Kurt Wimmer, Sci/Fi DimensionsDo films have this effect on you & if so which ones?? Of course one of mine is Equilibrium as well as Matrix, Gladiator, Pitch Black, Last of the Mohicans, Raiders of the Lost Ark... Ones that seem to actually physically but me into withdrawals after seeing them until I get a chance to see them again. Sometimes I feel like a junky chasing a drug when it comes to films that have this effect on me. How about you?? |
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Post by TheMacroprosopus on Mar 12, 2004 14:20:30 GMT -5
This is quite the interesting idea. However, I don't find movies individually take the role of a drug for me, it is more of movies as a whole that do this.
Personally, music works better in the respect of individual songs being a drug.
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Post by baleheadnutcase on Mar 12, 2004 14:57:13 GMT -5
This is quite the interesting idea. However, I don't find movies individually take the role of a drug for me, it is more of movies as a whole that do this. Personally, music works better in the respect of individual songs being a drug. Yah music is like ecstasy, or acid...makes you feel however it wants you to feel and makes you see whatever it wants you to see. Movies are like a drug too, but whatever it wants you to see is already planned out on the screen and not within the mind (however the thought is).....darn that makes no sense at all |
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Post by Libby on Mar 13, 2004 12:00:28 GMT -5
Ones that seem to actually physically but me into withdrawals after seeing them until I get a chance to see them again. Sometimes I feel like a junky chasing a drug when it comes to films that have this effect on me. How about you?? Until the advent of videos and later, DVDs. I suffered torture at not being able to see films/finished TV series which had affected me. I remember poring over the Radio Times looking for repeats of Star Trek and gettting every film review mag around to find repeat showings of films (which cinemas did all the time) Now it's not so bad. We don't have to wait too long before the DVD comes out with all the extra goodies. I wore out my tape of Last of the Mohicans (specifically the bit where Hawkeye is stalking through the camp looking for Cora - swoon) I went to as many showings of 'First Contact' as I could then I begged the local video store to sell me one of their copies of before it went on general release (they did!) I had to buy the DVD 'cos the tape pretty much disintegrated. More recently, the first time I saw LOTR - the Fellowship...I was blown away and it took a very long time to come down. As far as EQ is concerned...I'm still up there. |
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Post by BlackDragon on Mar 14, 2004 9:04:42 GMT -5
Oh man... I'm a movie junkie....  I'm an addict to so many movies that I don't know where to start.... but yeah, EQ is one of them (of course) and Matrix, and LOTR, and.............many many more! |
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Post by Xenia Onatopp- Bale on Mar 14, 2004 11:34:50 GMT -5
Yeah, I totally agree with Kurt Wimmer. The movies that
I'm addicted with are EQUILIBRIUM, Matrix series, Blade
1&2, The Last Samurai, and Kill Bill, Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
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Post by BlackDragon on Mar 14, 2004 17:31:36 GMT -5
Yeah... Blade... How could I forget it... oh shame on me!!!
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Zethin
Resistance Member
The Ultimate Cleric & Enforcer Of The Law
Posts: 49
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Post by Zethin on Mar 16, 2004 2:20:37 GMT -5
Yah music is like ecstasy, or acid...makes you feel however it wants you to feel and makes you see whatever it wants you to see. Movies are like a drug too, but whatever it wants you to see is already planned out on the screen and not within the mind (however the thought is).....darn that makes no sense at all makes lots of sence  |
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Post by Walldude on Mar 20, 2004 23:16:13 GMT -5
I took that comment from Wimmer as saying that movies, like drugs, are a form of escape.
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Post by Libby on Mar 21, 2004 7:22:34 GMT -5
I took that comment from Wimmer as saying that movies, like drugs, are a form of escape. Me too. Films take you on a journey over which you have no control - other than to opt out and walk away. The escape part for me is to allow myself to be drawn into the world the film creates, leaving the stress of the 'real' world behind, if only for a few hours. I've never indulged in drugs (apart from trying Marijuana when I was much much younger- and since I don't smoke it was pretty horrible)so I can't speak for their effect, but I would imagine the initial effect to be the same (before the addiction becomes all-consuming). I think I'd stick to being addicted to films. ;D |
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Post by JenGe on Mar 21, 2004 10:00:15 GMT -5
I took that comment from Wimmer as saying that movies, like drugs, are a form of escape. No, I believe (& I could be wrong) that he was referring to more then just "escapism." I think the word "addictive" is the key (though "escapism" can have a form of addiction). There are a few other quotes about how films can physically change how one is feeling...almost exactly in the same sense as drugs do. In effect, choosing how one wants to feel by the movies they decide to watch. I'll have to see if I can find it. |
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Post by Xenia Onatopp- Bale on Mar 21, 2004 10:06:12 GMT -5
I took that comment from Wimmer as saying that movies, like drugs, are a form of escape. You're right about it, Walldude. In my case,movies are one way of relieving myself of some stress and I temporarily forget my problems when I watch movies. |
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Post by Libby on Mar 21, 2004 11:29:36 GMT -5
No, I believe (& I could be wrong) that he was referring to more then just "escapism." I think the word "addictive" is the key (though "escapism" can have a form of addiction). There are a few other quotes about how films can physically change how one is feeling...almost exactly in the same sense as drugs do. In effect, choosing how one wants to feel by the movies they decide to watch. I'll have to see if I can find it. Ah, I think I understand what KW (and you) are getting at. We can use the films as escapism but on a deeper level, we choose the films we see in order to experience certain emotions which we may not be able to have (for whatever reason) in our everyday lives. So if a person is 'in between' relationships, or finds it difficult to form romantic attachments, they may seek out a particular genre of film. And if someone has what they consider a 'mundane' life, they might go for high-octane films. They could consider themselves 'junkies' for certain genres or it could just all depend on what sort of day they've had.... Isn't that what all film makers aspire to do? It does open up a can of worms concerning behaviour post-film. Remember all the fuss about people who claimed they committed acts of violence etc after watching certain films? If film makers want this sort of power, then they also need to balance it with responsibilty. The danger with addiction is that it becomes all-consuming and impossible to control. |
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Post by Bella on Mar 21, 2004 16:25:25 GMT -5
Another must see is A Boy and His Dog, 1975.
Its about a totalitarian regime underground after another nuclear war as well...a cult classic.
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Post by aka Jack Torrence on Mar 28, 2004 11:24:26 GMT -5
I think Wimmer's point about "films as drugs" was that films, like drugs, allow us to experience feelings that we might not otherwise experience in our mundane lives. For a few hours we shut ourselves off from the world around us and connect with the fictional reality in the film--it is a vicarious experience, as we get to put ourselves in the position of the film's characters.
But of course it's not just about "feeling", it's about making one question one's own life; we ask "If I were in the same position as this character, what would I do differently? How would I react, and why?" This what good films should do to us. They teach you to think about your own life.
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Post by JenGe on Mar 28, 2004 19:25:00 GMT -5
--it is a vicarious experience,... I agree with this 100%. Often I find films to be much more emotionally resonating then events in real life. Maybe its a deficiency of some kind...I don't know but as a child & teen I had no natural empathy & it's only been through experiencing life through films & books that I've actually have been able to develop it. Placing myself in the characters world/situtation has helped me to find those feelings and understand them. Kinda scary.  |
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Bella
Sense Offender
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Post by Bella on Mar 28, 2004 20:32:01 GMT -5
I was brought up in a society where we were taught (by example more than verbally) to keep our emotions private. To show strong emotions like anger or pain was thought to be weak. Strangely this same society has pretty bad alcohol problems, and a high suicide rate. Bottling it all up is not the answer either.
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Post by aka Jack Torrence on Apr 15, 2004 17:49:20 GMT -5
I wouldn't say it's a deficiency, not exactly. It's probably related to the ways in which we cope with reality: sometimes we just want to get away from it all, to shut it out and pretend it's not there. This way, we avoid having to deal with it emotionally. It's a perfectly natural mechanism. It's precisely because films, novels--in short, fiction--are unreal that we find it easier to empathise with the dilemmas of fictional characters.
I turn on the TV today and I see misery and violence, but it doesn't upset me as much as it should. These people that are getting blown up, that are starving to death, that are deprived and miserable-- they may as well be fictional for the emotional reaction they elicit from me. They are essentially on another world, so alien and distant are their lives. That sounds like a horrendous thing to say, but I've become so desensitised to human suffering that nothing I see on TV moves me anymore, not even the atrocities of 9/11, which seemed more surreal and "movie-like" to me than they did shocking.
One day I hope-- yes, I fervently hope-- to have the chance to witness up-close and personal human misery and pain. Not because I would derive any enjoyment from it, but because it would reaffirm my humanness, would hopefully shock and sicken me. Living in a prosperous and civil country, I've been isolated from real suffering from the moment I was born. There is definitely more than a grain of truth in the old adage "You don't know how good you've got it,".
Compare real-world misery to fictional misery, as would be seen in a film. Real-world misery is faceless, anonymous: you don't know those people who were blown up by missiles in Chechenya. How can you understand their lives, when they live so far away? Now think about this: Have you seen the film Saving Private Ryan? I'd say the death of Tom Hanks's character upset more people than did the death of Private X in Iraq or Afghanistan. Because: for an hour or two we looked at the world through Tom Hanks's eyes, we got inside his head, we maybe even grew attached to him emotionally. We RELATED to his predicament almost as if we were there alongside him! THAT is why cinema works, that is why made-up suffering can be more saddening than real suffering.
(I hate to be so morbid about this, but this was the best way I could make my point. Films do, of course, prove emotionally satisfying in other ways.)
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Post by Xenia Onatopp- Bale on Apr 17, 2004 7:45:06 GMT -5
Well expressed ideas, aka. Can't agree more on that.
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Post by JenGe on Apr 17, 2004 9:30:57 GMT -5
I turn on the TV today and I see misery and violence, but it doesn't upset me as much as it should. These people that are getting blown up, that are starving to death, that are deprived and miserable-- they may as well be fictional for the emotional reaction they elicit from me. They are essentially on another world, so alien and distant are their lives. That sounds like a horrendous thing to say, but I've become so desensitised to human suffering that nothing I see on TV moves me anymore, not even the atrocities of 9/11, which seemed more surreal and "movie-like" to me than they did shocking. Wimmer even touches on this in the DVD commentary. "Numbness brought on by over saturation of the media." 9/11 though I took very personally & went into a deep depression over it. All those lives...those dreams...gone. Personally I feel the same way about each & every death I hear or read about in Iraq. Each has a life, a story...children who will grow up without fathers, mothers....parents left childless...dreams gone... I believe that films have helped me to understand that each and every one of them is a story that we just do not know. You really need to try "natural" childbirth then. ;D |
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Post by aka Jack Torrence on Apr 17, 2004 12:41:51 GMT -5
I'm relieved you haven't interpreted my thoughts on this subject in a negative way. I was worried that you might think I was some kind of heartless bastard or something. I'll have to listen to Wimmer's DVD commentary. "Numbness" is the word I'd use to describe my state of mind when it comes to violence in the media. I mean, nothing I see on TV really shocks or surprises me anymore. I guess it's related to inexperience. The fact is that statistically--comparing average living conditions in countries and so on--I had a comfortable and sheltered upbring. My parents taught me right from wrong.
What shocked me most about 9/11 wasn't the horrendousness of the atrocity-- I've never had any misgivings about mankind's propensity to perpetrate such vileness--but the fact that it DID happen. On the TV screen, it looked like a clip from a new big-budget action flick. The surreality of the events disturbed me in some indefinable way. But had I actually been in New York at the time, well, it'd be a completely different story. That's the difference, I think, between seeing something on TV and seeing it in person-- so much is lost in the former, all we see is the picture. But when you're there, seeing it unfold in person, you're caught up in the atmosphere of the event, it's so much more tangible, because you're personally involved.
(Are you American, JenGe? Just curious. I can understand why 9/11 would upset an American more than a person not from the US.)
We seem to be drifting from the original topic: Film as a drug. There was something I forgot to say in my earlier post. Another reason film can influence and affect us is that it shows us possibilities, it shows us what might happen. It doesn't matter what the film is about--it could be science fiction, drama, period piece, comedy-- but you can almost guarantee it's going to offer a possibility of how the world could be. I thinkthat's why the The Matrix was so successful, because it made people think "What if this story were true? Could it be true? What would that mean to me?". Just thinking about such questions can really change the way you perceive and interact with the world.
Do you mean giving birth without pain-killing medicine? Damn, that's unimaginable to me. I can't even have fillings in my teeth without anaesthetic! Besides, being a man it's probably wiser if I don't give birth!
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Post by pyro on Apr 21, 2004 18:08:09 GMT -5
::wanders into thread::
awsome subject!
does anyone else seem to pick up traits of a character they see in a movie?
ex. the transporter: i now make an effort to keep my room clean and everything in order
equilibrium: walk more effiently, try and be more clear with my english
office space: find life more funnier
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Post by TheMacroprosopus on Apr 21, 2004 18:51:13 GMT -5
Yeah, that happens a lot with me. But, it doesn't last long. Maybe like a few days.
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Post by Xenia Onatopp- Bale on Apr 22, 2004 11:41:14 GMT -5
Me too. I possess some of the character traits that you've mentioned in those films.
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I'm an addict to so many movies that I don't know where to start.... but yeah, EQ is one of them (of course) and Matrix, and LOTR, and.............many many more!
