http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/can-someone-please-explain-inception-me
This won’t be about baseball. I do sometimes have other interests and one of my interests that has waned since getting married is going to the movies. Inception is a movie that I want to see. I think it might be worth the $20 or so I have to pay to see it with my wife. My nephew sent me the above link this morning and after what I wrote about why I enjoy baseball one line in particular stood out to me.
“But he’s clueless about how to deal with reality, honest emotions or relevant issues.” If I wanted those things I wouldn’t need to go to the movies. I could hire someone to walk around and film me for a day and just watch it whenever I wanted to see reality. I am not really even sure what the term honest emotions means. I can understand the idea of someone faking happiness or sadness, but that is what actors do. They are paid to fake emotions. So, again if we want honest emotions the only thing to do is live our own lives and wait. Actors on the screen will never give you honest emotion. I am pretty sure at the end of “Titanic” when Leonardo is sinking into the ocean I highly doubt that Kate Winslet is really sad. There can be no honest emotion in that situation because in reality no one is dying. They are probably about to share a cup of coffee with each other and discuss how they felt the scene went. It is a movie full of actors faking emotions. No matter how real the emotion on the screen looks it is faked.
Of course the last bit of that quote is the most bizarre. I don’t really want to see a movie that deals with relevant issues. If I wanted that I could just turn on the news and I can listen to Dan Rather tell me about relevant issues. I am also not sure how one would define relevant issues. It changes the world over. The main goal of any form of art is to be timeless. For some reason earlier this week I was thinking about “The Wizard of Oz” it amazes me that the movie was made in 1939 and is a fond memory of every generation of children born after that date. It is simply amazing to think that one day my children will hide behind me when the wicked witch of the west first appears on screen, and that this movie came out before some people’s grandparents were born.
I expect the art and entertainment I enjoy to be a reflection of reality, but like all reflections it is distorted. The truth held within art is not going to be apparent to all. It is these nuggets of truth that remain behind in the reflection that makes art interesting to me. I know all there is to know about reality. I live it every day. The truths I wish to discover through art are truths that extend to some plane of being beyond reality. Of course I haven’t yet seen “Inception” and have no idea if it is good, but I have heard good things about it. It sounds like the type of movie I enjoy. A thinking man’s movie. Kind of like baseball is a thinking man’s sport. I guess I am nothing if not predictable.
'Til Death Do Us Part 