We all remember when we first fell in love. And we here at BOTM love movies. We may not have seen every movie. We may not know every line from Casablanca or every costume change from some obscure French new wave film. But we love movies. Here is my love story.
When I was 17 years old and while my friends were studying for final exams, I realised that school studies were unnecessary for me as I was never going to go to university because, well, lets face it, I’m better than everybody else and I don’t need to study. Actually, I knew that I was going to write music for a living and had planned my future already. So I decided that in the allocated month off to ‘study’, I would study movies. A lot of movies. I watched at least two movies every day and I’m being absolutely serious when I say that I was learning more about life through these amazing journeys into worlds and characters than in all of my time at school.
The first important movies to me were from the 1970’s. Something happened to cinema during that wonderful decade, where artists realised that part of being an artist means you have a voice. And the youth was speaking. Directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola took control of their projects and made movies that were straight from their heart. Movies like Easy Rider, Kramer vs Kramer and the Godfather blew my mind.
Also, I would make sure to find movies that I’d never heard of, and some of my favourites are because of that decision. A film from 2002 named Love Liza moved me to no end, and it helped me realise that as an artist and a human being, I could say and do whatever I wanted but there are always consequences to every action.
But the most impressive collection of movies came from not a director but an actor. Dustin Hoffman is not just an actor. He brings things to life. Not even just the characters he is playing. He brings to life feelings of loss, love, and a passion for life. Hoffman is one of the rare actors that can, through his performance, make us realise things about ourselves. Things that we want and things that we already have. Throughout this blog I will be profiling some of his unbelievable performances.
Oh yeh, we also love music. That’s more of a freaky nasty lust though.
Lee
This is so true. I remember the first time I discovered that there was more to movies than stories and explosions. Taxi Driver was where it started for me
ReplyDeleteSuch a cool story to share. For me it all started when I was around 15-16. Before that movies were wonderful, they enchanted my inexperienced mind, however one Saturday afternoon made me see a new world that is cinema.
ReplyDeleteAs I was visiting my local Blockbuster store, and whilst browsing the large collection of VHS tapes, I stumbled across a movie title of which I had limited exposure to but certainly had heard the name; it was 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Throughout the next 2 and half hours I sat and watched a film that was like nothing I had experienced; the colours, the extended scenes of nothingness, the obvious philosphical undertones that as a young teen could not even begin to decipher.
From that moment, I too had found my love.