“You like films? Psh…”
One thing that will always baffle me is the common view that films are an inferior art form - if they are considered an art from at all. The assumption that films are innately dumb is widespread through society and is completely wrong. People are always telling me that books are better than films - that “you get more out of them”, but I take offence to this. The reason I feel so passionately about this subject is that films are quite simply my greatest passion in life. If you go to your local DVD store and look - and I mean really look, you will find so many incredible films that will make you laugh, make you cry and, most importantly of all, make you think. Take ‘The Diving Bell and The Butterfly’ for example. This film is a fantastic movie that takes you through almost every conceivable emotion and I promise you, it will leave a mark.
It is films like this that prove these people oh so wrong. However, I can empathise with them. Let’s take Transformers 2 for example. This film is big, stupid, sexist and utterly derivative. It is a huge boil on the face of cinema and gives it a bad name. Yet people love it, they lap it up like fat cats with cream. It is because of the fact that these films are at the fore of the public consciousness that the common misassumption that “films are dumb” is so pervasive. It’s just not on!
