don't cry baby, it's only a movie

Movies. Our secret escape from reality. The things we turn to to restore our faith in fairy tales, and happy endings and miracles, and fireflies. After you watch your all-time favorite, you always feel just a little bit better. Hell, sometimes you even start to see the sun shining again. And yet, with the exception of the odd twist or two, ever since Bogart captured the world's fantasy with his macho nothing-gets-through persona that melted at the sight of Ingrid Bergman's damsel in distress ("Of all the gin joints in all the cities in all the world, she walked into mine!" - CASABLANCA), or Rhett Butler's stoic self came crumbling down after he found the one woman who could break his heart and she did ("Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!" - GONE WITH THE WIND), movies have gotten progressively and steadily closer to reality, so much so that Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump and indies like The Hurt Locker actually enjoy success at the box office, and get Best Picture awards. So why then do we still find we can escape in movies? If they're modelled after our lives, won't they just be as tragic? Why do we still seek comfort there?

I'll tell you why. Because they still have that sensationalism that we can never quite capture in our own lives. They allow us experience anguish with the safety of knowing we're not really going to die, that the meteors aren't really going to crash into earth. They allow us feel joy with the hero/-ine and pain as well without getting emotionally invested. It's like a quick-fix source of those pheromones(?) that go straight to our heads and make us feel better. They allow us to identify with other people in situations like ours, sometimes worse than ours, and therefore let us know we're not alone. Let's face it, no matter how real and life size movies get, they'll always be cathartic. Don't you get a tingle in your spine every time you hear that -"I WANT THE TRUTH!" -"YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!" exchange from A Few Good Men? Doesn't it just break your heart when Jack dies in Titanic, or when Creasy goes up to offer himself in exchange for the girl in Man on Fire? Or at the end of Nick Cassavettes' major crier, The Notebook, when you discover that, OMG, she really did get Alzheimer's, and he really was reading to her out of a notebook she wrote a hundred years ago chronicling their lives.

Doesn't it make you swell with pride about the humanity in people when you see Goldblum and Will Smith go up there to take on the aliens from Independence Day; or when the ship full of ex-cons is the first one to throw out the Joker's detonator meant to destroy the other ship in The Dark Knight; or when Bruce Willis and his men selflessly go above and beyond their call of duty to take on the entire Nigerian army in defence of the weak Ibo people just because it was the right thing to do (Tears of the Sun); or when the country leaders elect to open the doors to the Arks to let in all the riff raff who couldn't afford the $1BN ticket price because it would be inhuman to condemn them to die as they watch in 2012; or even in less grandiose scenes, like when Brad Pitt jumped in the way when he thought that guy was going to shoot his father (Legends of the Fall); or when Batman decides to take the fall for 2-Face and puts himself on the line just so he can give the people a genuine hero they can believe in (The Dark Knight). These movies show us that people are inherently good, and that given the choice, even the hardest of bandits will sometimes do the right thing. That in the fight against tyranny, in the fight for survival, we all stand together. No sacrifice is too great. In A Few Good Men, after the jury exonorated the two privates, and yet the judge still dishonourably discharged them, one was like "Hal, what did we do wrong?? We did nothing wrong!!" and then Hal answered, "Yea we did. We were supposed to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willy."

Then there are movies like Hustle and Flow. About persistence. About never giving up the dream, always believing that one day your break will come, and when it comes, leaping into the deep without a net and taking advantage of it. And those about overcoming less-than-fortuitous circumstances and rising above, like The Freedom Writers, Remember The Titans, Mona Lisa Smile. Then there are those feel-good romantic comedies that you enjoy and then forget about, like The Proposal, or Speed, or The Lakehouse (huh, that's odd, they all have Sandra Bullock in them) or Definitely, Maybe, or Pretty Woman. Then there are those fantasy-based movies that show us an alternate universe but still aim to drive home the point about courage, the biggest ones here of course being Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and most recently (!) Avatar. There was a point in Hustle & Flow when DJay got confronted about lying about knowing Skinny (Ludacris), and he said Shug's baby had a whore for a mother and a random trick for a father, but one day was going to walk up to him and ask him if she could be president. "You know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna look that girl in the eye, and I'm gonna lie. Because everyone deserves to have a dream."

I don't think we escape to movies because we're hiding our heads in the sand, no. I think we do it because it offers reprieve for the tired soul. I think we do it because every once in a while everyone deserves to take a break. I think we do it because in the process sometimes we even learn new things. Seeing the world through the eyes of another person, that expands our horizons. Movies allow us to go places we wouldn't otherwise have gone, enjoy experiences we wouldn't otherwise have enjoyed. They show us that even the worst of situations can actually be turned around for the best. And in so doing, they restore our faith in the world. Yes they're just movies, but sometimes they strengthen our resolve to face tomorrow.

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