On The Duality of Film & Why I Will Always Watch Movies

I've seen The Avengers 9 times. I'm not embarrassed. It's an escape. Not that I'm really escaping "from" anything, but it's an escape into something. It's probably one of the most perfect films of it's genre that I've ever seen. No wasted dialogue or action. Everything moves the film forward. It's funny, it's serious, it's filled with excellent actors all bringing their A game, it's well thought out, and it never ever drags. There is one continuous shot during the big climactic battle scene which has no dialogue but tells the story of the battle in such a way as to move the plot forward, further develop the characters, and put focus on the bigness of it all. It's a moving comic book, and it's outstanding. I may even see it again before it leaves the theatres for good.

The Avengers was obviously made with a great deal of love for the source material, as were all of the movies leading up to it, and as will the films that follow, I have no doubt. I will see them all, probably more than once. I saw Watchmen 5 times. I saw the first Sherlock Holmes movie (the Guy Ritchie one) at least 5 times (I have a lot of reverence for the source material on THAT one). I saw Pulp Fiction twice, I saw Kill Bill several times (both parts). I'm pretty sure I saw The Matrix at least 5 times because it was playing at the $2 theatre for what seemed like an eternity. I also adore Star Trek.  I'm at a loss for more examples right now, but I think there is this special class of great fun movies, movies that aren't going to bring about any deep enlightenment and probably don't qualify as high art, but will send you out of your own world into another one so that you can leave your problems behind for 2 or so hours then come back excited.

This is not the only reason why I watch movies.

Last night I watched a movie that I had not previously heard of called Sunshine. It was made in 2007, and I found it when I was playing IMDB "click a random link see what you find." I'm pretty sure that I found it when I was looking at Chris Evans' IMDB profile to see if they had thrown up a release date for an Avengers sequel yet (no, too many movies til then). I clicked on it because I wanted to know what a film called Sunshine would be about.

Sunshine (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/) is a science fiction film made in 2007 about a group of astronauts from the future on a mission to detonate a bomb into the dying sun in order to save humanity. Based upon that premise, I quickly located a digital copy for viewing. This is not one of those fun science fiction escape films where people have superpowers which cannot be explained, or the food comes out of a replicator. This is a dirty ship with people who are uncomfortable with one another, sweating and getting in fights and complaining about the food. This is a ship where the oxygen supply is dependent upon an onboard garden, and it ends up being a suicide mission. This is a film which can be best described as being psychologically and emotionally draining. I swear that in the last 20 minutes, I was a puddle of goo. I didn't bother with Kleenex.

I'm going to take this moment to step out of that film and talk about what triggers emotional response and how those emotional responses differ. I have cried during nearly every Steven Spielberg film (even Poltergeist). Steven Spielberg is aces at creating scenes which WILL make you react emotionally. He must have a PhD in making people cry. "Romantic" movies don't often make me weepy. (Eg. this movie: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1700844/ just made me want to yell at both of the main characters. It was extremely well acted, I just saw way too much willful dysfunction in the characters to feel particularly sorry for either one of them, and had trouble understanding why the story was worth telling.) Then again, when I am invested in characters after a long period of time, then their exploits tend to have more of an emotional impact - example: I was a puddle of goo for the last 20 minutes of the Series Finale of Deep Space Nine.

Back to "Sunshine" - why was I a puddle of goo? The way in which the screenwriter highlighted the psychology and the spirituality and the magnitude of what they were doing both on a personal and a universal level... the way in which it was acted and shot... made the viewer (at least me) feel like I was traveling with the characters and wondering how much of a mess I would be in that situation I was breathless and tears were falling freely out of my eyes with out my even really openly acknowledging them. It's not oh noes, the object of my affection doesn't luv me so I'm going to end it all!  - it's  - Oh. We are all going to have to die to complete our mission and save the world. Chew on that for a moment. By the way, there is a spiritually crazed lunatic trying to kill everyone on board. No time to ponder, time to start running.

So there is this fantastic duality to film - of course one film can be both an escape and high art, but that is honestly usually not the case. The clearest distinction is - if a film makes me a little bit uncomfortable, it's probably high art. If a film doesn't make me feel the least bit uncomfortable, then it's probably an escape*.

To further clarify the distinction, I have made a little list:
High Art:

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Lost in Translation
• Event Horizon
• Into the Mouth of Madness
• Fight Club
• Brazil
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
• A Clockwork Orange

Escapist:

• The Avengers (all the Marvel movies, saving space by not listing)
• Superman
• Star Wars
• Midnight In Paris (Woody Allen is of course an artist, but this film is ABOUT escape.)
• The Illusionist 
• Pulp Fiction (anything by Quentin Tarantino, even though he is a consummate artist, I escape into his art)
• Sin City 
• Spy Kids
• Once Upon a Time In Mexico (are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can't? - video below for giggles)

*There is one line in The Avengers that makes me a bit uncomfortable, but that's only because I'm aware that the word "quim" is basically a Victorian way of calling a person the C word that rhymes with Hunt. I don't know that most people are hip to that jive, though the actors obviously were.