When Movies Aren’t Enough
Welp, it’s time for my weekly quarantine breakdown. I haven’t watched a single movie in over a week. Every time I go to throw one on I’m met with indecision which then turns into somehow losing hours of my day doing nothing… I truly don’t know how that happens. Or I’m flustered by the deep dive into Jungian theory for academic papers that are beginning to look more and more like gibberish on a page.
That’s why I’m taking a break and writing this. I landed a job right before this all happened and I’m finishing up a degree that allows my VA benefits to kick in to help with housing. Now, I’m lucky and I know that, but with all this luck something still feels off.
I think the easy answer is we all feel off, but I don’t think it’s that simple.
One of my mechanisms for dealing with my emotions is movies. I’d go to the theater to get away for two hours at a time. That’s gone now and I don’t know when it’s coming back. Even that doesn’t feel like something is off. I think it’s because as movie fans we aren’t connected.
We are a people of the internet and yet here I sit — typing — and realize movies weren’t enough to keep us connected. There are thousands of movies we could rewatch and talk about, but we aren’t. It’s like the entire community of film fans called it quits. Deep down I know they didn’t because I didn’t, but that’s how it feels and just negative movie news coming out almost daily at this point. The entirety of this industry we love will change.
I wrote an article a while back about what the future of movies will be and even during that I was a bit pessimistic about the outcome of this situation, but something clicked today. Even with all of this going on I found a positive reason why movies aren’t enough.
I made a joke of what would be the comic book that depicts this era of our history. After tweeting that out I sat back for a moment and then thought what would be the movie that depicts this portion of our lives. Who would direct it? Who would star in it? Would it be a comedy? Horror? Drama? Would it be too hard to watch?
The thing is all of those questions will be yes. I truly believe out of all this horrible shit happening, filmmakers will come out ready to share new stories because we haven’t lived through anything like this. Hell there will be new filmmakers and writers who emerge after this that we probably wouldn’t have heard of if it wasn’t for this.
Kids will get to watch classic films with their parents. Right now, this very minute; a dad, a mom, and their kids are watching all the Star Wars for the first time. A first date is going on over skype between two people who matched on Bumble and are watching their very first movie together. That movie you never had time for you’re finally seeing.
I stand by my statement saying movies aren’t enough for me anymore because it can leave me empty, but the people who make the movies. The people who watch movies. The experiences with people through movies. That’s enough for me now.
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