HIGH PLAINS SCRIBBLER: THE MOMENT YOU…

Interesting column, Elisabeth. I was lucky to be a kid for STAR WARS and RAIDERS, so that was a magical indoctrination. However, it was PULP FICTION that made me a geek and a seeker. It hit me right at perfect time (college), and there's been no looking back.

Great, great piece, Elisabeth.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Elvis 

I was lucky to be a kid for STAR WARS and RAIDERS, so that was a magical indoctrination.

Same here.  I always though "What dumb luck that I was the exact right age for these movies".

My 'Moment' was when I was over a friends house and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD came on.  I was still fairly young and impressionable so the movie had a strong impact.  But one scene immediately hit me with the understanding that some one behind the camera knew how to make me feel a damn dark dread and I was captivated.  Movies suddenly became more than 'afternoon passers', they became dangerous art that could reach out and shake you.  I fell hard in love.

The very scene in question:

I had exactly the same experience when I a kid. Watching Raiders also made me want to be an archaeologist and I worked towards that for a long time.  The issue I encountered was that I was diagnosed with dyslexia which, at the time, was considered to much of a hurdle to let me do the A levels I would need to study it and University.  This was dispite the fact that i actually got better grades (through sheer force of will) in English Literature, Language and History than my friends who went on to Study History and English.

So instead I studied business and got nowhere.

Ah well them's the breaks.

I was once in a relationship with a girl, and one night while we were talking, she asked me at what point I knew I loved her. I couldn't say. She rattled off the exact moment she decided she loved me. And she held it against me, and was disappointed that there wasn't one specific moment where I looked at her and made a conscience observation that I loved her.

There was no line that I stood in front of -- on one side being a person who was not in love, looking over at the other side and making the choice to jump over. For me, it was a natural progression; a journey. One in which I couldn't pinpoint the stops along the way, even if I wanted to. It naturally and gradually just became part of who I was. That's kind of how it is with movies, too. I can't recall a single movie that I watched, or an instant within one of those movies, that made me love the medium. Looking back, it just seems as if it was always there.

I don't think you need that moment. I think a lack of that specific moment, in some ways, speaks deeper volumes than being able to recall that specific moment. It's just an organic and seamless aspect of yourself.

I've always loved movies, so I can't say there was an exact moment when I went from thinking of them casually as nice distractions to being passionate about them. There was, however, a definite moment when I became obsessed with delving into movie history and seeing the best movies of every era. The moment came watching "Bride of Frankenstein" in a university film class back in the early 2000s. I think it was the first time I realized I could love a movie from before I was born as much as any other movie I've loved. It's not like I'd never seen an old movie before, but this was the moment when I learned that the best movies are timeless, and that's been my main criteria for evaluating a movie's greatness ever since.

To this day, I tend to enjoy '80s and '90s movies most, but "Bride of Frankenstein" made me more anxious to seek out movies from earlier times than I'd ever been before, in the hopes that I'd find some that have the same effect on me that it did. There are still times when I feel like older movies don't have much value beyond being 'historical curiosities' and things I can be glad I saw because they make me feel more knowledgeable and 'educated' about film. I used to think that's all they'd ever be, but "Bride of Frankenstein" taught me that they could be so much more...as near and dear to my heart as a movie can be.

Movies that made me REALLY get into movies as an artform/craft and not just a VHS tape to put in?

Star Wars and Face/Off.  Hahahahah