Recently my buddy Matt inspired me to talk a little about film and film theory. He linked me a very good analysis of the Stanley Kubrick film "Eyes Wide Shut", starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
Before I get into that, lemme quickly talk about film. I was a film major in college, and this fact has not biased my opinion and theory about film but instead helped me understand what it all means.
Many people think about film, visual media, as just entertainment. I've come to realize that this is the farthest thing from the truth, and in fact, I now know that film is actually one of the most important things in the universe. In the universe! And I don't really mean this jokingly, I am quite serious. Why do I believe this to be a fact?
Well, Film is the highest form of art... in that, while art can be defined as representations of life in different mediums... written, painted, performed musically, etc... film is Literally a representation of life by capturing life how it actually happens. The camera captures exactly what the eye would see, the screen shows snippets of actual life. Of course, these snippets of life are arranged and altered in certain ways to create pieces of work, but they are all just arrangements of actual life.
Entertainment is only the surface of what film is intended for. Entertainment is mainly the business aspect of film... really, film more importantly exists to portray ideas to the viewer; it molds minds and either teaches, or deceives. The problem is that most people watch something and don't realize how it affects their ideas, mindset, thoughts and beliefs... it simply becomes a part of who they are. With so many people glued to the television or movie screen on a daily basis, I personally feel a great deal of importance in trying to open people's eyes to what is going on.
The main point is, there are people who create these films, who aim to study an idea, explain something to the audience either obviously or with hidden elements.
Looking at Eyes Wide Shut and the analysis of it, we see one of the greatest examples of an attempt by a filmmaker to wake a viewer up to the true reality of the world.
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj7Hw6OnbH8
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUZU0w4A5i4
part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCn1rfmM0vA
In the movie, we see the constant themes of the great deceptions of our world: Our leaders and people in power, the wealthy, those who are often represented as moral in film and television... these people are represented in a certain way through media that we are expected to believe and take as a true depiction. Behind the scenes, these people have actual lives... they are flawed, often immoral, often quite evil as they decieve the world and smile for the camera as they fatally sin and plot behind the scenes..
At the very least, many of these people live extravagant, indulgent lives that they would never allow to be fully understood by the public. Just like the rest of us who often are very different in the private and public aspects of our lives, people in greater power have an even greater dichotomy of public and private selves... they must put on a polished, moral self in front of the camera... and yet, in their private lives, the magnitude of their power can make them far more flawed, immoral, then many of us "regular" human beings. The problem is that we come to look up to and idolize some of these people who we think are who we should respect, when really we are putting our minds into the hands of deeply evil individuals.
The people in power could probably be summarized into categories: Entertainment, Business, Politics. Obviously these three overlap, and this is the problem. Someone in entertainment could arguably be considered the least immoral overall... a true actor, musician, etc who wishes to entertain or create artistically may not be so absorbed in money or power that they are not morally affected too much. We could say that the true lives of these people would include indulgence in sex and drugs more then other things... mainly along the lines of many regular people.
Include business into things and we see people who can become immoral because of a greedy quest for money and things. It skews the situation to dehumanize the world and turn things into a unit to be sold or turn actions into means for personal gain, and not actions with respect to humanity.
Politics is certainly by far the worst of these three categories. Politics is the human quest for power and control over the world and the people in the world. Citizens literally become the means for our leaders to use for personal gain and global standing. How do politicians, businessmen, entertainment heads come to control the people in the modern day? By swaying their minds with visual media.. film and television. Just like in Eyes Wide Shut, we are all seeing a lie being sold to us on the screen, a digital mask for the wicked, and it is creating a false world in our minds that we start to believe in. TIME TO OPEN OUR EYES and start looking deeper into the world, life, everything, and realize that there are things that billions of people don't know or want to understand about life that can be figured out by taking a closer look.
Our visual media is not all about creating a lie, it is also about the artist sending us an idea or a message about our world that cannot be explicitly stated. Some films and shows are straightforward about their themes and meanings, others put us in alternate worlds or settings but contain ideas about our actual world. Every filmmaker has a purpose and an underlying point, hidden aspects of all of our visual media exist at all times, and a lot of these hidden things are put there to warn us, tell us about what is happening in the real world.
What people don't often understand is that our media is viewed in a very backwards manner in the minds of the citizens. Meaning? The stuff depicted as the truth, fact, such as The News, can be far more skewed and altered from reality then a fictional movie. In the news, we hear about events that happened, but what we watch is only a summary by a journalist of what happened and opinions and shots of what happened after the fact. The news is not a capture of what has actually happened, but a planned representation. Politics can get in the way and News entities can spin news stories to promote their own ideals and to mold minds in a certain way. It is constant deception. Poker Radio
On the other hand, many films are amazing pieces of art that represent the realities of life.. behind the scenes, truthful ideas about human behavior and the way our world works. We as viewers look at a lot of these films as a sort of fantasy, but deep down we know that we are watching the truth of the human condition. A movie set in the future with robots and aliens can and often is far more "true" than what we are expected to believe as truth from biased media entities. This is the world we live in.
So, watch the Eyes Wide Shut analysis if you haven't watched it, and realize it's reality. Stanley Kubrick was not just a filmmaker, but a powerful man who has not just created a fantasy but created a representation of what he knows and has experienced in his world interacting with other people in great power.
Next, take a look at the analysis of "The Matrix". The themes of this film should be quite clear and coincide with what i've been saying... We are all fed a giant lie, a huge matrix that we are comfortable in believing... but it is not reality. If we seek the truth we can unplug ourself from this oppressive and skewed world and see the harsh reality. There are pros and cons to searching for reality but in the end it will free the soul.
part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEisRob4xKw
part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKBaCbAdQTI
Things that happen in our world don't just happen... there is a backstory. People plot and make changes in the world and when these changes happen the public sees it on the surface, but not for the steps or reasons leading up to this change. What I'm getting at is our visual media always has and will tell us what will be happening in our future. The intertwined people in entertainment, business, and politics send us messages that show us that before something happens, there is a general knowledge about it. I don't mean legitimate chance occurences.. but global changes... wars, treaties, economic turns, patterns... 911, etc.
If we watch another film analysis on A Time To Kill.. we see an example of ideas being spread to the public far in advance of an actual occurence... and if you were to say that this analysis is a stretch or that the date of September 11th stated by Kevin Spacey as an important part of the film is just a coincidence, I would answer that this is just one film. (I couldn't find the analysis I had previously seen, but until I do I recommend watching the film, and relate a lot of the court scenes and ending scenes to modern circumstances. Spacey citing the date 9/11 is key.)
The most obvious and blatant example of how we can see obvious foresight in our media, particularly 911... let's look at the pilot episode for "The Lone Gunmen" which was a short-lived spin-off of the The X Files that aired on Fox. online poker
The Lone Gunmen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUKQz-xm0is
The Simpsons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caCX4dEqD9E
Ummm, did you see that? This episode is a direct representation of what happened on 911, MONTHS before it happened. A lot of things you can write off as coincidences, but this is blatant and we'd be naive to think this was a coincidence. This blog is not supposed to alone prove something like there was certainly American foreknowledge of 911 and that it was an inside job... I've posted enough in previous blogs for one to logically see this. However, I feel that this kind of stuff just strengthens the growingly obvious point that there WAS PRE-KNOWLEDGE that 911 was going to happen. Many people knew. The world does not work on coincidences.
For a FOX show to predict exactly what was going to happen on 911, and for our president to state " I don't think anyone could envision someone flying planes into buildings".... It proves the point exactly... our media skews reality in an almost reverse fashion. Who's lying, our president, or a fictional show? Wake up, get unplugged from the matrix, and start seeing that the fictional show/movie/whatever... is MORE IMPORTANT for us to understand life and how the world works. You can laugh off the Simpsons prediction as well... but this is the same thing. Another FOX show reaching out to an unknowing viewer.
Some people might say, "why is Jeff talking about something besides poker. He's crazy, what is he talking about?" People who want to suppress the great truths of the world will one day be ready to learn, but I will not censor these important ideas to make some who are not ready more comfortable. Conspiracy theorist! You might say. Well yea... conspiracies are everywhere. People conspire for greed and power. People who question like I do tend to be mocked by others because these others have not yet attempted to seek the truth.
We think our eyes are open but they aren't. Looooooook.
Oh yea p.s.. forgot to mention this. Neo's passport in the matrix expires on 9/11/01. This is only one of the many links for this. Or just find it in the film yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCIXwNNv1Ww
