Surrendering To The Story
By Corinne Cordasco
Published in In Earnest Magazine in 2014
A friend once told me how Charles Manson fed his followers LSD before he, sober, spoke to them: the drug caused his words to imprint on their minds in a way that felt intensely, spiritually truthful, dictating their beliefs and actions even after the trip ended. Film requires a similar cultish devotion: viewers relinquish control, submitting their money, time and (in a theater) environment, and are rewarded with entry into a new, exciting world. A compelling narrative carries rhetoric and emotion along in its current, and the combination of these elements has a transcendent effect on anyone exposed. Story takes many forms, manifesting itself in books, music, advertisements and television, but film, to me, is its most intoxicating guise.
Although the idea of story as a mind-altering drug is terrifying, it is this power to transfix and transform audiences that makes film an important medium. A film’s virtue lies in its use of a combination of narrative and theatrical elements to create shared experiences for all viewers, regardless of whether they are watching in a theater on opening weekend, or on a tablet twenty years later.
While you and I might read the same novel, there are infinite variables that may conflict: our images of characters, respective comprehension and paces, et cetera. Many of these divisions are eliminated with film. (You may wish to hurry things along, but you’re just going to have to watch all 216 minutes of Lawrence of Arabia.) In addition to comradery among audiences, the collaboration required to make a movie keeps the medium inherently communal, whereas a book is largely the work of the author. Viewers invest in films, committing to their length and language, and expect to be repaid in entertainment and artistry.
Walt Whitman’s couplet about the child who “went forth every day;/ And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became” is an almost perfect description of the way that I consume film. I remember movies that appealed to me because I see how their stories rippled into the rest of my life. When the Lord of The Rings movies were released, my brothers, our friends, and I spent hours studying the trilogy. We filmed our own versions of the films over the course of a summer, and eagerly awaiting the next installments. (I’ll spare you further details of my Tolkien mania to save my pride, but there may have been several dialects of Elvish spoken.) Beyond the appeal of heroes and romances, Lord of the Rings draws clear lines between light and darkness; the story was able to steer me toward virtue—friendship, loyalty, valour—as I played.
The transformative power of story extends beyond childhood preoccupation; while a significant story may not drive us outside to play as heroes, it still manifests itself in our lives. Though The Lord of the Rings confronts us with the balance of good and evil on an epic scale, even prosaic movies can comfort or guide us. Whit Stillman’s stylistically subdued films, such as The Last Days of Disco, test the bounds of friendship, while Martin Scorsese’s tales of greed, such as Goodfellas or The Wolf of Wall Street, illuminate what is ethical by exploring what isn’t. With age and maturity comes access to an ever-broadening array of genres and styles, and, as anyone who has ever browsed Netflix knows, deciding what to watch is overwhelming. However, if what we consume is correlated to what we become, then choosing a movie on a quiet evening is far from trivial. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a formulaic chick flick or action movie, the reward for devoting time to a quality film is much greater.
I didn’t start watching film intentionally until college, around the time that I started directing for theater and was looking for inspiration. One of my favorite film directors, Quentin Tarantino, said in an interview, “When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to films,’”; his attention to the craft motivated me. I already spent a lot of time watching movies, but I wanted to focus my consumption on more significant films, including those outside of my comfort zone, instead of just watching something comfortable or familiar.
On New Years Eve 2012, I resolved that one of my projects for the next two years would be to watch all of the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Films. I had seen some, but there were many titles that I wasn’t familiar with, alongside enduring classics like Citizen Kane that I had never quite gotten around to watching, though I knew I ought to. Today, I am a little over halfway through; I’ve made it through the lighter fare (Star Wars, Tootsie) and the “classic” classics (The Godfather, Rocky), and have now reached films that require more focus and energy (The Deer Hunter, Schindler’s List).
The more great films that I watch, the more I am amazed at the medium’s power. Characters find love, overcome adversity, and embark on adventures, and my understanding of the world expands, changing how I see situations in my own life and those that would otherwise only be abstract. I’m also increasingly fascinated by what films have to say to each other, and at the parallels that can be drawn between selections from the most disparate genres.
There’s a learned balance required in watching films intentionally, surrendering to the story and not over-intellectualizing at the cost of enjoyment, but the reward is great. Falling under the influence of the story means that, afterwards, when you contemplate what you’ve absorbed, you can drive deeper into the heart of the film. What excited you? What made you uncomfortable? Why does a character remind you of someone you know? Will you ever watch it again? I’ve found that through thoughtful consumption, the initial act of submission—which seemed so dangerous—gives way to deeper clarity and fuller truth.