a film has never changed anyone’s life – if you think it has, prove it.
Lots of films change ways of thinking, Mr. Peabody.
prove it
some poor soul probably joined the army because of “The Green Berets.”
ha ha – good one or committed a murder because of voices in a song.
Sorry, can’t be proved…..was probably gonna join something anyway
Maybe. I know for a fact that no film has “changed my life” and for that, I’m happy.
deconstructing harry made me want to be a writer which hasn’t yet changed my life but it has kept me out of trouble I suppose.
The Seventh Seal, Teorema, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Blow-Up, The Power of Kangwon Province, Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Muriel, Stranger Than Paradise and Weekend all greatly changed the way I think. It is like reading a great non-fiction book and being a receiving end of an epiphany.
Taxi Driver blew me away. It made me positive that I wanted to be a filmmaker.
2001 made me realize that you don’t need dialogue to make an amazing film. Hell, I spent weeks trying to shut my jaw after watching that film…
Tie between The 400 Blows and Rushmore
Korean movie, “Marriage is a Crazy Thing” — unflinching look at marriage, not romance
Chinese movie, “Chungking Express” - because love can be so unselfish- because it opened my eyes to appreciating great piece of filmmaking even when i was in freshman high school
’Godfather"
Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”— haunted me for days when I first saw it many years ago; it made me crave for all of his movies, read about the director’s life
Manon of the Spring and Jean de Florette—because it works as a fable my clan should have watched to stop their bickering about property ownershiip, greed.
Martin Scorsese’s episode in New York stories, “Life Lessons” - for showing what desire means, and why you can’t sometimes have what you desire-because it made me feel love is all about timing, whether there’s not much enough time, or that we all race against time.
Rohmer’s “Summer” = loneliness as never been captured
Before Sunrise and Before Sunset
L’Avventura = a culmination of my appreciation for great films. it is simply breathtaking, every scene is perfection
From the time i was very young I loved going to the movies but never thought of them as anything more than entertainment ( like the rest of my family ). But when I was about 12 I was watching TV late at night and I happened upon a black and white film in french. It had already started and I didn’t have a tv guide so I wasn’t sure what I was watching but there were two boys and one was stealing the pictures from outside of a movie theatre and I was mesmerized. I really had not seen anything like it. (Of course it was The 400 Blows but I didn’t find that out until a few years later when I went on purpose to see The 400 Blows & Jules and Jim on a double bill at the Harvard Square Theatre. When it got to the scene of the boys stealing the picture I felt as if I had found an old friend. ) But getting back to watching it on TV ; for the first time I felt as if I was watching a movie that was a personal statement, that it was trying to tell me ( and me alone) a story. I never looked at movies the same way. Everytime I went to the movies thereafter I tried to understand the chouces that were made by the filmmaker and why.
Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows
Adaptation for personal reasons and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” because it gave me the ambition to go out and try to film a mockumentary.
Adaptation for personal reasons and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” because it gave me the ambition to go out and try to film a mockumentary.
As a film-goer, Rear Window was very important to me. It drew me in like nothing I had seen before, and made me obsessed with cinema. 8½ was also important, for introducing me to the wonderful and enriching world of art cinema. Murnau’s Sunrise too, for making me appreciate a completely different style of film-making, that of silent cinema.
As a person, Kazan and Antonioni are most important to me. For Kazan, it’s East of Eden and Splendor in the Grass I find myself relating too, and being incredibly moved by. For Antonioni, L’avventura has found its way into my heart.
Gummo
For me, it was a whole series of films, around 300, seen between January 1982 and July of that year. In January, I was 18 and jobless, studyless and had no idea what I would do with my life. In July, I turned 19 and I knew cinema would dominate my life, that I would be a filmmaker till death. I guess in this sense, yes, certain films changed my life – they pointed me to my passion. But I think that what we are, what we value, is inherent in us, and if we respond to a film, that is not the film’s doing. We simply recognise and confirm/affirm ourselves. “Become who you are” – Nietzsche.
But yes, leaving the philosophy aside, for me it was — Citizen Kane, It’s a Wonderful Life, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Searchers. But these films don’t mean that much to me now. European cinema took over pretty quickly.
Pink Floyd’s The Wall was breathtaking, even after being familiar with the album before viewing.
Fight Club got me into Palahniuk’s writing and helped to solidify how I viewed the world.
The Machinist furthered my interest in psych and gave a better understanding of mental illness after seeing all the bullshit they put it normal Hollywood films.
Hmm….has a film changed my life. Many films have inspired me but to change my actual life..hmm…
“Pretty Woman” has changed my life as the opera scene led to me to become interested in opera. The scene as they watched “La Traviata” inspired me to purchase and listen to more opera.
A film like “Battle of Algiers” and “The Kite Runner” gave me a new perspective of culture/religion.
“Tokyo Sonata” in a way that it made me look at life, career and parenthood a bit differently.
I know that for some people I know, “Revolutionary Road” exposed problems in marriages and relationship to some people I know. I knew people who were influenced by “Top Gun” back in the 80’s and joined the military.
There was a film that was not a significant film but I remember a film called “The Boiler Room” when I was laid off right around the dot.com (bomb) years, films that dealt with corporate greed, that film helped calm me down as I tried to find some answers of how things could happen when you thought your position was going so well in the corporate world.
“Saving Private Ryan” had an effect on me that I felt that when I met someone in their late 70’s or 80’s, I always felt a person always has a story in their life to tell and I wouldn’t mind sitting with them as we talked about the cinema in the 1920’s and 30’s. How this affected me in my early 20’s? I became a classic fan of cinema and a major collector of cinema merchandise from the silent era through the 1950’s.
Watching “Seven Samurai” influenced me to purchase more Criterion’s and expect the best from that company.
But movies have influenced me. Not one film but a film here or there. But changing my life…nothing drastic.
Not like “Star Wars” fans…and them creating their “Jedi” religion. Which I actually know a person who practices that. I also knew one guy who was so inspired by “Star Trek” with Spock and Data and because of how his personal life was…he adopted their traits of trying to be “emotionless”.
Which I actually know a person who practices that.
Me too, his name is Jedi Steve and he was an extra in Fanboys.
—PolarisDiB
Hehe…. Yeah, a perfect example of how a “Star Wars” has changed the lives of people:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugk37TvIR8E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCtz4trJr_g
“On the Waterfront” … (1954), Written by Malcom Johnson, Elia Kazan director.
Starring Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy. **An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses.
Why its a change your life forever movie? This quote:
“I could have been a contender I could have been somebody instead of nobody” … still strikes hard… right to the gut, even after over 40 yrs.
****
Movie is about:
Terry had neither wanted nor intended to be a hero, but, as a man of principle, he had become not only a hero, but a symbol of the workers’ intolerance of exploitation by the dock bosses.
Favorite quote from movie:
Charlie: Oh I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.
Terry: You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charley.
This thread is pretty old, but here goes (in no particular order):
-Eraserhead (Lynch): When I walked out of that midnight screening when I was 13-14, the whole world seemed different from then on…
-Zerkalo (Tarkovsky): Is there a more haunting and beautiful film out there? So personal and yet universal. I watch it at leat 2-3 times a year!
-Edvard Munch (Watkins): Never seen another film like it. A completely different way to blend documentary and fiction. At 3+ hours, the film involves the spectator so much and invites you to feel and live as Munch did, never gets boring.
-Intérieur d’un couvent (Borowczyk): OK, so this is far from being a masterpiece, but it brought me back onto the right path after several years of obsessing over B and even Z movies. It’s few artsy moments made me realize that it is THESE that make cinema so special and evocative.
-Persona (Bergman): Absolute classic. Still gives me chills after seeing it countless times.
-Gummo (Korine): No one movie has made me want to make films as much as this one. It’s like someone had been reading my mind and made a film about it…
-Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome (Anger): Total eye candy, extremely strange and mysterious, DECADES before it’s time.
-Au Hazard Balthazar (Bresson): The world in 90 minutes indeed… Beautiful, touching, complex and absolutely mesmerizing.
-La Vie De Jésus (Dumont): This film opened up a whole new angle from which I could see film and cinema. The way Dumont turns the ordinary into the extraordinary is fascinating.
There are probably tons of other films that have marked me in some way, but these stand out above the rest…
I won’t say a film has ever changed my life, although they have had profound effects on me, they have enlightened me, moved me, and just downright entertained me. But some films have made me see the world in a different light and opened my mind and eyes.
Inheriti the Wind, 12 Angry men, and To kill a Mockingbird exposed me to racial, religious bigotry and ingnorance. I viewed Fredrich March’s character as a narrow minded posturing politician, yet at the end Spencer Tracy’s defense of the man he once admired made me realize that there is good and bad in everyone, a lesson learned from the courage of Henry Fonda in his staunch refusal to give in to the majority consensus of his peers and be able distuinguish beyond a reasonable doubt and " his a puerto rican he had to do it." The quiet dignity of Gregory Peck in his defense of a black man in a southern community who had already convicted him on the word of a bigoted ass, I was a chlld when I first saw this movie and years later I realized that bigotry is a learned experience and the fact that Peck’s humanity mirrored the innocense of his children.
And I still have some movies that impacted me on a political and personal level.
E.T. which is the first film that i ever watched when i was 4 years old.Being in front of a big screen and living fully this story with naivety.The very first sensation of cinema’s magic.
Gringo Tex
La cienaga. None of your business why.