So you ask why watch films.
And I'll ask another question. Why eat? Why are you eating? Do you have breakfast, lunch, dinner there?
To satisfy your hunger? Oh, come on! If you ate to satisfy your hunger, you wouldn’t add salt, pepper, ketchup/mayonnaise, or chew slowly, trying to “taste” it.
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You eat to enjoy yourself. To be happy. Yes, you satisfy your hunger too. But it’s not just him.
It's the same with films. Why watch them? To have fun. To be a happy person.
But you and I are designed in such a way that we cannot simply do something “for happiness.” We definitely need to know “why”, “what is the benefit”, “what is the point”, “what does this give us”.
And by the way, why are you reading this article? To find out “why watch movies”?
Nooooo.
You already know this. You watch because you like it. You're welcome. If it weren't nice, we wouldn't watch it.
Why then did you bother to read the article? To raise your self-esteem, oddly enough.
You watch movies because you enjoy them. But you also want to be 100% sure that you are doing something very useful/valuable/important/necessary.
You love movies, but sometimes you get the idea that movies are useless. That you watch them just for fun. And you drive this thought away from yourself: “No! Must watch films! They are needed! And you are looking for confirmation of this thought of yours.
You know, this is very interesting. People ask “why do we need to...” But they don’t really need specific answers. They just want someone (for example, the one who writes this article) to convince them that they are right, to justify them for sitting on the couch for an hour and a half to two hours and watching a movie.
To have someone tell them that they are doing everything right. That films should be watched regularly. Even if you live in a dorm, if you have nothing, if you hate your life and try to forget yourself by watching movies, movies, movies every day - you are still right, you are still good.
This is such a confusing topic. But ok, let's try to dig into it. Let's think about it, so to speak.
To some extent, yes. This is not to say that films do not develop us at all. Because when you look, you still think about something. For example, when I watched the first season of Game of Thrones (on the Internet), there were hundreds of comments under each episode. And very extensive. And sometimes very thoughtful.
I was just reading. People analyzed the lives of each character, asked questions about what should have been done, whether it was worth doing so, what other options were there.
People expressed their opinions. People got into discussions. People THOUGHT and pondered.
This is cool? Yes.
But there is one catch.
“For self-development” is a very insidious formulation. Because “self-development” can be very, very different. Compare, one person watches Game of Thrones, and others:
Learn English.
Learn Java Script.
Playing chess.
Swimming in the pool.
They are running.
They study chemistry/physics/biology at the university.
They create a website themselves from scratch and write articles on it.
Who is developing the most?
To understand this, imagine that a year passes. Someone learned to play chess in a year and easily solve chess problems. Someone mastered Java Script, started to earn a little extra money as a freelancer, someone passed the English exam at B1, someone read all of Tolstoy, someone began to understand the concepts of stock/bond/mutual fund/dividend/pattern/trading etc.
And someone watched the entire Game of Thrones.
Who has developed more?
Can't argue with that either. Cinema is a separate form of art. Like painting, like literature.
And every time we watch a film, we touch art.
But there is also one problem.
Art comes in different forms. In particular, mass and non-mass. True art is not mass art.
Just ask your friends - which of them have watched “Game of Thrones” or “Sherlock”, and who reads Chekhov, who regularly goes to art galleries, who attends concerts where works by Rachmaninoff are played.
Then you will immediately feel the difference. And you will understand that “art” is not “single” like that. It can be very different. Consumer goods today are also presented as art.
Ha, I remembered (aptly appropriate) a quote from one literary critic (I may not quote it exactly, but the meaning is this:
“We have the misfortune of living in the postmodern era. This is the time when everything that is declared as such is considered art.
Be it even a broken toilet.”
Well why not?
Yes, when you start “digging”, it turns out that there is nothing “like that” in the films.
Why watch them then?
I will ask you approximately the same question that I asked at the beginning of the article, but I will change it slightly.
Why live at all?
To have children? To work hard? To “do good”?
Why can't you live to be a happy person? To rejoice?
Why always look for the answer to the question “why?”
Maybe it doesn't exist at all?
Do you know what fate awaits our world? The sun will go out, the earth will cool, everything will die.
In theory, if there is no God (in the broadest sense, if there is no something higher, supramaterial), then our life is an accident, a game of chance.
But now we have this life. Why can't we just be happy in this life? When we eat delicious food, when we walk down the street in the evening, when we read a wonderful book, when we watch a movie - why do we necessarily need to look for meaning in everything?
I read about an experiment on rats. A device was placed in a rat's cage, the rat pressed a small button, and sweet, sweet orange juice was sprayed into its mouth.
This device is like a source of very light pleasure. You click on the button and you immediately get “pleasure” in the form of orange juice.
What happened to the rats? They were dying. They died because they couldn't stop. The orange juice never ran out. And it was so sweet, so tasty.
And everything was so simple - you click on the button and you get juice.
The rats could not switch from this mild pleasure to something else. They couldn't switch to anything at all.
Don't you think this is very "lifelike"? Drug addicts, for example, get unforgettable pleasure in the same way. And for them nothing exists except a syringe with drugs.
Isn’t it the same with films? To enjoy the film, you don't have to exert any effort at all. You don’t even need to move your eyes along the lines, as when reading books. You sit in front of the screen, look at it - and get high.
Why do people scroll through their social media feeds and can’t stop? Because it is the same “orange juice”. Why do people watch TV series? Orange juice…
What then?
Death.
If you train yourself to enjoy movies, you will forget how to enjoy “complex pleasures.”
Complex pleasure is when you, for example, created a website from scratch, brought it to a million visitors per day, started earning as much as you had never earned before, started investing in other sites, in stocks, in real estate, started traveling - and you get the thrill of SUCCESS. From the feeling that you have done something big, something great.
It seems to me (it SEEMES to me, this is just my opinion) that this kind of pleasure, the feeling of success, is much cooler than any strong feelings from films. Cooler than... orange juice.
They definitely teach something. Because you see different people there and how these people build relationships with each other. You observe different patterns of behavior.
The only question is what exactly do you want to learn. Do you want to learn how to make money? Do you want to learn how to be happy in a relationship?
Somehow I doubt that films can teach you this.
Moreover, films often lead astray.
Well, look at Harry Potter. Unhappy boy. Poor. Everyone offends him, mocks him. And then - hop, letter from Hogwarts. And everything changes immediately. It turns out he is a wizard. And not just a wizard, but a GREAT wizard. Remember, he and Hagrid go into Diagon Alley and everyone is like, “It’s Harry Potter!!!”
And he is not poor at all. Ronald Weasley is poor, and Harry, it turns out, has gold coins in the bank. A pile of gold coins.
Another character has a similar story, only the outcome is slightly different - he was bitten by a spider.
You see how simple it is. Someone gets a magic wand, someone gets bitten by spiders, and someone sits all day in front of the TV, watches it all and believes, and waits, and hopes.
But no letters come to him from Hogwarts. And the spiders don’t bite him either...
Well, for example, books. They are better, if only because you will put a little more effort into reading. You will at least follow the text with your eyes and draw everything in your head yourself. Instead of receiving something already prepared.
If reading books is so hard for you, start with something easy. For example, here is my selection of books about vampires - those that I myself have read and am still reading. When you read these books, it’s like watching a movie.
The second option is courses on Internet professions. Programming, design, marketing. There are a lot of free courses on the Internet, they are all very interesting and can seriously change your life - with their help you will learn a new profession and start earning more.
The third option is languages. Here is my article on how to learn German. And here is an article by our author about quickly learning English.
Something like this. Give it a try.
Dear readers, we talked about whether it’s worth watching films. Please express your opinion whether you personally watch films and if so, how often.
Do you think it’s really worth watching movies or is it better to spend time on something more useful?