What can be the best way for a second-hand experience of the world – real or even imaginative? Human beings are symbolic beings; we understand ourselves, our world, and their relationships through symbols, which opens the unimaginably broad possibilities of what we can experience and contemplate.
Storytelling through oral speech had been a dominant method of sharing experience and passing knowledge. Written languages widened the amount of transmission of symbols on a tremendous scale. At last, the time of direct transmission of visual/audio symbols had come.
By relying on a more direct way of communication, movies provide viewers with the immediate experience of the newly created world. But it comes with the price. Strong visual reception with the fast pace of the plot gives viewers a little time to consume the input. It comes in fast and goes out soon. Here is what I say good, bad, or just entertainment-only. Good movies linger in your memory for a long time with the residue, which will click a chain of thoughts with any trigger – not sure what it is or when it happens.
I like entertainment movies as well. They allow me to forget the daily complexities and emerge into the shadow world for a couple of hours with a nice snack and drink.
Movies and books are just different, and it is a great pleasure to have both of them. Everyday life is a continuing digest of the surrounding symbolic world. By interacting with other forms of the symbolic world, you can find a room to widen, rethink, and even escape your inner self.
Scriptorium 