It's a Thursday afternoon here at the University of New Hampshire.
The time is 12:13pm. As I sit here at the school's library so
helplessly cramming for an exam I will probably forget two months down
the road, I am choosing to pause from my studies, and reflect on some
films that have gotten me to where I am today.
I wouldn't have
my tagline for my site say "Films are a way of life..." for no reason.
It doesn't just mean that I am obsessed with films and like to write
reviews on them. While that is very true, the underlying layer of those
six simple words metaphorically depends on the decisions that occur
through an ordinary day. For example, I can't help but notice the
similarities between a group of students that are sitting two tables
away from me rambling on about nothing and those from The Breakfast Club. I can't help but notice the raw dryness of one of my professors who is a better sleeping medication than Ben Stein from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I
can't help but wait for the weekend and experience the sites on campus
by walking through frat row and seeing my peers desperately try to
reenact John Belushi's brilliant comedy in Animal House (However, these frats fail on every level). I can't help but look at the sunset slowly degrade into the night. Will it be times of despair like the sunset in Training Day? Or will it echo the beauty of Peter Jackson's sunset in King Kong?
Using
the elements here can create a film for your own life. Do you ever
wonder what your title would be? I would probably have mine be www.caseylamarca.com to
play if safe. However, I usually have a different title everyday
depending on the psychographic mindset I am in. Today, I'm feeling a
bit underrated, so I will now discuss about an underrated film.
If you know me at all or have read my site, one of my favorite films as of this moment is The Fountain, a
perfect example of a passionate filmmaker being stripped away from
greatness because critics and audiences are afraid to look deep inside
this shadow of heavenly phantasm. Why did this film only receive a 50%
rating on RottenTomatoes.com and only gross $15 million worldwide? It's
quite simple really. When studios take away half your budget and delay
you four years, things start to look messy. The film's buzz dissipates
along with two huge stars. Originally cast was Brad Pitt and Cate
Blanchett with Aronofsky receiving a $70 million budget. Instead of
being filmed in 2002, it was released in 2006, with Hugh Jackman and
Rachel Weisz set to star in the final budgeted film of $35 million.
Now
most directors would give up and move on to the next project, but
Aronofsky fought through the hard times and mishaps and waited six long
years for his baby to final come to life. And still, after all of this,
it was one of the best films of 2006 (no matter what people say) and
will soon be analyzed in future classrooms as a masterpiece of artistic
beauty.
Now that we know what the movie is really
about, we can look at the deeper aspects of Aronofsky's vision. The
film is about accepting death and realizing that living forever as a
mortal is not the key to eternal happiness. If you have the ability to
look past death as the end of your life, then it is possible to grasp
where humans might go to next. It may be heaven, hell, purgatory, or
any religious destination if you have certain beliefs, but it can also
be your own personal journey. You can create what happens after you die
based off the life that you truly live. Some things go far beyond doing
good deeds and getting to work on time. The film's tagline "What if you
could live forever?" intertwines the aspects of mortality and the
afterlife.
So now as I wrap up this column with just
a few minutes before my exam, I may regret not studying causing a
B-grade instead of an A, I may look back and think if I just looked at
the chapter one more time I would do great, but feeling underrated
won't be changed by what Ben Stein writes on my exam. Instead, like
Aronofsky, I stuck with my passion and wrote on this page.
