The Quest On A Film
...it, but it seems that man is a storyteller by nature.
From ancient times to the present, mankind has had a hunger for great stories. Novels, poems, stage plays, films - spanning the whole spectrum from comedy to tragedy - all give evidence of, and serve to satisfy, this hunger.
Something powerful indeed must exist in these forms of entertainment that draws us to them time and time again. Over 2,300 years ago, in The Poetics, Aristotle identified that "something": All art, he says, is imitation of life. "It is natural for man to delight in works of imitation...the reason of the delight...is that one is at the same time learning - gathering the meaning of things."1
Fictional stories are one of the primary means by which man "imitates" the world around him. Through this imitation comes illumination - we may be entertained by the elements of fiction, imagination, or fantasy in a story, or any work of art, yet we also come away deeply satisfied if they ultimately provide insights into our real lives.
The uniquely modern form of storytelling is cinema. The invention of the motion picture camera over a century ago introduced vast new possibilities in the telling of stories. Annihilating the physical barriers of the stage, it was able to transport the audience seamlessly through time and space. In ways never before possible, reality could be simulated, and illusions of whole new worlds created. "[Film] is par excellence the art of an industrial civilization....[It] is more complex than any of the older arts, involving as it does, some of the techniques of all of them."2
Pictures, sound, and music all combine to provide a powerful experience for the audience sitting in the darkened theater. While this seems to provide immense opportunities for the telling of stories in ways never before possible, is there a down side to this art of the modern age?...
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