Have you ever watched a film on video in the privacy of your own home? Of course you have. Maybe you rented or bought one. Perhaps a friend lent you one or you taped it off the TV. Whatever, you have surely seen one. Have you ever seen the same film twice? Perhaps the picture was so good that you watched it again. Did anything change in the film the second time you watched it? Well, of course the second time you may have noticed more detail, but did the film itself actually change? Is it possible for it to change? Hmmm....

Let's examine the process and see what is happening here. First of all, to enjoy a film we really have to become believers. We have to believe that what we are seeing is actually occurring in the present, that is, at the same moment we are watching it. Otherwise, how could we identify with the action? And this is what we do; we identify with the characters. If we are male, perhaps we identify with the strong, handsome, sometimes moral hero, whom we wish we were, and, for example, whom we hope will, among other things, get to go to bed with the leading female protagonist, or at least kiss her before the end of the picture, and vice versa if we are females watching the same film.

We really have to identify with these characters. If not, there is really no way to enjoy the film in the way we wish to enjoy it. Because how can we possibly enjoy the film, unless we make some sort of semi-conscious decision to fall asleep to the fact that what we are watching is not happening at the moment as we are watching it, but is in fact something that actually took place on a Hollywood studio lot or sound stage, maybe six months ago, or perhaps six years ago, or maybe even sixty years ago.

We genuinely have to suspend judgement as we turn into believers if we are in any way to enjoy a film. How can we possibly keep in our consciousness the fact that what we are watching is really a series of photographic stills, what are called in the trade individual "frames", speeded up to run, say at thirty-two frames per second passing through a very high wattage bulb and projected onto a blank screen, and thus giving us the impression of movement through time and space, and enjoy the film at the same time?

Try being conscious of this reality and at the same time really "getting into" a motion picture. A film demands that we acquiesce to place ourselves in a form of sleep-state, so as to be able to experience something, something which we oft times use to escape from another and
different reality we might be having problems with accepting.

So, even if we watch a film a hundred times, having had the experience of taking apart a reel of film and having examined the individual frames, and seen that they are immutably fixed, there is no way that the film can change in any way. There is however one thing that can be changed, which will affect the film. Something in us, the watcher of the film, can change, which will cause the film itself to be seen differently, from a different point of view. We are able to change our attitude about what we are seeing. We can change our reaction to what we see. We can change our own overall state. This is the only way we might be able to have some effect on the film and cause change. The film itself cannot change. Only something in us can change.

I recall once, after having worked as an extra in a large Hollywood production, and then being unable to enjoy films for about the next five years. What I would see on the screen was just so unreal after this. People I would be with, while watching a film, would be "emoting" all around me, while poor me would be forced into seeing not the action I was supposed to be believing in, but all I would be seeing was how it was all done with stuntmen, mirrors and phoney backdrops. I just couldn't believe anymore.

Some people see parallels to all this and our lives as labyrinth voyagers. Go figure...

If you enjoyed "An Evening At the Pics", you'll be wild about An Evening At the Pics, Part II.