Not that anyone would care but ... this is a good a read

Really old (circa 2005), but I just managed to dig this up today. Good stuff. Jim Emerson writes:

Warning: What you are about to read may thrill you, may shock you, it may even… horrify you.      

Here it is: Movies are not “real.” They’re movies -- images on a screen orchestrated to express ideas and emotions. They are not “reality” (even documentaries are carefully constructed fictions); they are representations, myths, metaphors. Don’t even try to take them literally. They are not made to be viewed that way, and to do so may be hazardous to your mental health.     

It’s silly how many moviegoers and critics insist upon making an artificial distinction between what is “real” and what is “unreal” in a movie – often at the expense of what the film itself is actually about. It’s as if, to them, the predominant idea behind any given picture boils down to nothing more than: Did It Really Happen Or Was It All In His/Her Head? Well, look at it this way: If it’s on the screen, it’s there for a reason – to convey something about character, story, theme. And that is all that matters.

I have being telling other people the above way too often. The silliness of my even having to say it sometimes bothers me. But people still go on and on about 'reality' and 'dreams' in films. Stop it. Stop it now! Come on everyone knows this.  The problem: they don't think about it.

Just saw Mulholland Dr. and thoughts along these lines have excited me again. As the cowboy says in the film: "did you really think about it or did you just give me the answer you thought I would like?" Can't wait to write more about this.

I shall leave you with a bit more from the above article (Ebert is a frequent offender btw):

In 1976, the ironic ending of "Taxi Driver" – in which Travis is hailed as a hero by the tabloid press and the grateful parents of Iris (Jodie Foster), the runaway teen prostitute – was hotly debated. Was this Travis’s wish-fulfillment fantasy? And what about that disconcerting final moment, where he glances in the rear-view mirror and then disappears again into the hellish neon blur of The City? Is this all some kind of fever dream?

“Is this a fantasy scene?,” wondered Roger Ebert, re-reviewing the film on its 20th annniversary. “Did Travis survive the shoot-out? Are we experiencing his dying thoughts? Can the sequence be accepted as literally true? I am not sure there can be an answer to these questions. The end sequence plays like music, not drama: It completes the story on an emotional, not a literal, level.”