The end of the year brings one of my favorite things–the annual filmography videos mashing together clips from movies released in the last year. Once again, Gen Ip created my favorite retrospective that I’ve seen this year (2013 below, watch 2011 here).
I’ve been thinking a lot about movies this year, likely because I read at least 5 books about storytelling, including the massive book Story by Robert McKee. You can learn a lot about life through studying the elements of good storytelling. Every great film, no matter how different the subject matter, from a cowboy with aids in Dallas Buyers Club to an astronaut who is afraid to let go in Gravity, contains one core element–change.
The topic of change fascinates me. I don’t think there is a greater desire in a movie-going audience than to see someone transform themselves (generally into something better), mostly because we want to believe it’s possible for us. Dostoyevsky put it well when he said, “taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most.”