By San Francisco Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle.
When I was about nineteen or twenty, I saw an important critic on a talk show — I have no idea who this guy was — but something he said I’ve remembered ever since. He said, “Great art by definition changes your life. If you see Chaplin’s CITY LIGHTS, you’re a different person than before you saw it. It won’t necessarily make a huge change, but you’ll be changed. You’ll always have it with you.”
I think this is true. But I also think that OK, pretty good, good and very good has the CAPACITY to change us, if we happen to catch it at precisely the time it’s most likely to speak to us. That’s why the other day I asked you to tell me some of the movies that changed your life. Here they are in the above gallery, along with some of mine.
And keep them coming. Sky’s the limit.
I have a feeling that we are all, in a sense, self-programming computers, finding in our environment the things we need to become what we were always going to be. And so the movie that speaks to you, which seems random, is something you find because you’re looking for the elements that that movie (or play, or book) has.
Anyway, take a look and add your stories below.
See more posts from Mick LaSalle here
