Why Do We Watch Movies?

"Why do we watch movies? No, really, why is it? As close an answer as we’ve ever come to for our own, fairly evident obsession with what we consider the greatest storytelling medium humankind has ever developed, is well, that life is short. Bear with us a second on this: basically to submerge yourself in a story well-told is a way to live out other lives within your own, and through those complex and magical processes of identification, to breathe and dream and feel things that your own short span might otherwise never afford you. Of course for many movies that experience, of killing a mutant robot or whatever, may have evaporated before you’ve picked the last of the popcorn husks from between your teeth. But occasionally, very rarely, we experience the cinema not of escape but of exploration in which the discoveries you make stay with you and become knitted into the fabric of your memory as surely as if you’d really been there, really done that."

oleh Jessica Kiang dalam review film Blue is the Warmest Color (memenangkan Palme d'Or di Festival Film Cannes 2013) yang dimuat di blog film The Playlist dan kemudian saya amini dengan sepenuh hati. 

Life is Words Away

 "Adjectives are frequently the greatest enemy of the substantive."

(Voltaire)

 

They call you heartless; 

but you have a heart, 

and I love you for being ashamed to show it.

Sam's 'I Believe' Statement

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen-I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn’t even know that I’m alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn’t done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what’s going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, a baby’s right to live, that while all human life is sacred there’s nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you’re alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

(American Gods, Neil Gaiman)

Wake Up

"We've got to regain knowledge again,

and we've got to regain an understanding again, of who we are.

Not just those chosen to fuel systems,

but individuals who have power to criticize and analyze,

and attack injustice when it becomes prevalent and apparent in front of our faces like it is in ours right now.

We've been all put to sleep.

Put to sleep to a system.

A system that continues to perpetrate ignorance amongst our spirits and amongst our minds.

One that wants you not to act.

A system that would rather see all of you at that bar drinking beer filling your minds being put to sleep with beer or with drugs, rather than acting against it and fighting a system which has been perpetrating imperialist lies and other fucking bullshit for five hundred years.

So fucking drink up or fucking wake up.

You're part of the solution or you're part of the fucking problem.

I am sick and tired of my own complacence in my life and I know I'm fucking sick of yours.

So wake up and stop fucking sleeping.

Wake up!"

(Zach De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine)

educationism

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

(Mark Twain)

Hmm sekolah. Awalnya tidak pernah sekalipun saya merasa telah menjadi murid yang sukses di setiap jenjang pendidikan yang saya ikuti. Berkaitan dengan hal akademis saya adalah peserta didik yang cenderung biasa-biasa saja, tidak terlalu menonjol, tidak juga bodo-bodo amat. Ada keinginan terpendam untuk bisa meraih peringkat pertama di kelas, tapi ya itu tadi, terpendam, saya bahkan tidak ingat pernah berusaha menggali yang terpendam itu. 

Namun seiring waktu, saya justru merasa beruntung dan bahagia. Karena setiap keriangan, kesenangan, kenaifan, kenakalan, kegilaan, serta kebebasan masa sekolah saya tidak tergerus oleh iklim kompetisi yang tercipta di balik tembok-tembok itu, suatu iklim yang hanya mampu menggolongkan kami, sebagai populasi kelas, ke dalam dua jenis saja, yakni si pintar dan si bodoh. Iklim yang mencekoki otak kami untuk selalu menjadi yang terbaik tapi bukan untuk selalu melakukan sesuatu dengan sebaik mungkin. Entahlah, saya selalu merasa bahwa mesin pendidikan kita memang telalu abai terhadap kehendak bebas individu, suatu modal untuk dapat memanusiakan manusia, namun lebih menekankan pada nilai konkret di atas kertas. Saya memang tidak pernah percaya dengan sistem pendidikan. 

Saya percaya bahwa setiap manusia itu berbeda-beda dan memiliki potensi serta pesonanya masing-masing. Bolehlah dikatakan bahwa saya melancarkan tuduhan yang tendensius terhadap dunia pendidikan, tapi kalau bukan karenanya, siapa lagi yang layak dikambinghitamkan untuk kondisi tanah airku Indonesia ini yang katanya SDM-nya mandek, miskin kreatifitas dam imajinasi, serta pembebek pemalas sejati? Hmm marilah kita melongok keluar jendela dan lihat wajah-wajah manusia Indonesia yang berbhineka itu. Merdeka?

"Di muka bumi ini tidak ada satu pun yang menimpa orang-orang berdosa separah sekolah. Sekolah adalah penjara. Tapi dalam beberapa hal sekolah lebih kejam ketimbang penjara. Di penjara, misalnya, Anda tidak dipaksa membeli dan membaca buku-buku karangan para sipir atau kepala penjara."

 (Bernard Shaw) 

"Pendidikan berhasil kalau orang menjadi senang mempergunakan otaknya."

(Jacques Barzun)  

"Setiap bocah adalah seniman. Masalahnya tinggal cara mempertahankan agar ia tetap artis ketika sudah menjadi dewasa."

(Pablo Picasso)

"Manakala kerja merupakan kesenangan, hidup merupakan kegembiraan. Manakala kerja merupakan kewajiban, hidup merupakan perbudakan." 

(Maxim Gorky) 

"Anak-anak masuk sekolah sebagai tanda tanya, keluar sekolah sebagai tanda titik."

(Neil Postman)  

"Kesalahan terbesar sekolah ialah mencoba mengajarkan segala hal kepada anak-anak dan menggunakan rasa takut sebagai motivasi dasarnya."

(Stanley Kubrick)  

"Mengambil langkah baru, mengutarakan kata baru adalah yang paling ditakuti orang."

(Fyodor Dostoyevski)  

"Yang pertama harus dipahami seorang anak agar berdisiplin tetapi aktif adalah mampu membedakan antara baik dan buruk dan tugas pendidik ialah berusaha agar anak jangan mendapat gagasan rancu bahwa baik itu sama dengan diam saja dan buruk itu sama dengan aktif bergerak."

(Maria Montessori)

 "Hanya dalam situasi pendidikan yang dialogislah orang akan tetap dapat mengikuti perubahan zaman."

(R.S. Peters) 

"Sekolah mesti dinilai berdasarkan kebahagiaan murid-muridnya, bukan berdasarkan kesuksesan akademisnya."

(A.S. Neill)  

"Humor adalah salah satu sedekah yang paling murah, tetapi malangnya humor nyaris dihapus sama sekali dari sistem pendidikan anak."

(A.S. Neill) 

"Pendidikan yang memandang orang sebagai objek hanya akan menghasilkan sifat manusia yang disebut necrophily (cinta benda mati), dan tidak menumbuhkan sifat biophily (cinta kehidupan)."

(Erich Fromm)  

 "Secara mutlak menganggap bodoh orang lain berarti mengingkari pengetahuan sebagai proses pencarian."

(Paulo Freire) 

"Sungguh baik untuk memiliki hal-hal yang bisa dibeli dengan uang, tetapi sungguh baik pula untuk sekali-kali memeriksa dan meyakinkan diri kita , bahwa kita tidak kehilangan hal-hal yang tidak bisa dibeli dengan uang."

(George Horace Lorimer)  

"Pada abad kedelapan belas suatu tanda bahwa seorang itu 'gentlemen' kalau orang itu memilih mencari kesenangan dalam sastra, film dan musik. Kita dewasa ini mungkin tidak setuju tetapi setidak-tidaknya selera itu tulus."

(Bertrand Russel) 

 "Kita tidak mengarah kepada individualitas yang lebih besar melainkan kepada suatu kebudayaan massal yang dimanipulasi."

(Erich Fromm) 

"Pada masa kanak-kanakku, aku jadi seragam, buku pelajaran sangat kejam, aku tidak boleh menguap di kelas, aku harus duduk menghadap papan di depan, sebelum bel tidak boleh mengantuk."

(Wiji Thukul, Kenangan Anak-Anak Seragam)  

 "Sebagian besar guru membuang-buang waktu mereka dengan mengajukan pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang tujuannya adalah untuk menemukan apa yang tidak diketahui seorang murid, sementara seni sejati mengajukan pertanyaan mempunyai maksud untuk mengungkapkan apa yang diketahui murid atau apa yang mampu diketahuinya."

(Albert Einstein) 

"Tujuan pendidikan haruslah untuk melatih individu-individu yang mampu bertindak dan berpikir secara mandiri dan juga menjadi orang-orang yang memandang pencapaian tertinggi dalam hidupnya adalah melayani masyarakat."

(Albert Einstein) 

"Manusia pada dasarnya mahluk belajar dan senang belajar, kita tidak perlu ditunjukkan bagaimana cara belajar. Yang membunuh kesenangan belajar adalah orang-orang yang berusaha menyelak, mengatur, atau mengontrolnya."

(John Caldwell Holt) 

*kutipan-kutipan di atas diperoleh dari berbagai sumber.

Lance: If you're all right, say something. Mia: Something.

"I'm going to paraphrase Thoreau here...

rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth."

(Into The Wild)

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvet is?
Narrator: It's a comforter...
Taylor Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?  
Narrator: ...Consumers?
Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Taylor Durden: Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns.

 

Andy Dufresne: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?
Red: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here.
Andy Dufresne: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.
Red: Forget?
Andy Dufresne: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours.
Red: What're you talking about?
Andy Dufresne: Hope.

Jesse: This friend of mine had a kid, and it was a home birth, so he was there helping out and everything. And he said at that profound moment of birth, he was watching this child, experiencing life for the first time, I mean, trying to take its first breath... all he could think about was that he was looking at something that was gonna die someday. He just couldn't get it out of his head. And I think that's so true, I mean, all - everything is so finite. But don't you think that that's what, makes our time, at specific moments, so important?
Celine: Yeah, I know. It's the same for us, tonight, though. After tomorrow morning, we're probably never going to see each other again, right? We, maybe we should try something different. I mean, it's no so bad if tonight is our only night, right? People always exchange phone numbers, addresses, they end up writing once, calling each other once or twice...
Jesse: Right. Fizzles out. Yeah, I mean, I don't want that. I hate that.
Celine: I hate that too, y'know.
Jesse: Why do you think everybody thinks relationships are supposed to last forever anyway?
Celine: Yeah, why. It's stupid.

&

Celine: You know, I've been wondering lately. Do you know anyone who's in a happy relationship?
Jesse: Uh, yeah, sure. I know happy couples. But I think they lie to each other.
Celine: Hmf. Yeah. People can lead their life as a lie. My grandmother, she was married to this man, and I always thought she had a very simple, uncomplicated love life. But she just confessed to me that she spent her whole life dreaming about another man she was always in love with. She just accepted her fate. It's so sad.
Jesse: I guarantee you, it was better that way. If she'd ever got to know him, I'm sure he would have disappointed her eventually.
Celine: How do you know? You don't know them.
Jesse: Yeah, I know, I know. It's just, people have these romantic projections they put on everything. That's not based on any kind of reality.

Ron: I'm going to miss you when you go.
Chris: I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.
Ron: Yeah. I am going to take stock of that. You know I am. I want to tell you something. From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad... And I know you have problems with the church too... But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don't mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love, God's light shines through you.
Chris: Holy shit!

John Keating: They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

&

John Keating: We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that. 

Dwayne: You know what? Fuck beauty contests. Life is one fucking beauty contest after another. You know, school, then college, then work, fuck that. And fuck the air force academy. If I wanna fly, I'll find a way to fly. You do what you love, and fuck the rest.  
Frank: I'm glad you're talking again, Dwayne. You're not nearly as stupid as you look.

Uncle Pete: I read this study the other day about, uh, people who are happiest with their lives. And, uh, the ones who have followed their passion, right, even if they weren't, you know, technically successful, right, when they were looking back at their life, they had fewer regrets.You know, they felt their life had been more fulfilling.

Amber:  Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.

Uncle Pete:  Yeah, it does. So, bottom line is, do not listen to me. Do not listen to your mother. Listen to yourself.I mean, if you wanna be like everybody else just do what everybody's telling you to do.

Amber: Hmm. And what about you? Are you doing what you always wanted to do?

Uncle Pete:  Well. if i jump back to when i was your age, no, i don't think i would be wildly impressed. But you know,I'm all right with what I'm doing. And you know, i'm really all right with what  i'm not doing.

Mia: Don't you hate that?  
Vincent: What?  
Mia: Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?
Vincent: I don't know. That's a good question. 
Mia: That's when you know you've found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute and comfortably enjoy the silence.

Cole Sear: [of his dead grandmother] She wanted me to tell you...  
Lynn Sear: Cole, please stop...
Cole Sear: She wanted me to tell you she saw you dance. She said, when you were little, you and her had a fight, right before your dance recital. You thought she didn't come see you dance. She did. She hid in the back so you wouldn't see. She said you were like an angel. She said you came to the place where they buried her. You asked her a question? She said the answer is... ”Every day." What did you ask?
Lynn Sear: Do... Do I make her proud?