Images of ourselves formed the real walls of our lives. The tyranny of the lens shored its fragments against us, an infinity of recorded selves that shut out the world beyond.
– J.G. Ballard, The Kindness of Women

Are you content with your life the way it is, or do you want to break out of this life in favour of something different?

This is the fundamental moral dilemma at the heart of cinema. Like the adverts that open it, the big screen always carries the promise of something else, if not something better – it is a desire machine. Films, with their glittering stars and their enthralling imitation of life, have captivated audiences and even shown us how we could live.

But films, which have so enhanced our lives, also offer an all too easy escape from the real world and its responsibilities – they separate us from reality so that we don’t notice life.

However, with a massive drop in cinema viewing figures since cinema’s ‘golden age’, it would appear that the silver screen has lost some of its legendary power. In fact, the modern explosion of technology has shattered the big screen into millions of smaller screens, where we can encounter the shrapnel of culture – all bits and clips.

With their contemporary ubiquitousness, is it possible that screens, which once offered us a thrilling vision of life, now present a barrier to it? Have we morphed from citizens, into an audience?

These are the ideas author and film critic David Thomson explores in his book, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies and What They Did to Us, which tells the enthralling story of the movies and how they have shaped us.

In this talk, David Thomson, who has been described as 'one of film’s greatest living experts', discusses these ideas, and looks at cinema through the lens of history, technology, communication and our relationship with reality.

During his visit to Watershed, David picked four of his top most influential films - Kiss Me Deadly, Breathless, The Truman Show, and Blue Velvet - for Big Screen Sunday Brunches which took place at Watershed in October 2012.

Author of more than 20 books, David Thomson is a film critic, author, and historian who writes a film column for The New Republic.

A Festival of Ideas event in partnership with Watershed.

Posted on Wed 3 Oct 2012.

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