Don't movies make you think. . . . .?

Tonight I spent most of the evening watching the movie The Patriot by myself, crying through much of it. Movies are so intense sometimes, and they make me think like nothing else does. It's such an interesting concept: to stop your life for an hour or more, and for that time, and be brought into the life of another person. You get to feel their feelings, experience their losses and gains, and be caught up in the drama and joy of someone else's life for a while. You get to experience an adventure, or a story, and let yourself be brought into it. If we don't let movies affect us, then what does that say about us as human beings? Maybe some would say that we are not brought sway by the clever tricks of Hollywood moviemakers, but I would say that if any movie doesn't make you think in some way or another, then maybe you have lost touch with what it means to be human: to feel, to rejoice, to feel sorrow.
For example, when I first saw Braveheart (amazing movie, by the way), I could not move from my chair for several minutes afterward, and then I was struck for quite a while, just thinking about what it means to fight for a cause. I love war movies like the Patriot or Braveheart or the Last Samurai. . . .I think that they say something so profound about the human spirit, and its unwillingness to be oppressed or crushed. Maybe those movies express something in us, that we haven't been willing to admit to ourselves: that we long to be a part of something greater. Maybe we wish we could fight like William Wallace, and actually do something about the injustice in this world. If only. . . . .
Another movie that really got me thinking was The Truman Show. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a powerful movie. . . .about a guy name Truman Burbank (played by Jim Carrey, who is phenomenal) who lives in a world that is constructed all around him, this huge "bubble" that all of the people and everything are made to contrive a false reality that he lives in, and then they observe him in this false reality for the sake of a worldwide television program. That movie is the kind that makes you think about how things really are. Do we ever really question the reality in which we live? Do we ever wonder if there's more? Truman, throughout the movie, wants to be an explorer, but the "world" he lives in keeps holding him back in any way possible, but he just can't give up his dream that there's something so much bigger out there that he wants to discover. Do we let the "world" that we live in contain us and define us? Or do we ever even try to search for something more?
Other good thinking movies that I highly recommend are: Dead Poets' Society, Good Will Hunting, Forrest Gump, Life is Beautiful, and the Shawshank Redemption. They are all great examples of how movies still can be great art, in my opinion. And they each tell an amazing story of human life.
Recently, one movie that really drove me to thinking was the modern-day version of Romeo and Juliet, with Claire Danes and Leonardo Dicaprio. At the end of a tragedy like that, it can drive you to do two things: become very angry at the way that their attempt of love ended, or it could make you think about the human condition in which we live. Why is it that tragedy speaks volumes louder to us than "happy endings"? What is it that's so powerful in the loss of life, where "from the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-crossed lovers take their life," did this hatred breed love, but did the hatred triumph? Or what actually triumphed? The story of love that caused the hatred to cease? And also, how many of us actually dare to love as powerfully as that? I have had a few select friends in my life, that I loved them so much, I didn't know what to do with myself. Do we ever dare to love that deeply, that passionately, even in friendships or family relationships? Or are we nicely cautious when it comes to love, because we aren't willing to risk? A wise mentor of mine once said: "If you never dare to love deeply, you will never feel deep pain, but you will also never feel deep joy." Think about it.
Whoever dares to read this, thank you for letting me think out loud. . . . . . . .