I've always been a devotee of Pixar movies, even if the first one I saw in an actual theater was A Bug's Life (which I still loved and think is completely underrated), missing the Toy Story phenomenon. I know that everyone has their own touchstones and relationships with various movies, but Pixar has produced more quality films than any studio or franchise I can think of, and even the shorts preceding their movies are worthy of the classic Disney/Looney Tunes ground-breaking cartoons.
Of course, the preceding paragraph is leading up to discussing their newest feature, Inside Out. It's intensely personal in many ways and touches on the memories that we live for, the ones we forget, the ones we wish we lived for, and those we wish we had forgotten. I know they, and Pete Docter in particular, are amazing at evoking emotion (see: first 10 minutes of Up! which I dare you not to tear up at), but this is an elongated version of a concept most of us don't deal with except in a therapist's office.
And it's a major motion picture, although of course the younger set won't really appreciate the emotional implications in terms of maturing and accepting sorrow and pain along with joy, learning to frame and reframe your life in a what, when, where, how, and why life when experience can't simply exist. It has to be incorporated, integrated, slept on, put to long term memory, rejected, or purposely forgotten. It really is a stylization of the workings of the human brain to keep a compromise of life as it is and life as you wish it to be. An interpretation of different perspectives from each facet of your experience; a thought that goes by in a flash, crossing so many emotions before it's stored permanently.
The most common criticism has been that it only has one positive emotion, Joy. The others, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sorrow accompany her. Maybe from my jaded view this is right, but as you age, I do believe that there are more negative emotions than positive. The challenge is to try to rise above it and embrace the positives when you can, knowing that there are more factors dragging you back.
Still, depicting one bright light that can lead you out of the darkness is a major achievement. There's the acknowledgement that there are times in your life when even that spark isn't there and you just have to go on regardless, until that active desire comes back into your life. You have to trust that it will occur if you hang on and then can somewhat repair the damage done from the negative emotions and move forward from that new spot.
To see that expressed in a movie, let alone a children's movie, is amazing to me, although given Pixar's record they go to places that other studios would never touch. And they should keep exploring new boundaries; they send messages to the world that are forbidden in mass media, but in the most insightful way possible. In summation, I bow again to the Pixar gurus who manage to translate the human condition to the screen for adults and children alike, although as they grow, the kids will really get it. That's what growing up is all about after all, grasping the reality we live with and learning to deal with it. We just hope at the end we're all forgiven and simpatico with the human condition.
Of course, the preceding paragraph is leading up to discussing their newest feature, Inside Out. It's intensely personal in many ways and touches on the memories that we live for, the ones we forget, the ones we wish we lived for, and those we wish we had forgotten. I know they, and Pete Docter in particular, are amazing at evoking emotion (see: first 10 minutes of Up! which I dare you not to tear up at), but this is an elongated version of a concept most of us don't deal with except in a therapist's office.
And it's a major motion picture, although of course the younger set won't really appreciate the emotional implications in terms of maturing and accepting sorrow and pain along with joy, learning to frame and reframe your life in a what, when, where, how, and why life when experience can't simply exist. It has to be incorporated, integrated, slept on, put to long term memory, rejected, or purposely forgotten. It really is a stylization of the workings of the human brain to keep a compromise of life as it is and life as you wish it to be. An interpretation of different perspectives from each facet of your experience; a thought that goes by in a flash, crossing so many emotions before it's stored permanently.
The most common criticism has been that it only has one positive emotion, Joy. The others, Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sorrow accompany her. Maybe from my jaded view this is right, but as you age, I do believe that there are more negative emotions than positive. The challenge is to try to rise above it and embrace the positives when you can, knowing that there are more factors dragging you back.
Still, depicting one bright light that can lead you out of the darkness is a major achievement. There's the acknowledgement that there are times in your life when even that spark isn't there and you just have to go on regardless, until that active desire comes back into your life. You have to trust that it will occur if you hang on and then can somewhat repair the damage done from the negative emotions and move forward from that new spot.
To see that expressed in a movie, let alone a children's movie, is amazing to me, although given Pixar's record they go to places that other studios would never touch. And they should keep exploring new boundaries; they send messages to the world that are forbidden in mass media, but in the most insightful way possible. In summation, I bow again to the Pixar gurus who manage to translate the human condition to the screen for adults and children alike, although as they grow, the kids will really get it. That's what growing up is all about after all, grasping the reality we live with and learning to deal with it. We just hope at the end we're all forgiven and simpatico with the human condition.
posted by AnonymousX at 10:54 PM
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