It all started with an obsession for James Bond films a couple of years ago.
After seeing
The Living Daylights on TV, I wanted to check out all the Bond films. My father had the whole box, so I watched two Bond films every evening with my sister.
I fell in love with the older Connery films, mainly because the look of those older Bond movies was so stylish and in a certain way nostalgic to me. They gave me a certain satisfaction that no modern films ever could (I hadn't watched many good films yet, of course).
It made me realise that I could also get this nostalgic satisfaction from other films.
I started to look on the internet for an older film to start my exploration of the huge treasure of classic cinema and I came across the title
Casablanca. Of course I'd heard from that film already, but I never knew what it was about or anything like that.
I went to my father's DVD collection, found it and watched it one night.
From the moment I saw Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine, sitting in the exclusive gambling area of his own bar playing chess, I was completely sold. This was the single coolest (film) image I'd ever seen in my entire life.
I spent 102 minutes in the exotic and romantic city of
Casablanca that night and I was BLOWN AWAY.
The next day I showed it to my sister, because I was so extremely excited about what I discovered, and she also liked it.
Since then, I think I've seen it maybe 20 or 30 times already. It is to date my favorite film of all time.
Anyway, Humphrey Bogart instantly became my new hero and while reading about him and about classic films, I decided to watch every movie that seemed worthwile to me, hoping to find a similar experience as I had when watching
Casablanca.
I can happily say that films like
Chinatown,
City Lights or
Brazil (and dozens of other favorites) offered me similar satisfying experiences. Cinema has become an important part of my life, as I'm now constantly looking for new interesting films and directors to discover.
It has changed my life so much that I constantly want to read and talk about it. My friends really thought I was going nuts in the beginning (oh well, that's perhaps a little exaggerated). Whenever I was getting too drunk or too high, I unwittingly started talking about films to everyone, even to girls I was with at parties. I apparently wanted to share my new discovery with mankind!
I'm glad to see that some of my friends are also getting more interested in some real quality films lately.
Oh well, enough chatter. You all get the point, otherwise you wouldn't be here.