Movies That Helped You Understand People More

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I was reading an interview with Roger Ebert who said about "Nashville"

"after I saw it I felt more alive, I felt I understood more about people, I felt somehow wiser. It's that good a movie."

You might even be able to split them into "Yes, it helped me understand, but the movie is bad" and hopefully both.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
Wow, great thread idea.

This is a loaded question, so I need to wait until I'm in the mood for writing a long, detailed response. (Just like with the 10 Best Directors thread, though that one also requires some thinking and elimination, whereas I more or less know the movies here and it's articulating why that'd take most time),
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.



matt72582's Avatar
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Wow, great thread idea.

This is a loaded question, so I need to wait until I'm in the mood for writing a long, detailed response. (Just like with the 10 Best Directors thread, though that one also requires some thinking and elimination, whereas I more or less know the movies here and it's articulating why that'd take most time),

Thank you (for both)


Hopefully, the movies that help one understand people the most is a great movie, but there might be some that aren't good movies.



The answers should be obvious.

The Wages of Fear
Porky's



Gummo is the first that comes to mind. It's both a delicate and brutal portrait of the people who live on the margins of society. Which of course immediately was greeted with complaints of exploitation, which on a surface level is maybe understandable, but is completely off base the more one familiarizes oneself with it.


I sometimes feel I can cry with love when I think of some of the people in this film, even though it never disguises their ugly moments or pretends not to acknowledge the absurdity of their living situation.



Fisher King

Toy Story 3
The Mist
Blood Simple



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
I'm still not sure if the films of Yoji Yamada helped me understand people better or simply strengthened the understanding of humans that I already had, but there's no doubt that he is the director. And if there is the movie, then it's My Sons.



When I first watched My Sons in 2019, I was all over the love story, not only because I was still on a long heartbreak but also because Yamada's skill at portraying romance is unmatched. And I'm a sucker for romance. I did understand and love the Tokyo Story-inspired working-class & generational themes. Still, I saw them merely as a supplement to the romance. On my first watch, I was extremely taken in by all the twists and surprises in the love story. And how it blended so well with the generational theme.

When I rewatched My Sons in 2020, I got even more out of it. The generational theme I had seen merely as a side story felt like the main story this time, with the love story taking the back ride. Not that I didn't love the love story anymore. Quite the contrary, I loved it even more. I cried like a baby, just like the first time. But I also cried because of the father's story. A lot. And I think I noticed and understood more that time. I noticed that one-shot take when Tetsuo learns about Seiko and how the sun radiates his face after he leaves the warehouse. I noticed that the ending is the very reason for the dad's adamant decision to never leave his house. And I saw my mom in the dad character. Because my mom actually said she wants to die in the apartment where I grew up, in the town where she spent her entire life.



My third watch of My Sons was this year. There were some more things I got out of it. Some things I saw differently, but most of the things I found moving and beautiful ever since I watched it for the first time still felt all that. I might've cried the most on my third watch out of all three watches. The love story hit as hard as always. I guess I overestimate how important "personal" is, while what really counts is one's sensitivity. And your sensitivity is always the main factor and always will be, regardless of your experiences. [Kinoshita's Sincere Heart is the ultimate proof of that for me.] But "personal" always makes things even better, even dearer to one's heart. This time around, I, too, saw my mom in the dad character. But not just my mom. I also saw myself. Particularly in the ending, in which Rentaro Mikuni's character returns to an empty, cold, desolate house after he failed to make any of his children come back with him. The generational divide rings heavy in this scene. But there's more to it than just that. There's a personal reason for the dad's love for the old house. After he returns, the dark is illuminated by a radiating light, and the dad sees his family, his parents, who are presumably long dead, his wife, who also died, and his children, once but little kids, now adults with little free time and their own lives to think about. And that's where I saw myself. How in just three years, I lost my grandpa, grandma, and mom, year after year. And how from time to time, I come to the empty, cold house that once thrived, was so full of life, now nothing but silence.

And I wonder if my future rewatches of My Sons will uncover something new to me. I wonder if I'll ever find a girl who stays with me. I wonder if I'll ever have children. I wonder if I'll ever stay in my beloved apartment full of memories while my children leave it to lead their own lives. I wonder if there's still something in life for me other than thousands of movies. Perhaps not. Perhaps none of my dreams will ever come true.



All I know is Yoji Yamada knows life. He shows true life on the screen. He doesn't pretend to show "true" life. He's not one of those festival directors who make "realistic" movies. No, his movies are the most real it gets. His movies are life itself. Yes, they're cinematic. Sure, they're sentimental. But so are memories. So are our lives when we look back at them after years. Yamada's films are the perfect embodiment of memories to me. It's not just that you draw similarities between the characters on the screen and your own life. It's also about how the characters on the screen feel like real people. Not just like you, your family, and your friends. But like actual human beings seen through a humble, warm mantle of Yamada's cinematic language. Simple but so full of details. Drawn with a humanistic touch and so much love. Yes, Yamada loves his characters. And so do I.

And I don't think American cinema is capable of ever making films like that. Hell, most Japanese directors aren't. And the rest is not very keen on doing so anyway. That's because, in my opinion, they lack sincerity. They lack singularity in their vision. Just imagine Shindo's Naked Island made in the USA. They'd talk a lot. They would introduce a lot of subplots to make things louder and "more interesting". They'd ruin it in every and which way. Don't get me wrong. I like American cinema. But it almost never hits close to my heart. And on those rare occasions, it does, it seems to be with movies that are never seen on any best-of lists from critics, who, too, seem to be too high up in their analytical, intellectual approach. As a matter of fact, most critics focus on understanding so much they entirely miss feeling and, by extension, understanding. And so do so many American screenwriters - so capable of throwing in a little easter egg, so masterful at making the dialogue pitch-perfect, but so inept at showing life the way it is.



Yamada is 91 years old now. I wish him the best. I'd love him to make more movies, and apparently, he is! His newest will premiere this year! I can only hope he's another de Oliveira and brings us a few more masterpieces before he dies. But even if he never makes another movie, I'll still hold him in my personal pantheon of film directors (and screenwriters) - he might be the very best of all. Not because he was the best technically, though he was marvelous. Not because he was highly inventive, though I've never seen movies like his. But because he understood people like nobody else. And because he was never afraid to sprinkle his films with his understanding of Catholicism, good, family, love, life, and cinema.



Great thread idea and I'm very interested in hearing what people have to say.

I've been trying to come up with some movies that helped me understand people more. But I think what it comes down to is: people find truth in what they were already seeking or already primed to discover.

I could list some movies and they probably would be my favorite films...and then I could honestly say they taught me something about human nature. But really did they? Or did I just find the truth that I wanted to find in them?



It's hard not to give examples that helped me understand myself first and understand others second, but Crumb and Ghost World - both Terry Zwigoff movies, coincidentally - come to mind first, particularly people who have passionate interests that border on obsession and outsiders.



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It's hard not to give examples that helped me understand myself first and understand others second, but Crumb and Ghost World - both Terry Zwigoff movies, coincidentally - come to mind first, particularly people who have passionate interests that border on obsession and outsiders.

Can you (and everyone if you can) expound upon this? I've seen both movies, and it's been years, and I'm curious what everyone learned from each movie.



It's hard not to give examples that helped me understand myself first and understand others second, but Crumb and Ghost World - both Terry Zwigoff movies, coincidentally - come to mind first, particularly people who have passionate interests that border on obsession, outsiders and the bullied.

Understanding oneself is elemental to understanding others.



Can you (and everyone if you can) expound upon this? I've seen both movies, and it's been years, and I'm curious what everyone learned from each movie.
With Crumb, I was fascinated by all of the different ways one can form an obsession. While they're all with art in the documentary, I think it can be applied to anything that can form one. There's a lousy upbringing, a survival skill, mental illness, a means to connect with other people when there are not any other, better ways (this is what I think is happening between Robert and his son), or a combination of one or more of these. As for Ghost World, pretty much the same reasons, with perhaps its particular focus on the reasons of wanting to be understood and/or true to yourself.



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Nashville is such a great movie. How beautifully it portrayed the future dreams of the characters.



Not to detract from your topic, but theres a lot of brainwashing media out there that reels you in with something you like and slowly quietly sneaks in the tricks, training you to overstand what you shouldnt.

I was reading an interview with Roger Ebert who said about "Nashville"

"after I saw it I felt more alive, I felt I understood more about people, I felt somehow wiser. It's that good a movie."

You might even be able to split them into "Yes, it helped me understand, but the movie is bad" and hopefully both.
So, in my scenario the quote would be:

after I saw it I aquired a new subconcious fondness for green scarfs and now everyday a man in a green scarf says insulting things to me but I dont stand up for myself because this movie somehow brainwashed me to accept the abuse