Which movies changed your point of view (a bit)

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"How tall is King Kong ?"
Our worldviews are shaped by fictions more than by realities we barely have any access to (even in our own lives, we only grasp a fraction of the components of whatever impacts us, and we extrapolate the rest). And a frightening proportion of our "knowledge" of the world is actually inherited by tales, movies, novels, sensationalist "documentaries". What we know of past epochs, what we know of life in countries or cultures where we've never set foot, or only experienced as meteoric tourists (with our interpretations already shaped by fictions). And most of it happens without us realizing it, it's just culture. Socialization. "Common sense", "common knowledge", etc. Okay, this existential fright isn't when I meant to discuss here.

My question is, when did a movie (fiction or documentary) managed to consciously alter our worldview. Made us look at some aspects of life in a novel way. Made us consciously "learn" something that changed our perceptions, our behaviors, our attitudes (maybe even our votes) ? Our sensitivities about a certain matter ?

Is is a movie about gender identity, or a movie about exile ? A dystopia about ecology or political violence ? A movie about appearances, illusions, and mob mentality ? Or about the complexities and familiarity of a remote place that we used to imagine in a simplified, folkloric way ? A revisionist take on historical clichés ? A switch of perspective on some notorious event, or on some more intimate situations ?

And did you go "oh, wait" immediately, or did you realize only years afterwards that you owed a certain outlook to a certain story ?

Did you ever feel that a movie's message did really accomplished its mission of influencing you ?



Not that I can think of, but there have been lots of examples of films (and TV shows, which aren't the topic but which I imagine you'd probably still want to hear about?) buttressing, focusing, or enhancing existing beliefs. Most of the time it's about valuing something a little more, or thinking about it a bit more, in a way that then leads to insights or new thoughts. I'm not sure there's ever been anything like a 180 (and I think unless you're pretty young it'd kind of be an ideological red flag if there was), but there's been a lot of seed-planting that's led to further thought which itself has led to a shifting of priorities or emphasis.



A system of cells interlinked
The documentary Borderless.
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“It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.” ― Thomas Sowell



(Yes, I actually had Terry Jones' "Medieval Lives" as one example in mind.)
Don't know that one.

The TV show I had in mind just now was The Young Pope, though. There's some really great, insightful stuff there, particularly in one long dialogue midway through the season (the first season, I say, even though the second season gives the show a different title entirely so it's a little redundant). Won't say too much more, cuz spoilers, but that's the most significant and recent example that comes to mind.



The Truman Show (1998)


Since viewing the film my worldview has been changed in a literal sense.



I don’t know, I have been watching so many movies since I was so young that it’s hard to keep track/have an objective view. I definitely have a few counter-examples, such as understanding quite quickly that Gone with the Wind and the like offer a bizarrely warped view of relationships whereby people care about love, well, let’s say, disproportionately. I’m a very cold hearted person, I guess, but even so, I think that’s a very misleading worldview to put forward.

I’ve been struggling with this ‘classical’ perspective for almost a decade as I can’t help but feel that most people just don’t care so much. Though my best friend is an exception.

I do remember that my worldview changed when I was about 12-ish and I watched GWTW and Wuthering Heights (which I love on a narrative level) and thought, God, I don’t want to be like that, I want to have better things to do than this ****. I became very disillusioned about all this for some reason I can’t put my finger on.

Another one is A Beautiful Mind, which I’ve mentioned before. It’s one of those films that I passionately detest for its false message. You hear a lot about people saying, Oh, films like Gatsby and pushing this and that hedonistic/capitalist message, and oh, how I hate it. Well, I feel this way about A Beautiful Mind. The idea that you can overcome mental illness or any such adverse circumstance out of your control by ‘deciding not to notice it’ is ****ing abhorrent and idiotic. So now whenever I hear stuff like ‘life’s what you make of it’, ‘being unhappy is a choice’ and such, I think of A Beautiful Mind and feel an overwhelming sense of exhaustion and a certain hopelessness. Sure, that may work did not wanting to go to the gym or get up an hour early, but as a general outlook on life, hell no…

It seems equally insulting/unnecessary in this instance that they distorted what happened to John Nash so much. I mean, creative license is one thing, and stuff like that, suggesting someone ‘wished away’ a mental illness, is very much another.

Fun fact: whilst We Need To Talk About Kevin didn’t change my own perspective on life, it drastically altered my mother’s worldview, she was quite disturbed and at the same time interested. Which is funny, as before I showed it to her, she kept arguing with me that a woman can’t resent/not love her child and that if that happens, the woman herself is ‘sick’. We only watched it together relatively recently and it blew her mind. She even liked it, which I guess is a point in her favour. But that’s a case when someone explicitly said their worldview/take on a particular issue was totally shattered by a film.



Sorry if I'm rude but I'm right
That's the question I ask myself all the time. Did my favorite films shape my thoughts, sensibilities, and opinions or did they just best reflect those I already had? If only the second is true, then the question remains: What shaped me?

I think the question you have to ask yourself is: Can movies change my life in the first place? I think the plural form is key here. It's much more likely that the process of watching films changed you than that a single film changed you. Enjoying movies of a certain kind and quality about a certain topic may change you. A single film, given it was a revelation, too, but not as much, I think. Or rather not as often.

I could say that Werckmeister Harmonies single-handedly made me a cinephile, but in reality, it only sparked the interest. What really made me a cinephile is the process of watching many different films. And this process is still continuing.
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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.



Good question. Difficult to answer as I’ve seen too many films to count and too many to name that fit that category



FWIW, I took the "point of view" in the title to be very significant. I'd hope/expect a lot of us have been changed my movies in a more general sense, but I assumed the OP was talking about specific beliefs.



Watching movies about art and the artistic process definitely shaped my views on that very particular subject matter. And that gets right to the lego bricks that make up my heart.

So films like The Mystery of Picasso, Tim's Vermeer, The Horses' Mouth, F is For Fake, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Crumb (to name a few) are the very essence of the way I think about art, and by default, about life.



"How tall is King Kong ?"
Okay. I'd say these are films that helped me to "think against myself" on some matters, or to deconstruct clichés that were built by other films and that I wasn't sufficiently questioning on my own :

- The ending of Mad Max, this sense of hollowness, made me rethink the point of revenge. Until then, all movies seemed to present it as a promise of closure of sorts, which is entertaining but dumb.

- Both Le Secret and Porte des Lilas made me more cautious about good intents and noble causes, "st bernards reflexes", which can easily be pure projections and selfish attempts at filling one's life. It doesn't disqualify it (better risk being helpful for egoistical reasons, or to the wrong person, than risking being unhelpful to someone who would be needing a hand), but it imposes some self-awareness.

- Citizen Kane played a bit of the same role, with Kane's singer, bringing attention to help and support as a selfish expression of power and dominance. Again, not to disqualify them, but to recognize when there's something nasty underneath. (There's the same message in Molière's "L'école des femmes", about wishing a damsel was in distress to be able to save her.)

- I've mentioned Medieval Lives, a history documentary series debunking common misconceptions about the middle age. We non-historians have been bombarded with so many fictional depictions that our view of those times is completely distorted.

- Blood Simple made me more attentive to everyday assumptions and cascading miscommunications (the disproportionate impact of one over-interpreted word, for instance), much more than any wacky comedy ever could. I still think that over-communication and redundancy are much better than ambiguously silent protagonist stances.

- Leone's Duck You Sucker (which I know as Once upon a time the revolution) features this wonderful rant by Steiger/Juan, about the outcome of revolutions, and how populations always get sacrificed in the name of great theoretical ideologies that turn out some sort of intellectual game among elites. It's pessimistic but it's also a healthy slap in the face of some apologists of mass violence and great sacrifices for better worlds. There's something very deep about the relation between political theories and their objects. Again, sociopathy with a mask of altruism that can fool the wearer.

- Cube made me realise that the human traits that make action heroes in movies would make them jerks in real life. It also helped me grasp the notion of de-responsibilized passive complicity, a bit like King describes it in his Needful Things. The Cube being us. An inspector calls would later stress this point.

- Both Cuisine et Dépendance and Girl Interrupted (two movies that dialogue pretty well together) made me question the romanticism of haughty snark and elitist isolation.

- Same thing with Resnais' Same old song, but that movie also changed my perception of commercial, generic, popular songs, which I used to despise unfairly but are essential as conveyors of universal feelings.

- We all loved each others so much taught me to shrug. Love that ending. It's a movie that helps putting lives in perspective.

- Troubleshooters (Laisse aller c'est une valse) nudged me to forgive forgiveness (it's sometimes more difficult to forgive those who harmed your friends than those who harmed you, but it may still be your friends' responsibility to decide who should be forgiven on their behalf).

- There is a warmth in the universe of some Eastwood and Carpenter movies that helped me believe in spontaneous solidarities among strangers, whereas my tendency was to imagine a default hostility between humans (the dumb gritty nightmarish view of The Road, in a way).

- Au bout du conte (also known as Under the rainbow) is a painful deconstruction of "life signs", of their over-interpretations and of romantic absolutes. I still have a lot to very reluctantly learn from that atrociously cynical movie.

On the serious documentaries front, there's a few recent ones that helped me empathize to some extent with some fringe believers, and grasp the precious appeal of the (sometimes highly toxic) beliefs that cement their communities [Feels good man, Behind the curve]. And some ethno docs that helped me grasp more concretely the similarities and differences of other cultures (e.g. ordinary heartbreaks among Yanomami), or suspend judgement on certain people in certain lines of work (e.g. some missionaries turning out surprisingly respectful of Shuar beliefs, whereas I imagined all of them ethnocidary by function). Or even show the rich complexity of stuff that looked cheesy and simple (eg. yodel).

If there's a pattern here, I'd say it's mostly about self-serving elitist quixotism. There's good to be made in the world, but always the danger of losing sight of who the beneficiaries are meant to be (in other terms, messianic complex, I guess). Also, the dangers of reading the world in terms of pre-made fairy tales, with pre-defined roles. Also the toxicity of some fictional models. Hollywood warning against Hollywood is always nice, and maybe deserves a thread/list of its own.













These are only two of the films where Woody Allen presents an existential view of the world. (He has others). This did not change my worldview as much as it helped me develop ideas related to Camus, Kierkegaard, and Dostoevsky.



Wolf of Wallstreet - made me appreciate how hard people work to get ahead and what you really need to do to be a winner and how precarious it is when some petty regulator decides to take it all away from you.



Entranced Earth (1967). Even though it is over 50 years old, it still says so much about the current Brazilian politics. It made me think a lot about politics polarization, the left-wing and the right-wing. However, as Yoda said, it was mostly about reinforcing and clarifying previous ideas, instead of creating a new point of view.

Nevertheless, Entranced Earth did gave me a brand-new point of view regarding another thing. Most of my friends and relatives say that the Brazilian Cinema has nothing good, and for a long time I agreed. Entranced Earth was the first good Brazilian movie I've ever watched (and my intro to Cinema Novo), so it made me understand that the Brazilian Cinema is great, and valorize the country's overall culture.