Films Today

As is custom in film classes, I learned the different transitions of film much like a Music major would learn about the transitions in music from Baroque to Romanticism to Impressionism. Most films of a certain time in history can be categorized by their imagery, directorial technique or common themes like Film Noir, Independent Films and most recently the CGI era.

Today, one film genre that has fallen off the radar almost completely, is the Western. Believe it or not, there were more Westerns made in the 30's to the 60's than any other genre. It's no surprise with popular American icons like John Wayne, directors like John Ford (Grapes of Wrath, The Searchers, Stagecoach etc.) that Americans were drooling over stories from the unexplored West.

My theory as to why movies like these are hardly made is because we've domesticated the American West. The once unexplored areas of California, Nevada etc. now house civilized (arguable), cultured and heavily populated cities. For the most part we know what is in Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas and the like. Even though we don't have old fashioned cowboys riding horses chasing Indians anymore, there is a logical genre that has taken the place of the Western, but is still absolutely parallel.

It wasn't until my 'Introduction to Film' professor told me this that I realized the connection, then it was like 'YES'! We've discovered the American west, yes, but what hadn't we discovered in the mid 20th century? *tick, tock* SPACE! What popular TV series started in the 60's and has been a great part of American culture ever since? Star Trek! There's a reason the series explores "the final frontier".

So the Science fiction genre takes the place of the Western. Instead of indians there are aliens. Instead of horses there are spaceships. Instead of John Wayne there is Captain Kirk (or Captain Picard if you prefer). Someone could argue that films about exploring the future (in some instances past) could be another parallel to the Western/Sci-fi because humans are exploring a mysterious space. For example, there is Blade Runner, Back to the Future 1, 2, and 3, A.I. etc., which can all still be categorized as Sci-fi, but are a little different thematically.

So while that's awesome, what does the parallel of Westerns and Sci-fi have to do with present day film? Also, where else can these "exploration" like films go? What can humans explore if space has already been covered cinematically? I feel like the next parallel has already started and it makes sense now, but I would have hated to be the director rattling my brain on where to take this art next.

*Warning: The following is not a result of any research, but just my own mental tangents.*

Cue the Wachowski brothers. Their popular 1999 film, The Matrix, I want to believe, did not just display a new way of film making, but transitioned American film into a new wave to make us think of what is still undiscovered. I'm going to call The Matrix, as well as the 2nd and 3rd films of the trilogy, transition films and not just a new film in itself because the plot involves uncharted territory like the Western genre and also the future and extreme technological advancements like Sci-fi. So it is not entirely new unto itself. What The Matrix trilogy explored is what our minds perceive as reality.

The Matrix boasts a complicated plot, but I feel like in a slightly twisted way, the "exploration" that the protagonist Neo makes is in his mind; he is trying to decide what is reality and what has been virtually created by a computer, which can also be explored. It seems like a futuristic thought that what still needs to be explored isn't even tangible; it's fake (or is it?). Just because we can't physically live in our memories, dreams or let's say the storyline of really good book, does that mean it can't be explored? I guess not in the technical sense, but certainly in a mental sense.

It would be hard for film theorists to see how The Matrix impacted future films in the year 2000, but now there are more films being pumped out that follow the same principles. It wasn't until I saw Chris Nolan's Inception that I realized that the next "frontier" in cinema would be the mind. In Inception, specifically, is the exploration of dreams. Interestingly, both The Matrix and Inception's quasi-realities have "architects"; an advanced computer program or architecture major (Ellen Page in Inception) have setup a maze of sorts that will be later filled in with the mental details of those that will occupy that maze-like "world" like Neo or Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio). If you think about it, there is little that is unimaginable so I'm sure that will give this generation of film makers a lot of stories to tell.

Now that that's explained (I hope), I've been wondering what parallel will come next. What else will there be to explore after we've had decades of films like Inception? The fact of the matter is that moviegoers will always be enchanted by stories involving the mysterious and unknown.