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- #1. My esteemed colleague, Claudette Wilson, has said about me, “Michael can’t help having ideas.”
- #2. When my first film class was approved, my wife, Janice, observed, “Since you can’t go five minutes without talking about movies, at least students can get credit for it now.”
- #3. My daughter, Creedance, and I were watching a movie on television when she was eight or nine years old. At one point she turned to me and asked, “it that true?” I responded in my inimitable way, “I think it’s meant to be truer than true.” She responded, “Dad, I’m too young for truer than true.”
This third vignette was the “inspiration” for this book. I wanted to write a book that stimulated the reader to think about “truth” and “truer than true.” Academically, I know that social scientists tend to emphasize “truth,” whereas artists are willing to take “literary license” to get at “meaning” … at what’s “truer than true.” I am very interested in the significance of this relationship of “truth” and “meaning.” This book is organized around specific questions that get at that issue.
The book asks you to do your own thinking about those questions with regard to most any film that you see. I highly value other approaches to film study, particularly film as art. However, in creating my own university film appreciation class, I found the questions herein most encompassing for the widest possible audience—the “social issue” questions that most all of us might ask about both movies and life. I think this approach has “a” contribution to make to film appreciation and film study. I am also very hopeful that the reader will find it very user friendly and very accessible. Please send me any “new” questions that you find that I have overlooked and that you think demand to be included in subsequent editions. Meanwhile, I wish you good viewing, insightful thinking, and meaningful conversation.