Photo: Universal Pictures
Chris Luckett
(This was the very first piece of writing I published on The Apple Box, on January 14, 2012. It seems like the perfect time to revisit it now, 23 years to the day after my very own magic moment of movies.)
Photo: Universal Pictures
Chris Luckett
In Martin Scorsese’s recent movie Hugo, characters bandy about that old phrase “the magic of movies.” The titular hero talks repeatedly about the power of films, about their ability to create dreams and magic. We witness another character in Hugo watching a movie for the very first time. The look of sheer wonder on her face is a thing of true beauty.
A century ago or so, every person who had seen a motion picture could describe the first time they witnessed the magic of movies. Even up until the mid-20th century, children knew the exact “first time” when they saw moving pictures. With the spread of television, though, everything changed. The first movie a child eventually saw didn’t often have the same impact such an occasion once did, because most children had already seen the wonder of moving pictures on their television sets before ever setting foot in a movie theatre. Continue reading
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