Do movies really have the ability to change people's lives???

      I've never doubted the ability to be inspired, whether it's a poem, a song, a book, a sunrise...or a movie. Additionally, I've always believed that movies have the ability to change people's lives.

      Until today. Now I'm not so sure.

      I engaged in a very dynamic conversation today with a fellow movie enthusiast who argued that movies don't have the ability to change people's lives. His argument was that if a movie actually changes your life you were already looking to change it in the first place, you may just not have realized it. The movie (or song, book, etc) was just a catalyst.

      This argument does and does not make sense to me. On the one hand it seems rather silly that someone would see a film and completely restructure their lives. At the same time however, I've seen it in my own life where a friend saw The Hunger Games and decided to get fit for life. He referred to it as life changing. Yet was it really life changing or was the movie just a catalyst for a change he already wanted to make? I guess it depends on perspective. If he'd never seen the movie would he have eventually got in shape? I don't know.  I think so though. 

          Perhaps maybe the better phrase might be that a movie can "inspire" change rather than be life changing. At the same time that also seems like half a dozen of one, six of the other. It's a matter of perspective I suppose. If a person says a film is life changing and you can patently observe a fundamental change in that person's life then does it really matter what you call it? From that person's perspective the film IS life changing.

      A good example from the movie world would be director Guillermo Del Toro. When Del Toro was very young he went and saw the classic John Carpenter film The Thing. In subsequent interviews Del Toro has cited that film as changing his life. "As soon as I walked out of that theater I knew my life had changed. I wanted to be a director." Again would Del Toro have become a director if he hadn't seen that film? I don't know. Frankly, it's not something I want to think about because I can't picture a world in which Del Toro isn't a director.

      The reason I explored this topic is because when I really break it down, there's never been a film that's been "life-changing" for me. There's been films that were moving, or inspiring but I can't think of a single film that led to a fundamental change in my life. At least it hasn't happened to me YET. With the exception of maybe Norbit or White Chicks...or Breakin' 2 Electric Bugaloo.

      In all seriousness, the only person whose opinion counts when it comes to "life changing" films is the person whose life the film changes.