I realize that you guys understand this already, but I hope somebody takes it to heart. Watching an old movie really shows you the way people thought, acted, dressed, their pop culture and several historical incidents (which can only broaden you mind.) The same thing goes with foreign films. You can learn about history, culture, language, and see sites which you may not have a chance to visit in this life. That is why I preach love for older and ALL movies. It's an education which will hopefully speak to your heart and make you appreciate different forms of art.

If possible, please agree or disagree, whether by experience or in theory. Thank you for your consideration.

It's so difficult to distingish between reality and fantasy, between reality and dramatization. One of the advantages as well as disadvantages is that movies can transport one into both realistic realms that actually existed or could have existed and sometimes never did or could exist.

The problem is to separate out the apparent flaws in the process of bringing this either imagery or real experience to the screen. However, Pride and Prejudice (1995 Television mini-series) provided me with a gigantic window into a world that I never even conceived existed and that may very well have existed. Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) allowed me to begin to understand where my ancestor may have come from and allowed connections between the past and present to form. On the otherhand, Jarhead (2005) and Black Hawk Down (2001) transported me into a horrific realm of disquiet but important visual and auditory revelations in a foreign country at war.

This is a good, thoughtful thread. There are some old films with which I can emotionally and historically connect, that transport me back to a time I well remember, such as "To Kill a Mockingbird." Though the film represents a time before my birth, the culture of my childhood was very akin to the culture powerfully captured in this film. Then, there is a film like "The Grapes of Wrath." This classic captures in vision and spirit an America I do not know, and pray I will never have to know. I connect with both emotionally. Perhaps one of the great benefits of film is that good film captures the human spirit common to every era and event. So, I guess in some sense good films are always a transporter. Old films are like safety deposit boxes, where our history is stored, and can be taken out now and then and be revisited. As with items in such a box, the older they are the more valued, and the greater our emotional attachment.

I've always seen movies this way. I can just lose myself in them, & kinda had to. When you're stuck in a hospital room with a roommate who constantly moans & groans (for some reason I got the loud roommate EVERYTIME), you gotta find some way to escape! Whether it would be to another time period, another place, or another planet. I think this is why I have such a love for movies, I didn't have to look at my situation or dwell on my pain. I could pop in a movie, & suddenly, I'm pain-free & outta that flippin' hospital bed!

On reflection, reading books have also transported me to another place and time, perhaps even more effectively than movies. The place of imagination when combined with the written words is something that really allows the reader to go somewhere else.

Films are culturally educational or 'of their time', more by the era they were made in, than the era they portray.

For example, I'm intrigued by old black and white sci-fi movies which used the themes of nuclear power gone wrong, or sub-texts about the threat of communism (Invasion of the body snatchers). They reveal a great deal about the society and era that led to their creation.

George A Romero's 'Dawn of the Dead' is a great comment on a burgeoning consumerist society. The 70s was an era when this became a growing concern. Materialism has now all but replaced spirituality and socialist principles as idealistic concepts. Dawn of the dead is a reminder of when it began.