Nearly Lost in Flames

This past weekend there was a fire at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Universal Studios is home to many famous franchises and has been the repository for many films of the past so it was with some degree of levity when I read about the fact that some of the archives and several soundstages were damaged in the fire. Now it seems a very minor thing to be concerned with in light of the natural disasters hitting the world as a whole but I don't think it's any less to suffer the loss of what in essence can be considered historical or visual records of our past. Movies are unique in that sense that they give us a window into the times during which they were made and they are often social commentaries on the ideas and attitudes of various periods in our history.

Now I'm not implying that every single film ever made has some historical or mythological importance in the history of man but they are for better or worse, a window for many in order to gain a greater understanding of the world around us. Growing up there were many different types of movies that I grew up watching and through them I was spurned on into learning more. I saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in which the villains were Nazis. Curious to learn if there was any truth to the implication that there were quests to hunt down religious artifacts by the German Army at the time led me to investigate the period of time in our history and come away with a better understanding between the truth and fiction of the situation and what I found was that while there wasn't complete truth to what the movies said, it was inspiration enough to want to learn more.

Isn't that an important thing that movies can do for us? I know there will be people out there who could care less and state that movies don't do anything practical or useful for anyone other than pretentious stars who live a life of fantasy. I argue that while that may be true for some, it isn't true for all. Movies are a way for others to learn about our country and at least gain some perspective on us as citizens of this country. Go anywhere in the world now and you're sure to run into someone who has seen the same movie you saw growing up. They may have seen it more recently than you but it is a common ground that we can all tread upon to have something in common. In ages past perhaps everyone carried on the oral tradition of telling tales from one generation to the next, now that medium is movies. Perhaps there's something to be said of the loss of that tradition, but movies are doing a major part of keeping at least the essense of that tradition alive.

Thankfully the fire did not wipe out any lone copies of films or television series that were irreplaceable. There are copies of all the films that were lost in the fire and undoubtedly, additional copies will be made to preserve our cinematic history. Some people may weep and lament the fact that movies are slowly seeming to replace books as a source of entertainment. Many people know that if a book is popular enough it will be turned into a movie in a very short time. I don't know whether to be happy or upset at that fact but it is what it is and there's little or nothing that we can do to change that fact at this point. Hollywood isn't going away any time soon and that's probably a good thing but the one this recent fire has done for me is appreciate how a part of our history and story telling tradition is being cared for and how what can be considered records of the times we've experienced will be preserved for the future.