Autobiographical Cinema Commentary: Film as a Mirror
Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision. (Anzaldúa, G., 1987, p. 78). To me, media will most likely always begin and end with books. As an adopted only child, books served as constant companions through my childhood, part sibling, part imaginary friend, part magic carpet to a world beyond rural New Jersey. That being said, books, while simultaneously widening your world, often open to the door to a solitary adventure. Movies were my first foray into a shared media experience. From the beginning, film in the form of home video was baked into our family traditions. Every year, on my Airport Day, we would watch the video of when I first met my mother and father at JFK International. We would snuggle on the couch, a...