What You Can Learn at the Movies

Face it: most of what we know about famous figures we know from movies about them. In fact what notable figures haven’t had a movie made about them? Dian Fossey you say? Wrong: Gorillas in the Mist. Howard Hughes? Nope: The Aviator.  Moses? The Ten Commandments. Certainly not Jesus who’s had TWO movies made about him just in the last 20 years, one starring Willem Dafoe and one starring Caviezel who at least looked a little mid-eastern (AND spoke Aramaic. The whole movie had subtitles, remember?)

But let's look at the life of Mozart just because we’ve been thinking about him these last few days. Most of what I know about Mozart I know from seeing Amadeus. Here’s the trailer for it now with Mozart being played by Tom Hulce fresh from his star turn in Animal House:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du-rD2QL1Pc]So too , most of what I know about Beethoven I know from seeing Immortal Beloved and here’s that trailer :[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS9MTQqVUFY.]It leaves you really hoping that the writers of all these screenplays stuck to the facts. I mean you try to learn about all the great figures but it’s a daunting task. Our lives are so short and here’s this ever-growing tail of human history. In a way it’s a wonder we remember anything at all of what went before.Anyway here’s  the movie that taught ME the most about a  historical figure and  then sent me right to the bookstore for the 400-page book about him (which, come to think of it, I should probably take down from the shelf and read again.)[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVwCeGxTN-A]