Writing Is Thinking

This blog began as a personal blog (those previous posts have been deleted), in hopes that some of my close college friends would work with me in tandem, in hopes that we could share each other's lives by way of blogging. Suffice it to say, those hopes did not come to fruition.

I spend most of my computer time these days reading about films and writing about films on my favorite website, the film forum, http://www.filmspotting.net/boards. I've been a member for a couple of years, and over these years, I gained some dear online friends, friends who have introduced me to new films and directors, friends with whom I share my love for film, friends with whom I can argue about films, friends with whom I can rejoice with over films. I've never met any of these friends in person, though some of them have met each other, but I think that we -those of us who are regular members - do truly care about one another, and we have not shared just a love for film but some of our personal lives and cares with each other.

I teach writing at a local community college, and I often tell my students that to write is to discover what you think. And more than that, to write is to form thought. Often, if I do not write about a thing, I will not have any significant thoughts about that thing. And so, when I do write, my thought life is richer, fuller - and I find I have something to say when before I had nothing.

And so, I'd like to re-start this blog. I'll leave my first purpose - the mostly personal one related to my college friends - and begin a new purpose: a blog that gives me a place to form my thoughts about films that I watch and books that I read. I don't assume that my thoughts will be deep ones, they'll just be, they'll just exist for me where they may not have existed before or where they may not have been fully formed before.

A Filmspotting friend who lives in Germany and I have agreed to watch Krzysztof Kieslowski's

The Decalogue together - we'll discuss it back and forth in messages with one another, but I would like to put my thoughts down here as well. This series of ten films has been a series I've long wanted to watch and discuss, and I'm so happy that my German friend is embarking on this project with me. Of Kieslowski's other films, I've seen his three colors trilogy (Blue, White, and Red) and The Double Life of Veronique, and these films number among my favorite films of all time. If practically perfect films exist, these are they, and so I have high hopes for The Decalogue. Roger Ebert has whetted my appetite with some of his thoughts here: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20000402/REVIEWS08/4020301/1023

I will begin with part 1, "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me," this week.