What We Bring to the Table

I find it impossible to refute the idea of an artist's work being influenced by their life. For goodness sake, you can only write about what you know, or else good luck trying. Our ability to create only goes as far as our understanding is. That is not to say that your understanding can't expand from Point A in your life to Point B in your life. Frank Capra had a Catholic upbringing, and upon further inspection that can be seen in his film "It's a Wonderful Life," like we discussed in class. Time and time again, we see this in films, poetry, and art. We all come from different cultures, communities, and upbringings, so in a way, we are experts on that; who knows our life better than we do (except God)? When you come to school, you have your binders, your pencils, your backpack, and your paper. You don’t sit down and take someone else’s paper and another person’s binder, but may borrow someone’s pen. You can fill in the gaps with the help of other people, but you primarily use what you brought with you.

It’s interesting to look at this concept and apply it to society. One could argue that this idea could be applied to a cult society. Although it’s a much darker view, I think it’s still very relevant. Cults, secluded from the rest of the world around them, force their people into a certain belief and they are raised strictly in that religion and lifestyle. Wouldn’t you agree that if a person from a cult background - who had only ever experienced that life – wrote and directed a movie, it would be much different than the one you’d make?