Good morning, my fellow students. As we wind down the school year and freak out about those finals we haven’t studied for, it’s natural for us to long for any sort of escape. As a film lover, I welcome you to the world of cinema, where escaping from reality is the status quo.

“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings.” These words from brilliant filmmaker Stanley Kubrick mean more than the literal definition of a moving image; they capture the essence of filmmaking at its peak performance. The primary goal of any cinematic endeavor, more so than literature, is to capture the mood of a particular moment. A director has at his or her whim audio/visual techniques that, coupled with other film-specific elements like editing and shot composition, serve to manipulate the audience’s emotions, from horror, to joy, to anger, to really sad because [insert Avengers spoiler here].

Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been a space jedi with telekinetic powers fighting against my asthmatic goth dad (that's Star Wars if you didn't know). Though the scenarios that visionary directors fabricate are often not familiar, the emotions these scenes evoke certainly are. What’s impressive about the work of some of my favorite directors, including Tarantino and Spielberg, is that they’re able to encapsulate the raw emotions behind moments that have never even happened. Beyond immense storytelling skills, this kind of feat requires a complex understanding of human emotion and a creative vision stronger than that of pretty much any other profession.

In fact, the way I try to connect with my readers is the same way directors connect with their audiences. Just as articles use varied appeals to their readers' senses, films place equal focus on human connection. Beyond the standard rhetorical devices like logos and pathos, movies often use visual language or auditory cues to communicate either subconsciously or consciously with the audience. For example, a movie might use a dark, blue-ish, dreary tint to create a serious mood throughout a scene. Less subtly, you’ve probably noticed how horror movies include an eerie period of total silence, not a sound to taint your anxious anticipation, before a big jumpscare.

I’ve gone on about how movies are a form of human connection, but I haven’t even mentioned how the actual process of filmmaking applies this concept as well. Movie directors have to work in tandem with a team of visual effects artists, big-name actors, and a team of producers hovering over them. If you’ve stayed through the credits of a movie (maybe for a Marvel post-credits scene), you know just how many people work on a feature film. That so-called “movie magic” we get to enjoy onscreen is actually a miracle in comparison to the chaos that happens offscreen, adding yet another reason to respect the filmmakers we have today.

So I’m not going to stand here and tell you that Adam Sandler’s Grown-Ups 2 is the greatest work of literature in existence just because it "connected" with the likes of $200 million worth of moviegoers, because the first one was obviously way better. But when it comes to connecting with us, making us laugh, making us smile, making us forget about our impending exam days for just a moment, there’s no greater escape than to the movies.

Thank you, and as they say in my home country, “Hasta la vista, baby!”