Amir's Bucket List
Before I finish high school:
-Graduate with a 4.0 GPA
-Do well on all my AP tests
-Make a few short films
-Finish all my college applications on time
-Be accepted into a good college
-Receive my driver's license
Before I finish college:
-Major in art history or film
-Write a few screenplays
-Travel to Japan and Spain
-See a Wagner opera at the Metropolitan Opera
-Visit Los Angeles
Before I finish living:
-Win an Oscar for screenwriting and film direction
-Teach other people
-Travel throughout the world
-Win the Palme d'Or
-Learn another language
-Make films that comment on the world
-Spread my passion for the cinema to the others
High school: The most important item on this bucket list is to make a few short films. I believe a portfolio of work is needed to be accepted to film school, but this is not my primary motivation for placing this goal on the list. I believe that I would enjoy making a few short films. It would give me the chance to write more screenplays, work with actors, and become more involved in the technical side of film production. Making a short film is no easy feat--it is not a simple as filming a group of friends on a cell phone camera, but I feel that such an effort would be worth it.
College: The most important item on the bucket list is to see a Wagner opera at the Met. Richard Wagner, the late German Romantic composer who wrote Tristan und Isolde and the eighteen hour Ring cycle, laid the foundations for modern music. He was a complicated man--he was a prejudiced anti-Semite and was reportedly Hitler's favorite composer. At the same time, his music was brilliant and should be appreciated on its own terms. Wagner's operas are spectacles, and need to be seen in a venue capable of producing works on grand scale. The Metropolitan Opera is such a venue, and since I love Wagner's music, I would enjoy seeing one his operas performed there.
Life: The most important item on this bucket list is to spread my passion about the cinema to others. While our appreciation of cinema has grown and developed since the 1960s, there are still many who regard cinema, in the words of Martin Scorsese, as "an illegitimate child of the theater." I would like others to see the masterpieces of Kurosawa, Fassbinder, Ozu, Godard, and Fellini, but more importantly, I would like for others to be able to understand these works. In my opinion, it is worthless to see a film, especially a great film, if you stop short of analyzing and appreciating it. I would like to get more people interested in the cinema and create widespread visual literacy.
" In my opinion, it is worthless to see a film, especially a great film, if you stop short of analyzing and appreciating it. I would like to get more people interested in the cinema and create widespread visual literacy."
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more