I want you to watch these 6 movies (in this order):
- The Wizard of Oz
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Night of the Living Dead (1968 edition)
- The Godfather
- Pi
- Inception
Watch them with a notebook and pen or pencil handy (yes: use physical writing and recording tools; don’t use your laptop, tablet, or phone).
Write things you see that jump out at you about the story – how it is told, what is explicitly stated, what is implicitly hinted-at, what is alluded-to, etc.
Start with the very first thing you see after the title credits finish.
I’ll give you a hint, and highlight a small handful of items from the first ~15 minutes of The Wizard of Oz:
- Everything is gray (well, sepia)
- Dorothy is whiny
- Dorothy is obsessed with her dog
- Why is Toto going anywhere with Dorothy off the farm grounds?
- Especially, why is Dorothy taking Toto near Ms Gulch’s cats?
- Dorothy is an orphan
- Auntie Em & and Uncle Henry are on the farm, but
- no parents anywhere in sight
- When Dorothy wakes up in Oz, everything is in eye-popping, brilliant Technicolor
Tell me what you find – I’m intensely intrigued to see how your lists compare to mine.