When I’m stuck on a writing project, I go to the movies.
I like nothing better than a mid-day matinee with the silver-hair crew of retirees, film students, and loner cinephiles like myself. Plus, going to the movies is cheaper than many entertainment options. As a member of my local indie art house theater, I get a deep discount: $8.00 a ticket. I always get the killer-of-a-deal large popcorn and large drink for $8.50, which serves a double purpose as lunch. You can’t even buy most paperback books at list price for $16.50, much less a fine dining experience, and this is entertainment I know I’ll consume, unlike my stacks (okay, entire bookshelves) of unread books at home. And it’s pretty affordable therapy; the total cost is only fifty cents more expensive than the parking garage at my psychiatrist’s office and, usually, doesn’t leave me crying and $200 deeper in debt.
I first got the idea to go to the movies alone for writing purposes from the AMC TV show Mad Men. In this drama about an advertising agency, Creative Director Don Draper, (heart eyes), will occasionally get stumped on the angle for a campaign. Sometimes, Don, rebel that he is, leaves the office without telling anyone where he’s going and ends up at an afternoon matinee. Later, Peggy, Don’s protegee, picks up the same habit, crediting her old boss with this strategy for “knocking out the cobwebs” (“The Phantom”). On my umpteenth Mad Men re-watch, I was creatively blocked myself on a writing project and decided to give it a try. And, to my surprise, it worked! I left the theater two hours later with my brain effectively wiped clean. I drove home with a fresh vision for my writing and fed my dictation app shiny new ideas.
When you think about it, this technique works in exactly the way the Hanged Man encourages querents. As the Hanged Man suggests seeing a problem from another way, going to the movies—or watching one at home—helps you get a new perspective on whatever your brain is stuck on. In the dark box of the theater, with your cell phone turned on silent or airplane mode or off, you surrender your senses to the visual and audio experience in front of you. Literally, you are viewing the world in a different way since the camera operates as the eyes through which we take in the shots that layer into the full-length film. And by flooding your senses with an artistic creation that someone else has fashioned, you have the advantage of being continually challenged: Would you write/film/edit the story this way? I prefer the movies most dividing critics. The stronger the voice and style of the film you’re watching, and the more polarizing the reviews seem, the more likely that a bold viewpoint stirs up another way of thinking and creating in you, too. I go to the cinema to be challenged as an artist and as a teller of stories. That’s why I try to avoid lukewarm, forgettable three-out-of-five movies whenever possible, instead going for films featuring the notoriously-demanding director, the divisive love-her-or-hate-her screenwriter, and the ultra-selective-only-acts-in-one-film-a-decade actors.
There’s one final reason why I think going to the movies works as a palate cleanser when your thinking is blocked. The Hanged Man would definitely agree with me that, by getting another perspective and forgetting about your own ideas for a while, your subconscious gets to work through the creative problem. It works pretty similar to our dreams. . . and our shower thought revelations, of course!
Next time you’re stuck, channel the Hanged Man’s energy and go to the movies or put one on at home. Pop up some popcorn, get a big drink, turn off your phone or any other potential notification-pinging distractions, and surrender to another artist’s vision. Don’t be surprised if giving your brain a few hours off leads to the kind of breakthroughs the Hanged Man knows are possible by looking at the world through another person’s point of view.