Diving Belle and the Butterfly

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a movie truly made to inspire film makers. When I was younger, I used to wonder why film credits were so long. Of course there is the obvious answer that so many people make a contribution. But does an audience really need to know who the drivers were, or who provided kraft services? The answer to that is no. It is like the Academy Awards which is watched by millions, but only a small handful of people know thos in the long lists of names reeled off by emotional receivers in between sobs and proclamations of 'oh my god.' The real answer to why film credits are so long lies within a film such as The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Every now and then in life, we find a film that is just so powerful we need more than the running time to take it all in. The credits run so we can absorb the masterpiece which we have just observed. So that we can deal with our emotions. In watching films, we often involve ourselves so strongly that whilst simply sitting in the darkness, we have taken a long emotional journey. We have felt every aspect of the spectrum of emotions and we feel as if we have physically been through something. I now believe that sometimes credits are not long enough for us to deal with everything a movie takes us through. Maybe for some special films, we need just a little bit longer to help us to readjust to our own lives before we head back out to face the world.