I think the thing film does best is change the way that we look at the world around us. When you walk out of a theatre, after seeing a film, your view is almost always changed. Now when I make that statement, I am talking about good films, great films, works of art. Not that that statement doesn't hold true for terrible films, it merely makes you look at the world in a very angry, "I just wasted twelve dollars" sorta way, and that's not what I'm going to be talking about. No, instead, what I intend to focus on is the way a movie can take an hour and a half of you sitting in a chair looking at a screen and make you walk out and just want to live your life differently. This is what film does best. It's a feeling that few other things can do so well, and if they do, it usually is not within the allotted length of a film.
The main reason why I love film is because it melds three of the passions that govern my life into one splendid, compact medium. The three passions it conceals are my love of music, my love of art/design, and my love of literature. Now given each of these mediums on their own, you have a unique vehicle for emotional and mental revelation. Combine these elements together and you get a new method of storytelling and a way to convey emotion to your audience. I have had emotional moments with music, art, and literature on their own. I have had read books, seen art, and listened to music that has disturbed me, saddened me, and gotten me fired up. All these mediums have their own way of doing it, most of them taking longer to build or relying on your current emotion state to evoke an emotional reaction, and while film can be guilty of this as well, it's impact is more easily profound.
There are many films that I can say moved me and changed the way I look at the world, who I wanted to be. I can also confidently say that I can count on two hands the number of books that have shaped me so profoundly. And while there are many albums that have inspired me and changed my idea of music, there are few albums that have brought extreme emotion out of me. I have already mentioned my love of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I will frequently site it as changing my entire notion of what cinema can be, so instead of further describing how mind-boggling that film is, I will instead focus on another will that has impacted me. That film is Citizen Kane.
When I watched Citizen Kane I had little knowledge about the film. All I knew is that the film was highly regarded as, "The Greatest Film Ever Made." I was going through the film, enjoying what I saw, and was not expecting an emotional reaction. When I got to the end of the film, I was so stunned by the sheer beauty and tragedy my eyes welled up. And this was not a sad reaction, I just couldn't believe what I was watching.