To savor my remaining time as a film student at Wash U, I take five film courses in Spring 2022, striving to enrich my perception and life with as many films as possible. On April 6th 2022, in my French Film Culture class, we watched a cinema du look film called Diva (Beineix, 1981) in Brown 100. There was a lot of color blue inside the film, accompanied by dancing dust on screen from the 35 mm film strips.

In the middle of the film, I was allured into a dream-state and I could effortlessly touch the screen and feel the space the characters were in. With “La Wally” and “Promenade Sentimentale” playing, a roam under the umbrella on a rainy day in Paris became so real that I could even touch the fresh blue breeze sneaking between the seats.

When the screening was over and everyone exited the theater, I remained in my seats to hear the remaining echoes of “La Wally” as if the music was still there.

A pulse. An inhale. A sigh. I closed my eyes and I somehow could feel the breath and pulses from the ground and the chairs. The seemingly lifeless world seemed to be processing its feel- ings towards Diva as I did. The theater suddenly became an expanding horizon bathing itself in eternal sunshine of a spotless cinema.

Oh, cinema.

When I biked outside, everything I saw was blue: the blue moon was walking amid the branches, the halos of blue lights were projected onto the roads … My inner spinning-top slowed down and I could enjoy my way home. As a cinephile who has loved and appreciated films for years, I feel joyful to realize my relationship with cinema has become more and more reciprocal.

This is why I write this letter to the cinema, to you.

“Dear Cinema:

After an unforgettably fruitful four-year journey at Wash U, I decided to express my passion towards you, and recap what I have discovered throughout my time here. It is meaningful to write this to conclude this semester, and, at the same time, to express my deep gratitude toward everything you endowed to me.

Did I love you at first sight? Not really – I was 4 years old when I first saw you in a theater, and oh my goodness it was an action/thriller on screen: I, Robot! What I remember is that you stunned me, scared me, and fooled me with sound and visual effects! The moment when seemingly three-dimensional people became a thin paper in virtual reality, I nearly freaked out. So, you know, I had mixed feelings towards you!

However, magical feelings filled me when I fin- ished the movie. With restless feet and unblinking eyes in the darkness, I thought: this is so cool! I wanted to drive a car like this, investigate crime scenes like this, fight injustices like this, and befriend robots!

Before studying you academically, I treated you as mere entertainment, something that made me happy and helped me relax. After watching Zootopia, I stepped out of the theater with “Try Everything” playing on a loop in my brain. I asked myself: what if I were to try animation or filmmaking? But the next second I laughed at this idea, being scared of the daunting task of learning so many skills.

But I dared to try to learn something when I came to Wash U. I signed up for Professor Burnett’s Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: James Bond Seminar on a whim. I was waitlisted, but I explained to Professor Burnett after class how much “I love Skyfall” (this was the only James Bond movie I had ever watched by Spring 2019).

Thank God, I got in.

To better understand you more, I took Professor Burnett’s Introduction to Film Studies in Fall 2019. Little did I know how much this class would transform me, and offer me another sunny path to discover.

When you appeared on the wide screen in Brown Hall 100 in the name of Out of Sight, you amazed me by the immensity of moments I could muse upon. Sitting on a balcony, I was taken by the colors that gave me a dreamy feeling. Later, I was impressed by Osaka Elegy with a rule-breaking female protagonist in 1930s Japan, Citizen Kane with dynamical depth-of-fields, Rules of the Game with a dancing brown bear and hyper-stimulating satire, His Girl Friday with super-quick lines delivered at 240 words per minute, A Man Escaped with detailed jail-breaking routines, Vertigo that with reversed sympathy structures, Jaws with jump scares, Back to the Future with comedic visual effects, Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse with breathtaking intermedial textures, and Inception with spellbound dreamworld-building.

If the Introduction to Film Studies class endowed me with a language for me to understand as an art form I can appreciate and analyze, Professor Lewis’s Film Theory class armed me with a crit- ical lens to dispute and dismantle inequalities related to cinema. What are eight techniques hidden behind a single shot from The Thin Red Line? How does male gaze and masochistic pleasure operate in classical Hollywood cinema, especially in Sternberg’s Morocco? What makes Malick’s Tree of Life tactile?

The more I spent time with you, the more I felt attached and devoted to you. I could feel drum beats inside my chest when biking to screenings in late Fall 2019. That was the first time I developed a religious relationship with you.

I love staring at the dark space between myself and the screen and feeling the curious or relaxed silence before the film begins.

I love sharing the same illuminating experience with other audiences and feel more spiritually connected with strangers, just like experimental filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky says that “watching a film has tremendous mystical implications; it can be, at its best, a way of approaching and manifesting the ineffable.”

Most importantly, I love you because you help me truly “know thyself” (Socrates).

I experience snippets of others’ life stories and learn from them. I didn’t have to be a greedy, ruthless millionaire, break out of jail, or get married (to the wrong person) to know how difficult life could be, but I somehow knew what it might feel like in cinema.

All the people I “met”, the adventures I “took”, and the lessons I “learned” enriched my whole being. I could go on with my life feeling even though my life could be banal and boring, I could see beyond the external life and have a creative, boundless internal life rich in imaginations and ideas.

I feel my life is lengthened by cinema, by the stories you tell.

With my love and passion for you growing, studying you was not merely enough. In a corner of my heart, a fire rose up and lit one aspect that kept you alive: film production.

To unleash my creative impulses, I took Professor John Power’s Making Movies I class in Spring 2020, picked up my camera, and perceived more. My first movie, Back to the Exam, was about a tornado that pushed a student back in time so she could avoid running late for her exam. It was Spring 2020. Trees of Lights burgeoned from my urge to showcase the beauty of autumn and to reveal the importance of human connections. I drew a storyboard and exchanged ideas with my classmate Ava, hoping to show how the protagonist overcame her loss of motivation in life by connecting herself to nature and community more.

In the Making Documentaries in the Time of Covid course offered by Professor Denise Ward- Brown, I learned to create aesthetically pleasing and thought-provoking documentaries. For example, from March to April 2021, I created The Film Journey of Professor Burnett where I filmed my professor riding by cherry blossoms in the sunshine around campus, watching films in front of an illuminating screen, and sharing his perspectives on the past, present, and future of cinema. Making Millions Like Us pulled me away from my self-quarantined state in my dorm and connected myself with fellow Chinese international students’ stories and needs.

Making documentaries is one way I pay homage to cinema, to you. Now, as a graduating senior trying her best to treasure the last few weeks of class and dreaming of her busy and fulfilling life being a documentarian, I cannot express how grateful I am more:

Thank you, cinema, for mesmerizing me with my favorite color blue in Diva that led to the creation of this letter.

Thank you, for being so beautiful in Inside Out and so creative in Playtime.

Thank you for being a companion whenever I feel The World Is Not Enough.

I feel like I am on earth as if it is heaven because you are Cinema Paradiso!

One’s time can be limited, but one could have limitless life experiences by seeing, hearing, and feeling more, as Susan Sontag says. Whenever I take a camera and feature real people, I feel inspired by true and touching stories which also motivate me to let my dreams be my days and my days be my dreams.

My film journey points to the future.

Je t’aime beaucoup! Merci infiniment! (Wink-Wink!)

Yours Truly,

Merry May