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Last Friday we had movie night at our house. This is the movie we watched. Here is my analysis of the movie's message.
David
There are movies which leave the feeling that something important has been expressed. Some deep concept has been given. 13 Conversations about One Thing is such a movie. I am very susceptible to such movies.
The danger of course is that I leave the movie feeling good. I feel in on the secret. I have been let in on the deepness of the movie. The draw and strength of such movies is that everyone leaves feeling that way. I have known a great mysterious truth, even though I only have a hazy conception of what that truth is.
My solution for this is to attempt to define the message of the movie, and to expose the deepness to scrutiny. Then I can begin to determine if the message is a true one.
The title elicits the inevitable question: what is the one thing? I think the answer lies in the first scene of the movie when the professors wife asks him what is it you want in life? What everyone wants, he answers, to be happy, to wake up enthused.
The plot, such as it is, explores the different approaches to happiness and fortune. Each character moves through the story, happy, unhappy, lucky, unlucky, opptimistic, pessimistic...
There are three basic states of happiness: Those who are, those who think they are, ant those who wish they were. There are three basic approaches to fortune: those who don't worry about what happens to them, those to whom events are all consuming, and those for whom perspective changes through the movie.
The character Bowman is the model of happiness--he is consistently happy and does not relate that happiness to what is going on around him. His opposite is the physics professor, who is consistently unhappy and seeks happiness in events. He tries to manipulate his world to make himself happy and is left unfulfilled at every turn.
Ok this is going nowhere, so I'm going to cut to the chase: the ultimate message of the movie is that happiness is directly related, not to those things going on around us, but to our response to them. If we respond to events with a positive attitude, we will be happy. If we respond negatively we find unhappiness. A corollary to this is that the more we seek happiness the less likely we are to find it.
These ideas have tremendous implications if they are true. If we can in fact choose to be happy, then what are we waiting for?
Interestingly, the two happy characters are those who seek the good, both in others, and in their own lives. They enliven those around then and bring happiness to those with whom they interact. They influence those around them to seek the good and choose happiness. The unhappy characters seek happiness in destruction, and they spread unhappiness and death.
So we have portrayed in this movie a world in which people are deeply and intimately connected, even in seemingly trivial situations. A world in which fortune is fickle and true happiness really does come through our response to the world rsather then from the world itself.
These are old ideas, but I think in general, good ones. Similar themes appear again and again in ancient philosophy, but the clearest match, I think, is found in the ideas of Boethius in The Consolation of Philosophy. In this work Boethius comes to the conclusion that true contentment is not to be found in the fruits of fortune, which are transient and evanescent. True contentment is to be found in our response to the world and in particular our relationship with God.
If we keep close the truth that we have not earned anything, we can respond to what we have received in a healthy manner. We can find contentment in God, and maintain an attitude of thankfulness for what has been given to us.
13 Conversations about One Thing is a good movie. It is full of pithy statements, and great quotable lines. It contains moving emotional scenes that alow us to connect to the characters and find truth in the movie's message. | 
