I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for

Bette Davis, fierce spirit of the silver screen, once declared: “I don’t take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.” At first, her words may sound dismissive, even flippant, but within them lies a wisdom forged in the fires of Hollywood itself. She had lived long enough in the realm of illusion to know its tricks, its vanities, its fleeting crowns. She understood that cinema, though it could stir the heart and dazzle the eye, was still but artifice — a dream painted on light, not the full measure of life itself. To confuse shadows for substance, she warns, is to suffer needless pain.

The ancients would have recognized this truth. In Plato’s allegory of the cave, men mistake flickering images on a wall for reality, and only when one turns to the sun does he find truth. Davis, like Plato, saw that the movies are shadows, powerful and moving, but shadows nonetheless. To take them too seriously is to mistake illusion for reality, and this leads not to wisdom but to headache, to disillusionment when the dream dissolves. The screen offers enchantment, but it must be consumed with awareness of its nature — delight, inspiration, metaphor, but not life itself.

Consider the fall of Rudolph Valentino, the silent film idol of the 1920s. Women wept and fainted at his performances, mistaking the characters he embodied for the man himself. When he died suddenly at the age of thirty-one, mass hysteria broke out, for the illusion had shattered. The public had given their hearts too completely to shadows, and reality struck like a hammer. This is the headache Davis warned of: the pain that comes when we forget that films are crafted dreams, not living truths.

Yet Davis’s words do not belittle the art of film. Rather, they protect it. By not taking the movies too seriously, she preserves their joy, their playfulness, their magic. For what is art, if not a respite from the weight of daily burdens? A film may not be life, but it is a mirror, a poem, a slice of wonder. To revere it as reality is folly; but to savor it as entertainment, as crafted beauty, is wisdom. Just as one enjoys the taste of wine without expecting it to quench thirst, so too one enjoys cinema without asking it to bear the whole weight of existence.

There is a lesson here for all who live in an age of images and illusions. How often do we mistake appearances for truth, whether on the screen, in politics, or in the glitter of wealth? How often do we take too seriously what was meant to entertain, to impress, or to pass the time? The result is the same headache: disappointment, envy, despair. To walk wisely is to discern illusion from reality, and to use both rightly — reality to guide our lives, illusion to lighten our journey.

Therefore, let us practice balance. Delight in the art of cinema, in stories, in entertainment, but do not build your life upon them. When you watch a film, let it inspire or amuse you, but remember, when the lights rise, to return to the real stage of your own life. And when you create — whether it is a story, a song, or a work of labor — offer it with joy, but without demanding that it be mistaken for the eternal. For no illusion, however grand, can replace the truth of lived experience.

So, children of wisdom, heed the counsel of Bette Davis: do not take the movies too seriously. Honor them as art, not as gospel. Enjoy them as gifts, not as guides. For in doing so, you will free yourself from the headache of false worship, and instead savor the true sweetness of both worlds — the world of light and shadow upon the screen, and the deeper, fuller world of life itself, where you are not the spectator, but the hero of your own story.