Her: Placing a Contemporary Lens on Love in Film Ryan Rusin College

Nothing can stand the test of time greater than the form of relation or sympathy. But even greater than that is the ability to force that compassion and relation into the reverse perspective... in other words, rather than feeling emotion upon reacting simply to what happens on the screen throughout a film, we can channel that emotion towards similar events in the world off the screen. Famed director Ingmar Bergman said, “Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” This precisely highlights the reasoning as to how these films stand the test of time; they don’t simply hit the heartstrings of audience members with entertainment value, but rather inspirit us and inform our moral values. They test our perspectives of how we genuinely view the world we all inhabit. To delve into this further, focus will be on the topic of love in film, and how contemporary romance movies, specifically Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), showcase what love truly is and how it’s evolving within our generational perspectives.

The reasoning behind selecting Her for this topic is that this film truly provides a testament to our current culture, as...