Jean-Pierre Jeunets Film Amelie Essay -- Imagination Film Movie Ameli

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Film Amelie Imagination is an intrinsic part of the human experience. It has the power to mold reality by defining the limits of possibility and affecting perception. Both Alan White and Irving Singer examine aspects of this power in their respective works The Language of Imagination and Feeling and Imagination. White delineates how imagination is a necessary precursor to possibility (White 179) while Singer primarily illustrates imagination's effect on human relationships, such as love (Singer 29-48). Despite their different focuses, White and Singer demonstrate the impact that imagination has on human perceptions of reality. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's film Amelie explores this facet of imagination: the film provides a poignant depiction of imagination's influence as the title character Amelie exacts changes in her life and in the lives of others with her boundless imagination. In the chapter entitled "The Imaginable and the Possible," Alan White argues that imagination is the key factor in testing the "acceptability of something as possible" (White 183). In seeking to answer the questions whether what is possible is imaginable and whether what is imaginable is possible, White examines a variety of seemingly impossible ideas, such as the three-dimensional triangle. From these examples, he concludes that the possible must be conceivable by the imagination but that the imagination's capacity to visualize extends beyond the mere possible (White 179-183). Amelie addresses this dichotomy between the limitations of the possible and the unfettered possibilities of the imagination in a less didactic manner. Instead of intangible ideas, the film illustrates the link between imagination and possibility throu... ...ng their imagination to bestow value to each other, much in the manner Singer describes. In terms of inherent worth, neither the relationship between Georgette and Joseph or Amelie and Nino seem to have any tangible basis. However, when revisiting these interactions with the idea of bestowal in mind, it is understandable why the characters are willing to "appraise" each other so highly. Thus, through the interaction of the characters, the film Amelie demonstrates how the imagination governs the daily existence of human beings with the power to either help or hinder an individual by defining the realm of possibility. Works Cited Singer, Irving. Feeling and Imagination: The Vibrant Flux of Our Existence. Lanham: Rowman and Littlerfield Publishers, Inc., 2001. 21-48. White, Alan R. The Language of Imagination. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell Inc. 1990. 173-183.