The other night I watched a movie called ‘The Invention Of Lying‘. The basic premise is about a guy living in a world where no-one has ever lied or even understands the concept. It’s a bit more slap stick that I would have wanted to be honest (apparently not being able to lie results in an inability to keep what you are thinking to yourself).
What I found interesting, especially for a mainstream Hollywood movie, was that because of this inability to lie, the world had no religion. As far as people were concerned you died and then you went to an’ eternity of nothingness’. (**SPOILERS AHEAD**) Our protagonist in the movie somehow develops the ability to lie and at one point in the film is at his mothers deathbed. She is contemplating the ‘nothingness’ ahead and in our main character’s despair he decides to tell this lie:
Mom, you’re wrong about what happens after you die. It’s not an eternity of nothingness. You go to your favorite place in the whole world. And everyone you have ever loved or who has ever loved you will be there. And you’ll be young again. There’s no pain, just love and happiness. Everyone gets a mansion.
iPhone album track number 4
The doctors in the room are flabbergasted at this revelation (remember they don’t understand the concept of lying) and tell the press about this ‘man’ who has information on an ‘afterlife’. This then results in a massive religious following of our main character.
Being a atheist and sceptic, I found it very interesting that this kind of social commentary was tackled. This movie was written by Ricky Gervais who is, as we all know, an outspoken atheist who has a lot to say on the matter. Good on him for getting a method of sceptical conversation out there.
Anyway. During the movie there was a song played in the background. I’d never head it before but instantly loved it. I shazam’d the tune and it turned out to be a song called ‘Catch The Wind’ by Donovan. If you’re a guitar player and you don’t want to pick up your guitar after hearing this song then you ain’t right in the heed man.
I did. And even took the time to learn it. Thought I’d record it on my phone for you all.
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Incidentally. Fourtrack has become infinitely better since a recent update. It used to be that you would have to export each track individually to your computer and use some other method of mixing the tracks together. Fourtrack now has an in-build method of mixing all your tracks into one file. Amazing.
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