Just about everything I know, I know because I got obsessed.When I was 7 or 8 years old, American Heritage came out with a series of picture books about the presidents. I’d look at those pictures incessantly. I looked at them foryears.

Then when I was 12, the fifth grade of my elementary school did a mini-production of “Hamlet,” and I got obsessed with Shakespeare. I read everything. It transformed my life and expanded my mind. I remember sitting on the back porch on a hot night after finishing “King Lear,” and it felt like the whole world had changed physically, like I actually saw it shift.

When I was 20, I happened to see Greta Garbo in “Grand Hotel” — at like 2:30 a.m. — and Garbo became a new and consuming obsession. From there, I got interested in old movies, in general, and then “pre-Code” (or pre-film censorship) movies in particular.

I couldn’t indulge my pre-Code interest until Turner Classic Movies debuted in 1994, and then it was a deluge. I taped everything and watched everything. I discovered that Norma Shearer was the most daring and interesting of the pre-Code actresses, and I became obsessed with establishing her rightful place in film history. That became a six-year project (and a book: “Complicated Women”).

Anyway, at least some of my obsessions have proved productive; three have turned into books. But just as often, an obsession — like my all-consuming fanaticism for everything ever recorded by Eminem — arrives and dissipates like a storm.

What’s my point here? There are a few, actually: (1) The obvious one is that obsessions are nice; and (2) they lead to other obsessions that sometimes turn into major life projects. But something else, too, that I only realized recently: To become obsessed, you need a clear head. You can’t be consumed with something internal and pleasurable if you’re preoccupied with external concerns.

事实是,尽管这些强烈的容易enthusiasms, I haven’t been obsessed with anything for the past few years. And for that I blame — wait for it — Donald Trump. No, seriously, to me it’s among the worst things he did. He forced himself into people’s minds and made himself a collectivenationalobsession. After all, how do you develop a passion for Japanese cinema, Irish literature or pottery, when you have a red-faced guy coming at you raving about “fire and fury” through every media orifice?

Then came the pandemic. Then George Floyd. Then the Capitol insurrection. And now the war in Ukraine. For seven whole years, it has been hard to take our minds off the news. If you looked away for an hour, Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. We’ve all gotten into the habit of checking our phones the way nervous fliers look out the window to make sure the wings are still on the plane.

I believe this is partly why TV series have become so appealing to people, and even more appealing in recent years. These TV shows make few demands. With each movie, there are new characters to sort out, a point of view to be discerned and a message to be digested. But with a TV series, like the hit HBO drama “Succession,” all you have to remember is that Brian Cox is a billionaire and that he has four grown children with different varieties of ineptitude. Then you’re good for the next 30 hours.

Yet, if you apply a little bit of discrimination, movies can be a source not only of distraction, but of strength and healing. That’s why I advise, foryournext obsession, to concentrate on some previously troubled period of American history and then watch the best movies from that time. Take your pick of eras. I like the Great Depression movies. But the World War II era was pretty good, too. And the Vietnam-Watergate period of the late 1960s through the mid-1970s was practically a golden age.

The good thing is that because stressful times produce quality movies, you’ll end up seeing great things you didn’t expect. But along the way, you’ll also take comfort in seeing people from an earlier time living with the kind of uncertainty we feel now — and getting through it.

比任何艺术,有时甚至tter than history books, movies remind us that every era’s problems are insoluble, until they get solved.