The danger of cinematic essentialism is that it's inherently always an act of navel gazing.
A film director would not be a film director if they did not like movies to some extent, after all, and a film viewer (presumably) wouldn't be watching if they didn't either. When you can only define yourself by your love of the moving picture, it's worse than losing yourself within it - by subsuming your identity solely to the media you consume and media…