Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Movie Love
Having said that...
We may have reasons for thinking a movie is good or bad, whether it is well made or incoherent, whether we find it honest or deceitful, but we don't, maybe can't, choose the movies we love.
"Love" here means more than just happening to align with personal preference and/or taste. It means more than really enjoying watching a movie or thinking that it is "one of the greats". The movies we end up loving can be distasteful to us at first. That's often been the case with me. My initial, immediate reaction to Lost Highway was to reject it, but it haunted me: it made demands on me that I could not ignore.
To put it another way: some movies call on us to champion them, to defend them against their critics; other movies, objectively just as well made, just as much within the boundaries of our own preferences, do not.
These thoughts came up when I was mulling over my response to a film that is much beloved by a cinephile friend. I thought that the movie in question was, without question, a good one. I admired it quite a bit. And, on paper, it had all of these qualities that I love and feel we don't see enough of: apart from being beautifully shot and acted, it strove to capture a certain time and place and a way of being in that time and place without trying to make a large statement. But I didn't love it: I can come up for reasons why it's a great movie, but they're not reasons I fully believe in.
We may have reasons for thinking a movie is good or bad, whether it is well made or incoherent, whether we find it honest or deceitful, but we don't, maybe can't, choose the movies we love.
"Love" here means more than just happening to align with personal preference and/or taste. It means more than really enjoying watching a movie or thinking that it is "one of the greats". The movies we end up loving can be distasteful to us at first. That's often been the case with me. My initial, immediate reaction to Lost Highway was to reject it, but it haunted me: it made demands on me that I could not ignore.
To put it another way: some movies call on us to champion them, to defend them against their critics; other movies, objectively just as well made, just as much within the boundaries of our own preferences, do not.
These thoughts came up when I was mulling over my response to a film that is much beloved by a cinephile friend. I thought that the movie in question was, without question, a good one. I admired it quite a bit. And, on paper, it had all of these qualities that I love and feel we don't see enough of: apart from being beautifully shot and acted, it strove to capture a certain time and place and a way of being in that time and place without trying to make a large statement. But I didn't love it: I can come up for reasons why it's a great movie, but they're not reasons I fully believe in.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Two perils of film criticism:
1. Making a fetish of objectivity
Which means: talking about personal preferences as if they are aesthetic axioms.
Example: "This film is bad because the filmmakers show contempt for their characters." As if a preference for a certain arrangement of the relationship between author, audience, and characters should have the weight of a moral rule and is not merely a matter of taste.
2. Making a fetish of subjectivity
Which means: using personal preference as a shield, pretending that taste isn't something that can be developed and needs to be transcended.
Example: "This film is great because it perfectly captures my experience of being an adolescent." As if the ultimate in art is to perfectly reflect and reinforce your view of the world and your view of your self.
Which means: talking about personal preferences as if they are aesthetic axioms.
Example: "This film is bad because the filmmakers show contempt for their characters." As if a preference for a certain arrangement of the relationship between author, audience, and characters should have the weight of a moral rule and is not merely a matter of taste.
2. Making a fetish of subjectivity
Which means: using personal preference as a shield, pretending that taste isn't something that can be developed and needs to be transcended.
Example: "This film is great because it perfectly captures my experience of being an adolescent." As if the ultimate in art is to perfectly reflect and reinforce your view of the world and your view of your self.
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