The significance of the insignificant: thoughts on film criticism

Can we all join Bill Murray in chanting “it just doesn’t matter”? C’mon! Everybody!! “IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN’t MATTER! IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!”

I enjoy film; it’s not a stretch to say I genuinely love it, in the sense that I care about the medium, its history, its possibilities, and even its failures. I also love literature, philosophy, art, music, and a bunch of other things, but I write about film. How come?

I make art and have no desire to blather on and bloviate about it unless someone asks and that’s just a recipe for pain for the person who asks. If you’ve read anything I’ve written, I can go on. And on. And on. I will stop. I’ll stop when asked, of course, but I’ll also stop when I see someone’s eyes glaze over or smell the breath from a mouth that is yawning right in my face. I can detect subtle clues!

Music I love but don’t write about because I’m not really that qualified. I could happily write about why I think a given work is great/important/significant or why a composer or band or producer matters, and I could surely write about why I like/love a given song or album, symphony or jingle. However, I don’t have the vocabulary to do justice to some works the way I can with film or with art, even. My music theory is rudimentary, and absent that, it would be leave me at a remove to be able to maybe critique why I didn’t think something worked. The best I can do is that, “yeah, I like that little violin figure there and that’s a wicked, well-placed arpeggio on the guitar there, and yeah, uh, …bitchin’, dude.” I’d probably dress it up more pretty than that, but not by much.

Film, cinema, movies, flicks, though. I grew up on ‘em. My mother was keen on introducing me to the movies she saw as a kid (it’s true, I have my mother to thank for fostering my love of horror films! Watching James Wales’ Frankenstein with her when I was -  what, five? Six, maybe? - was one of the best memories I have. I’d be up early on Saturday mornings to watch Jungle Theater on Channel 13, Houston’s ABC affiliate. Later, as a tween member of the Houston Comic Collectors Association, the world of B-movies, serials, and American film from the 1930s and 1940s was revealed in all its glory and through the HCCA, a number of us met Roy Bonario, the owner of Roy’s Memory Shop where we’d assemble on Saturdays to watch and pore over anything and everything from Bogart and Cagney to take your pick of Republic (and sometimes Columbia) serials and whatever other odds and ends Roy or Earl Blair could find. 

And the discussions ran oddly deep; we looked at how action was filmed, camera set-ups, and even if it was a not-so-hot movie with not-so-hot acting, we focused more on what the actors got right. This colored my approach to everything. Whenever I’ve watched schlock or frankly, shit, I still look for something decent, if not redemptive. No one sets out to make a crappy movie. Even if they say they do, they’ll still be doing their best. That may not make sense, particularly when I do think about an awful direct-to-video turd that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of, but even in that situation, someone cared enough to get the shots right. Despite literally having sets made of cardboard signs that had “gas station” written in Magic Marker to identify the setting, someone put enough effort to make this. Was there something “redeeming” in this? I guess that a bunch of people got together and just decided to make a video to get it out there is something.

More to the point; I tend to write about films because it’s a medium I know, have a little experience with, and I think because I can’t afford to go to the theater as easily as I can to the movies. Movies remain the most routinely shared form of narrative entertainment that people leave the house for. They are also growing expensive enough that if it’s a date, and concessions are added in, it can be a significant investment. But going to the movies remains a democratic entertainment. 

It’s hard to feel snooty at the movies. I could dress up in Armani (as if…), grab a glass of wine, and watch a movie through a monocle, but a) I couldn’t do that bit without breaking, b) I’d be in the dark, so who’d care? c) once the lights go down, you’re sharing a dream with an auditorium of other dreamers. There’s a beauty to that that makes going out worthwhile. Even if the film is no great shakes or even a disappointment, there’s something joyful - however small that might seem - in the shared experience. I remember walking out of Jet Li’s The One in Boston and over my shoulder a guy said, :That’s like The Matrix for kiddies.” I guffawed and we chatted about what we’d seen in the lobby before parting company.

Or walking out of the Kendall Square Theater in Cambridge after the first show of The Blair Witch Project to absolute shell-shocked silence. Or at the first late night show of Mad Max: Fury Road at the Times Square AMC theater and catching this kid up to date on the Mad Max trilogy (he’d never seen ‘em) and then listening to his awestruck take once the lights came back up and watching him join his pals and listening to them lose their minds. The point is, movie-going is still fun (aside from times when people don’t seem to realize that they’re not in their living rooms or that there are other people around, in which case, I have no problem pointing out where they are).

Then there’s just the fun of burrowing into a work to see what worked and what didn’t. It doesn’t lessen the enjoyment of the film for me and sometimes even helps me appreciate a flick that I didn’t like or thought I didn’t like. Still don’t like La La Land, so don’t ask. 

I think a lot of why I enjoy writing about movies is because it also keeps my analytical faculties somewhat sharp or less dull. This is most assuredly from years in art school (and if I’m being honest, having really good English teachers!) and having to ask myself why something doesn’t work or why it does. Most often, this was in relationship to our own works at end-of-semester reviews. Fortunately, I had teachers who knew how to help you articulate what you were thinking or even feeling about a work (and who had well-tuned bullshit meters for the cleverer kids!)

I realized, too, that I enjoyed by works that I didn’t quite get and this definitely extended to film; at eleven or twelve going to see 2001: A Space Oddity with my best friend Colin at the Windsor Theater in Houston was one of the highlights of my life. It was transformative for me in a way that I simply didn’t have the vocabulary for but I knew that it moved me deeply. I saw it with my mom, as well, but seeing it with a peer, it landed more deeply. 

Over the years following the film’s initial run, I’d think about it and try to think through it. Reading Arthur C. Clarke’s novel was, to me, tangential; it didn’t carry the sense of visceral wonder that Kubrick’s film did. Like most great works, whenever I’ve revisited the film, I get more out of it each time, I find something new each viewing. Sharing that by writing about the experience is both a genuine pleasure and a way of starting a conversation and finding out more about the work, about film in general sometime, and certainly about whomever engages in the discussion, of course.

It’s also a way to learn about myself. Honestly, very often we learn more about the critic than the film. I really enjoy reading criticism and there are a few writers whose works I really enjoy that I’ve written about elsewhere, but what’s really fun is reading how different their takes on the same work can be. In some cases, it’s as though they didn’t see the same film. 

I remember watching Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s At the Movies and loving it when they disagreed on a flick. The more virulently, the better! Here are two smart, articulate, adult men arguing over the merits of a movie. If I hadn’t seen the movie under discussion, I’d often be content with leaving it at their discussion (still haven’t seen Benji the Hunted). When they disagreed over a movie I saw and loved, of course, I’d be like “what he said!” (Taxi Driver; really, Siskel, WTF?) The point is that early on, I discovered a lot more about the writers and writing than I did about the films under review.

When I was starting to read up on cinema history and criticism, I was around sixteen and there was so much more I was learning about, especially when learning about Bergman, Godard, or Bresson. All of a sudden, I realized that it might be helpful to know more about philosophy, literature, and yes, even art. Most of all, and I didn’t quite get this at the time, I needed to know more about life. At sixteen, you can be told The Seventh Seal is a great film and you might get some of that, but come back to it at twenty (or thirty or sixty) and see what’s changed. The film hasn’t but you have.

Which is why I get tickled when I scroll through the comment section on any given pop culture site and see how personally people take the review. I’ve been excoriated a couple of times online and in print and I find it amusing because the issue at hand isn’t addressed, it’s an ad hominem attack that leaves me super giggly. You realize that you have nothing to say to the person, so just let ‘em go. And I’m not exaggerating; one respondent to a magazine article I’d written dressed me down for failing to live up to a standard of behavior that had nothing to do with the subject of the article I’d written (this was not film related). I was perplexed at first, and then, started chuckling when I read the letter to friends of mine. See, kids, even before the internet, there were trolls.

An awful lot of people likely feel that the amount of verbiage I (and perhaps others) spill on movies is much ado about nada, but obviously, I and others disagree with that assessment. Some films may not really deserve a great deal of reflection, but there is very often something interesting and noteworthy about those films, as well. 

IRL, I try not to go on as much as I do in writing. My sister is likely to bear the brunt of a review and I try - I really do - to keep it to the minimum. After Furiosa, I pretty much told her I’d be babbling about this for a bit and was finally able to wind it down and put a bow on it. And yes, I’ll be writing about it here soon. I’m behind on updates, but I’ve been a little busy with other stuff.

Which brings me to just where does writing about film/cinema/flicks/movies sit in my list of activities. It doesn’t take precedence over making art, over paining. It doesn’t take precedence over, how shall I say, philosophical exploration and psychological introspection (but it’s not necessarily apart from them). I just don’t care for writing when I really don’t have anything to say or when I’ve seen something but I’m not sure how I feel about it; as an exercise, I’ll start writing about a movie I’m ambivalent about and sometimes that will lead me places I didn’t foresee. My attitude may still remain ambivalent but I’ll understand better why that is and everyone’s invited to join in the journey.

Which is probably why we do anything in this world. We make things not to puff ourselves up but to share what we think is meaningful or interesting or demanding or even contentious. Much depends on how the message is delivered. I don’t like being rude or dismissive of a flick, though if I don’t care for it, I’ll use a snarkier, more satirical voice in the review (Ticket to Paradise, The Gray Man, The Lost City, you get the idea). But if pressed with the retort, “think you could do better?”, well, gee, that’s a stumper. No, I do not. (Though I’ve seen some stuff where “yes, I could” would be an honest answer). But mostly, it’s a stupid question. 

I doubt there’s a critic out there who thinks that given a nine figure budget, the result would be film for the ages. The exceptions are critics who became filmmakers who did do that on far less budgets. Again, we - all of us - whether it’s about a movie on pop culture platform or a restaurant on Yelp - share our experiences to inform, amuse, or communicate something to others. Some would say that criticism isn’t art, but I don’t know about that; some critics certainly elevated criticism to an art form. Andre Bazin, Pauline Kael, and yes, Roger Ebert, all come to mind regarding film. I wish I had an iota of their prowess.

But I don’t and that’s fine. I do get a certain satisfaction from watching, writing about, and sharing what I’ve seen. I hope it brings some enjoyment to whoever reads it and maybe strikes up a conversation somewhere down the line.