The fun is over.
I still love ushering. I wish I hadn't volunteered through the rest of the Fall. It's becoming a chore. I've only seen one extraordinary film (Pandora and the Flying Dutchman) amongst a host of films ranging from miserable to bad to alright to rarely good. I have low expectations even for the critically acclaimed International pictures still to come.
Maybe I'm a grouch. Strike that. I know I'm a grouch. But why would I subject myself to wading through so much muck? Because when I find the few diamonds, I forget about the dirt that I've accumulated and just bask in the radiance of such a rewardingly beautiful jewel. Then, the memory of finding that jewel sends me crawling around in the dust again desparately searching for others.
The worst part of this past Sunday was sitting through 3 Monkeys again. It is not a bad film. It is a miserable one. For the first time ever in my history of filmgoing, I mostly ignored the film and played games on my iPod. Pathetic.
Next came Beeswax. Small and modest; it is well made and held my interest. I guess that's enough to pass the time, but I don't think it will stick with me. I'm waiting for Mumblecore Noir.
So here's as good a place as any to post some things I wrote months ago, but never finished. Still unpolished, but I may as well toss it out here.
Mostly bullshit, but bullshit I mostly believe.
I still miss CR5 Movie Club. These blogs have been great, but they miss the one key element that made the club both fun and frustrating. Though I may complain sometimes, I think that it's healthy and good to be forced to watch a movie that I didn't pick to watch. It's a chore, sure, but it stretches me and I'm grateful for it. Even the ones I don't like, maybe especially the ones I don't like, force me to react and clarify my tastes and examine my prejudices, allowing for a constant healthy reevaluation.
As noted above, wading through the muck of any art is indeed a chore (Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud). But, I think that it is precisely when we feel that it's a chore and we're ready to give up on our passions that it's most necessary to press on. The gems, the moments of Transcendance, may be few, but we have experienced them and we know that it is exactly these glimpses at Truth that we chase. We may tire, but there is no stopping.
Besides wading through the crap, there's the chore of watching great films.
Sometimes specific titles can loom on the horizon, becoming as dreaded as they are anticipated. Almost always, though, once that mental hurdle is crossed, I find myself absorbed in what I had previously put off seeing for months or years. Sometimes, every so often, watching the film does turn out to be a painful chore.
Besides that feeling of apprehension and uncertainty, there is another feeling, of being overwhelmed by my own ignorance. There is so much that I don't know and only so very little that I do. There is so much that I haven't seen.
I watched a lot of Godard last year, but I still haven't seen a small fraction of his total films. I remain completely ignorant of other New Wave masters like Rivette or Chabrol or even most of Truffaut's work.
And that's just a small group of filmmakers and films. Name any movement or period and I'm sure that I remain mostly ignorant, having only a cursory knowledge. I just don't have the time to watch even the best of the past while keeping up with the new. To a certain extent, I don't even try anymore. My viewing habits are scattershot and so has been my approach of familiarizing myself with film history.
I love learning and watching great films, but it easily becomes a chore and oftentimes it is not pleasant. Often the "classics" are just that; classic. Just as often, what is watched is tolerable to good, but seldom great.
There is this driving feeling that I need to see more and learn more. It is an impossible task. At least, there is no end point.
This adopted task starts to feel like a chore and like work because it IS work to learn and "keep up.". It is not always fun or enjoyable. Nevertheless, the drive to keep watching and keep learning continues.
I can distance myself for a while, but eventually I feel guilty that the chores aren't getting done. I need to watch whatever it is I was putting off this time.
As an aside, the danger of thinking too much about film is that the real chores, like putting up the railing in the basement, remain undone. Sorry Abby. I can talk about movie watching being a chore, but I effortlessly think of the worst films while I completely forget about the existence of screwdrivers and hammers.
Still, it is helpful to think of watching movies as work or maybe even as a calling or a vocation. That may sound pretentious and like a stupid justification for sitting on the couch with a movie on again, but I think there is a truth to it. It's obviously true that nerds like you and I care about movies in ways that most people do not. When I'm watching a film, I'm generally not resting. I'm working. It's the most satisfying, rewarding work that I know of. The pay sucks.
Only a small handful of people get paid anything to watch movies and there's always the responsibility of writing or teaching to accompany the watching. I'm okay at the work of watching movies. These men and women who get paid for watching movies can see things that I still have trouble seeing. That's one reason I'll never be paid for doing this work. There's a lot of competition in the field and there's a large number of people who are much, much better at the work than I am. I may be able to match or better the hack writers that are syndicated by the Associated Press. I don't even pretend to be in the same league as someone like Rosenbaum or Hoberman.
I'll never have a full-time job watching movies, but I don't doubt the value of such a job. It's important work and I'm more than grateful for the Eberts and the Bordwells, for all of those who have gently taught us to see better.
So, mine is amateur, enthusiast, hobbyist work. I'm just smart enough to know how foolish and lacking in knowledge that I am.
It sounds overly dramatic, but we may as well die first before we stop caring about moving pictures. We are captive to the beautiful truth that we have encountered and it compels us. Of course, movies aren't the only or even primary residence of Truth, but cinema is (arguably) the most powerful and important artistic medium of our time.
Our labors may mean nothing to those around us and we may have our own serious doubts, but we know what goodness we have experienced and, when we're being honest with ourselves, we know that we can't stay away from cinema for long. It has worked its way into our blood. The best that it offers heals and renews us. We know that we'd suffer any chore for just one more revelation.
In contrast to those of us who work at movies, the majority of people are passive spectators, the folks who can turn on the TV at the end of the day and "veg" in front of it. I've participated in this sort of behavior before, but I'm not one of these people. I'm not one of them, but I think that I understand the principle behind this sort of laziness.
When working at watching movies becomes a chore, I'll either stay away from movies for a while or, more likely, I'll put on something safe and familiar, something I've seen 100 times like Empire Strikes Back.
The folks who watch TV shows and bad RomComs and the same Hollywood junk dozens of times on HBO or whatever other crap are usually watching the same structures and similar plots over and over again. There is variation, but the comfort of the familiar is the true object that keeps viewers returning. It is for love of comfortableness and a definite laziness that most people do not work at watching film.
This is okay at times, but a steady diet of easy, comfortable video input won't just lead to relaxation. It leads to lazy thinking.
Most people do work hard and have a right to be lazy in their leisure. What bugs me is when this general attitude leads to those same people disparaging those who do work at watching and wish to spend their leisure time in more rewarding, challenging ways, by continuing to work.
Most people think of watching films as a dumb, lazy thing to do because they've only ever watched films in a dumb and lazy manner.
You can tell that I neglect physical exercise by looking at my belly. It's harder to tell that these people are mentally out of shape, but often a simple conversation will suffice as proof. I'm no mental heavyweight, but at least I'm still working out. (Now I need to get outside and move around more!)
Empire Strikes Back is easy to watch and, just as important, comforting. It's not a stupid film, but my familiarity and nostalgia make it a film for me to be lazy around.
Getting around to those Bela Tarr films I've been putting off? That's heavy lifting. That work, that exercise, may ultimately be rewarding, but that doesn't change the fact that, like any chore, it is damned unpleasant to think about and start doing.
Plenty of work still needs to be done. There's also plenty of fun still to be had.
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