Film Criticism as Violence/Film Criticism as Love

posted by Gareth Higgins

Edward Yang’s ‘Yi-Yi’: Taking our picture, and hoping he likes what he sees.

I’m grateful to Glenn Kenny and David Poland for their very human, very humble interaction over at The Auteurs (read the comments under Glenn’s main article from the 4th September), reflecting on the negativity that propels so much of what passes for mature conversation about movies on the blogosphere.   I trust that it is not inappropriate for me to write something in response; if it is inappropriate, I hope that the desire to advance the good will remit the sin of presumptuousness.  Observing the conversation has had the effect of waking me up to some thoughts that had been stirring for a while, and now seem undeniable.

[I freely admit that this post goes on for a long time; stop here if you wish to have the next ten minutes free; otherwise, I invite you to click the magic button below]

Now, I’m not much for reading blogs. My other vocational commitments require too much attention; and I’m very easily captivated by the temptation to gossip, or to read it, and thereby overcome my plans for any given day. I’ve been allowing the view to permeate that my laptop should be used sparingly; at the risk of sounding like Jan Rubes’ Amish patriarch in ‘Witness’, for me, recently, it doesn’t belong at the dinner table, it doesn’t belong in the bedroom, and there’s a difference between work (an activity that has, to be sure, spiritual contours) and play (spiritual, too, but not the same thing as reading other people’s commented skirmishes). So I’m choosy about which blogs I read; this is why I don’t usually know who is fighting with whom, or who has just been arrested for what, or what the ‘right’ thing to think about whatever happens to be.

The reasons that I co-author this site and co-host The Film Talk are simple: I like hearing Jett’s insights; and I want to invite readers and listeners to a conversation about films that they may have not otherwise noticed.   We may be a rare example in which a working relationship that began with more detachment than warmth (and I think I’m speaking for both of us) has become, through professional collaboration, a meaningful friendship, and it is a source of genuine happiness that my co-host also happens to be the person I speak to most often other than my wife.  Mistrust became argument became criticism became constructive criticism now becomes creative conflict; and I’m grateful.

What I think I need  movies to do for me, more of the time.

Why I want insights into film enough that I devote a large portion of my week to watching, writing, and talking about it?  I’m looking for truth – which is why I’m happy to admit that I like both ‘Somewhere in Time’ and ‘Fanny and Alexander’ (stories about the human desire to find security in another, and how the passage of time can both change everything and keep us the same); ‘Solaris’ and its remake (two optimistic films about death); ‘The Passenger’ or ‘Al di la delle nuvole’ and the ‘Indiana Jones’ films or ‘Living in Oblivion’ (films in which adventure travel or the struggle to make movies form the backdrop to tales of spiritual growth). I can certainly see that ‘Fanny and Alexander’ is a richer film than ‘Somewhere in Time’; and not just because the Bergman film does a better job of what it’s trying to do. But, God help me, I find some truth in ‘Somewhere in Time’ – a truth about love, about why we are willing to suspend everything else – plans, hopes, fears, regrets – if we meet another who welcomes us with the same love. I write this, knowing that some people, colleagues, film-makers, philosophers, may decide that I am unworthy of their time; that I am naïve, or uncultured, or I just haven’t seen enough films yet.

I’ll give you two of those.

I haven’t seen enough films yet. I’m only thirty-four; and I’ve only been consciously watching for about eighteen years; the movies have been around for a hundred and fourteen of those. I watch a film a day if I can; but I don’t – can’t – do this work full time. I know that some people may think my taste runs only to the middlebrow, mainstream; growing up where I did it was difficult to see anything else; Michael Open’s courage as the programmer at the QFT in Belfast opened some doors to me (‘Aguirre, Wrath of God’ late on a Friday night; Welles’ ‘The Trial’ on a Sunday evening; ‘Yi-Yi’ (today’s nominee for my favourite film) on an opening Friday; ‘One from the Heart’ on a Wednesday afternoon between lectures; ‘Japon’, at the Edinburgh Film Festival, where I only ended up because the QFT showed me the way); although I know there are aching gaps in my film knowledge. But I only care about this because I know that there are treasures that I’m missing – not because it makes me less smart or interesting. ‘Touki Bouki’ is fantastic, and I want to tell you about it, but not so that you’ll think I’m something. And it’s the only Senegalese film I’ve seen; I haven’t made it through even a tenth of Bergman, there’s so much Kieslowski missing that I should perhaps feel embarrassed when I meet Polish people, as if I have somehow let them down; I could go on.

The fact that I am reluctant to admit this – as if it were a confession of wrongdoing, liable to result in my exile from some special island – is part of the problem. I love Roger Ebert, because he writes with passion and seeks truth in cinema, while referencing the real world; I love Armond White, because he does exactly the same thing. Whether or not I agree with them is irrelevant to whether or not they are good writers. Both of them have challenged me to think differently about some films. Both of them have, to my mind, fundamentally missed the point about some movies in which I happen to find great solace; and of course, sometimes each of them loves a movie I didn’t. I would care about this more if I thought it meant that either Mr Ebert or Mr White would not want to engage me simply because I had a different view of ‘The Fountain’ (I loved it, Mr Ebert didn’t) or ‘Knowing’ (he raved about it, I was bored.  By the film; but, crucially, not by what he wrote.). But most of all, I read them because they make me want to watch more.

What Art is Capable of Reminding us About Life

Perhaps the more inelegant, but resonant criticism is that I may be naïve.  To which I can only say, Bullseye. Let me be clear: I am naïve. By choice. Not stupid; my old professor might want me to speak here of my graduate education and how he thinks I could go toe-to-toe with fellow amateur Derridans any day of the week. I’m not sure I could, but even if he were right, I just don’t want to.  And if having a Ph.D. means you find it more difficult to communicate with the world, and are detached from your own humanity, you might want to question the value of the endeavour.  (And I suspect that Derrida, who can be paraphrased as having said ‘the only thing that cannot be deconstructed is justice’, wouldn’t want his conclusions to be argued about so much as lived.)

I’ve chosen naivety for one simple reason: because cynicism is too expensive; for me, and, I think, for the world. We are short-term stewards of a planet in which violence has been given a foothold that many of us seem to think it either deserves, or cannot be dislodged; and as film commentators the art form we are committed to writing and talking about takes violence as one of its core themes; and the way we write and talk about it so often spills over into a form of violence, dehumanization. We snipe at each other, frequently more concerned with being right, or trouncing each other in yet another battle of snark, and all it leads to is that neither of us has our needs met.

The pioneer of non-violent communication, Marshall Rosenberg, has never suggested that for human beings to talk meaningfully without violence we must forgo our opinions. He has, on the contrary, evoked a way for two or more parties to share what’s on their mind, without either denying their desires and fears, or being driven further apart. It’s an over-simplification to put it this way, but Rosenberg’s core thesis is that human conflict occurs when people’s needs (perceived and actualised) are not being met; a fight can be avoided when the parties ask each other just what needs or appetites are being starved.

I used to fight all the time. I’d relish opportunities to tell people why they were wrong to like a particular movie; or to have a particular political position; so I could be proven right. Part of me enjoyed the sense of superiority, but I think now that most of me just hated, or was detached from, myself. And then, something changed. I’m not sure what it was, or when. And let me say that it does not grant any quality to me that outdoes what you can bring to the table. It was simply this: I realised that I was tired of violence, its consequences, and the fear that foreshadows it. And my rhetorical sniping is part of the kaleidoscopic socio-psychological map that includes physical violence that other people commit; it may even be enabling it, because it nurtures the dehumanization that permits people to kill.

So, to return to the question that a listener posed to me last week, I guess you could call this my declaration of intent:

1: I don’t know what ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ is about, or what it’s meant to be about. When I watch it, I experience deep admiration for the people who made it, for how it looks, how it sounds, how it moves; and I am inspired. I think about how astonishing it is to be human; how the evolutionary journey allows us the mind-blowing possibility of Becoming; how our oneness as a species can be both static and kinetic at the same time; and how nothing makes me feel more like myself than the experience of compassion – as a recipient, and as a vessel, I hope. None of this contradicts what I might happen to think or believe or experience in terms of religion, or what some call the divine. Nor does it contradict the values or philosophy of humanism. I have no idea what Stanley Kubrick thinks. But I’d love to talk with him about all of this some day.  And, yes, I am aware that he is dead.

2: At its best, when I experience cinema, it is a religious experience. Observing the fruits of the act of creating art turns me on. The sensual metaphor is not facetious – I am intimately engaged when I watch something that works for me. ‘Night of the Hunter’, ‘Crimes and Misdemeanors’, ‘Wings of Desire’, ‘Au Hasard Balthasar’, ‘Once Upon a Time in America’, ‘Hable con Ella’, ‘Do the Right Thing’, ‘The Goonies’ (I’m not kidding), ‘After Life’, ‘2001’ – ten films that speak to me, and that happen to be on my mind today, and in which the place of religion, of the concept of God ranges from explicitly acknowledged, to entirely absent, to considered only as monstrous. Yet each of them lifts me up, because I am thrilled by their creation; part of my brain, or of my ego, or of my – dare I say it – soul (and, for me, soul is just another word for person), is affected by watching these films. I’m intellectually stimulated, to be sure, but something more happens: my capacity for seeing is enlarged; I am changed, by being reminded that, yes, life is like that, or can be like that. Wouldn’t it be better if…? Isn’t that what art is for? Isn’t that what we mean when we say ‘art for art’s sake’? If living well is indeed an art, then isn’t all art somewhere on a continuum between enhancing that living, that communal mind, that collective experience, and disparaging it?

3: I no longer have any interest in disproving other people’s opinions about movies. I want to participate in a conversation where I get to share how I have felt, what I think is going on in the work, and let the chips fall where they may.  And I want to hear what you think too; but I have no interest in a fight over which one of us is right. Sure, I’ll try to make a case for why Jett should give ‘The Fountain’ another chance; but whether or not he’s ever going to like it will depend on him, not on my persuasive tactics.

And so, from now on, I’ll tell you what I think, and what I felt, and why I think it matters. I’ll be influenced and take inspiration from all kinds of sources – but what I won’t do is trash anyone else. When I see a movie I don’t like, I’ll tell you why. But I won’t assume that I’m right.

‘Life is long’, says Jason Robards from his death bed in ‘Magnolia’; but what he really means is that it’s short, and feels long when all you have at the end of it is regret for what you did, and for what you left undone. We know that there are beautiful things all around us; all the time. There for the experiencing. We know this, but sometimes it takes frogs falling from the sky to make us STOP. To STOP. And to walk gently toward calling ourselves back to ourselves.

Life stumbles. Every day grants us more opportunity to fall. Or, to work miracles. Consider the astonishing fact that a day is. It unfolds for you, whether you want it to or not. It is secure, like grass or stones, or grazing sheep – it knows what you don’t: that it has only what it is, for now; there is no other. There is no tomorrow. There is only now. And what there is, in the now, is this: love, or the lack of it; or the misperception of it, or the grasping for it, or the squeezing the life out of it; or the mystery of it. And this is what the movies are about. This is what every single person you will see today is thinking. They (we) are thinking about love, whether we have it or not, how to get it, or how secure we feel in it. This is what every person you will see today is thinking.

Cinema is about desire; desire is about love; I’m here to write about what I love. Strike that: I’m here to write and talk about love. I don’t mean to be arrogant or self-righteous. But I’ve become convinced that snark and ‘knocking copy’ are a waste of desire; the thin end of the wedge (and what a lovely, tempting wedge it is) that results in violence. Well, I’ve had it with snark. I’m done with put-downs. I’m here to write about love.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 1:08 pm. It is filed under Blog, Gareth Higgins, Gareth's philosophy, On Criticism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.