{"id":165,"date":"2006-12-10T21:05:14","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T04:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/10\/good-thoughts-on-film-watching\/"},"modified":"2007-10-23T14:15:52","modified_gmt":"2007-10-23T19:15:52","slug":"good-thoughts-on-film-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/good-thoughts-on-film-watching\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Thoughts on Film Watching…"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, Andy Horbal ran a Film Criticism blog-a-thon<\/a>, basically encouraging other film bloggers to post their thoughts on film criticism and then posting all the links in his blog. I haven’t had time to read all the posts yet, but this one caught my eye. These are Matt Riviera’s Thoughts on Watching and Appreciation Film<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n1. Every film is a masterpiece.<\/b><\/p>\n

I try to give the filmmaker the benefit of the doubt until the end credits roll, or at least as long as his or her film can withstand it. If I assume the film is a masterpiece, then I am forced to find out why as I’m watching it, meaning I can’t be complacent or dismissive. If it’s not clever, then I’m not getting the reference. If it’s not funny, then I’m not getting the joke. If it’s not thought-provoking, then I’m not getting the point. Etc, etc.<\/p>\n

If I assume the film is a masterpiece and my first impressions while watching it is that it isn’t, then that’s the impetus I need to think harder about what I’m watching, to work harder at identifying and understanding the filmmaker’s intentions and methods.<\/p>\n

Of course some films are duds, and sometimes you might even know they’re duds from the first minutes. But there’s something fascinating about pretending you’re wrong and the filmmaker is a genius, about the process of questioning all preconceived notions of what makes a good film and why. I may not change my mind about the film, but I perhaps won’t feel like I’ve wasted two hours of my life watching it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I like this. It’s sort of the opposite of my usual “go in with low expectations so I’ll be pleasantly surprised” stance, but it’s also a good way to think about film or books, or anything, especially the part about working harder to see what we might be missing. It’s so easy to be negative on purpose–it’s more fun in a perverse way to tear down than to praise, it’s satisfying to nitpick, and we have a tendency to think a negative review is more “honest.” I consciously try to avoid this (which isn’t difficult, because I really do enjoy the vast amount of films I watch, even if I end up deciding they aren’t very good), but it is fun to denigrate and mock, I have to admit.<\/p>\n

I often have two critical appreciations of every film co-existing in my mind, a cold critical judgement which is what’s left when I’ve removed my emotional self from the equation, and a fuller, more holistic appraisal which takes into account what I’ve brought to the viewing experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is true, as well. “I liked it” does not necessarily mean “it was good”–critical judgment does not always coincide with emotional response. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the two. Sometimes I don’t think they need to be completely separated…there are so many film critics out there now that perhaps we can afford to be more subjective. In the aggregate, a more objective view appears.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of weeks ago, Andy Horbal ran a Film Criticism blog-a-thon, basically encouraging other film bloggers to post their thoughts on film criticism and then posting all the links in his blog. I haven’t had time to read all the posts yet, but this one caught my eye. These are Matt Riviera’s Thoughts on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[29],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":999,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/film-criticism-emotional-or-analytical\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":0},"title":"Film Criticism – Emotional or Analytical?","author":"Jandy","date":"February 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Emerson has an intriguing post up on his scaners::blog about whether film criticism can be or even should be objective. I'm somewhere in the middle on the issue; like many of the commenters (read the comments, too; a lot of the good discussions is down there), I usually find\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":34172,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/american-movie-critics-the-introduction-phillip-lopate\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":1},"title":"American Movie Critics: The Introduction (Phillip Lopate)","author":"Jandy","date":"June 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Reading David Bordwell's series of posts on criticism in the 1940s made me want to dive back into reading criticism, so I've pulled my copy of American Movie Critics back out (I'd previously made it into the middle of the Ferguson section) and started over, because I don't remember any\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "American Movie Critics"","block_context":{"text":"American Movie Critics","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/american-movie-critics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/American-Movie-Critics-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1305,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/ebert-on-how-to-read-a-movie\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":2},"title":"Ebert on How to Read a Movie","author":"Jandy","date":"September 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've mentioned to many acquaintances my distaste for Roger Ebert's binary thumb system of film reviewing, and I often tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against his overall film ratings. On the other hand, his criticism (rather than his reviewing) is highly sound, readable, and I wish he'd do more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":365,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/literary-criticism-rant-warning\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":3},"title":"Literary Criticism (rant warning)","author":"Jandy","date":"April 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Literary criticism ruins books. It tears them apart and glues them together again with the critic's pet theory. It reduces character to symbol and narrative to trope. It increases cynicism and decreases enjoyment. It makes every book about something else. It creates a divide between \"critical readers\" and ordinary ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33571,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/against-evaluative-criticism-a-personal-manifesto\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":4},"title":"Against Evaluative Criticism: A Personal Manifesto","author":"Jandy","date":"September 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"[Evaluation is] practically worthless for a critic. The last thing I want to know is whether you like it or not: the problems of writing are after that. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it has any importance; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those derelict appendages of criticism. Criticism has nothing to do with hierarchies.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/statler-waldorf-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/the-role-of-criticism\/","url_meta":{"origin":165,"position":5},"title":"The role of criticism","author":"Jandy","date":"August 7, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"So far this year, eleven films have opened in theatres without screen for critics first. That's up from just two films by this time last year. These are films which the studios decided would do better without the critics lambasting them on opening weekend. The studios were right about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}