Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
I've said this before, but I'm going to say it again: Film reviews are a monumental waste of everyone's time.
Here's the thing:
Every film you see evokes a specific, unique emotional response that only you are undergoing. You see a film and you like it or you don't like it. That's it.
But we walk around armed with a vocabulary that pretends to be cold, empirical facts about why something is or isn't a good film. This is horsepucky.
If you took the time to listen to yourself you'd notice that the reasons you have given in the past for why something is good have also been used to explain why something was not good. Remember that time you said one film was beautifully paced, but another was painfully slow? Yeah, doesn't make any sense. Listen to yourself sometime.
You'll even come back to a film that you liked or didn't like years later and find that you have a completely different response to it. But the film hasn't changed, only you have. This just underlines that it's not about the film, it's all about you.
You ignore talking about your unique response and fall back on making your opinion of the film sound like a fact.
There is no great canon of films, there are no rules that can be followed to make a great film. If there were a blueprint then everyone would just follow that and no one would ever make anything that you didn't like.
If you do nothing else that I ever ask of you then please read and consider the following four points:
That is all.
Here's the thing:
Every film you see evokes a specific, unique emotional response that only you are undergoing. You see a film and you like it or you don't like it. That's it.
But we walk around armed with a vocabulary that pretends to be cold, empirical facts about why something is or isn't a good film. This is horsepucky.
If you took the time to listen to yourself you'd notice that the reasons you have given in the past for why something is good have also been used to explain why something was not good. Remember that time you said one film was beautifully paced, but another was painfully slow? Yeah, doesn't make any sense. Listen to yourself sometime.
You'll even come back to a film that you liked or didn't like years later and find that you have a completely different response to it. But the film hasn't changed, only you have. This just underlines that it's not about the film, it's all about you.
You ignore talking about your unique response and fall back on making your opinion of the film sound like a fact.
There is no great canon of films, there are no rules that can be followed to make a great film. If there were a blueprint then everyone would just follow that and no one would ever make anything that you didn't like.
If you do nothing else that I ever ask of you then please read and consider the following four points:
- Recognise that you only like or don't like a film
- Recognise that there are no good or bad films
- Never read reviews
- Never listen to anyone
That is all.