On Cinema

I started this site at the beginning of the year to share my thoughts on film. Cinema. The flicks! To celebrate my passion for life in light and sound.

Over the past month it has ground to a halt as I pontificated over the longest piece I have ever written for 24framesasecond; a review of Peter Jackson’s take on The Lord of the Rings. It destroyed much of my enthusiasm for this site and the way that I look at movies.

To sum up my review on PJ’s LOTR: Several moments are perfect, which makes it all the harder to bear that I find so much of it interminable. My review may one day see the light of day in a finished, or unfinished form, but that is beside the point. Why criticise? Is it worth my time to dwell on such a negative experience? I spent the best part of a week making my way though the ten plus hours of hobbits and elves; which I love in book form I should add; to write what I knew was going to be a negative review (having already seen it through twice). Why?

Do I gain anything from it? I having nothing but respect for what Peter Jackson has done for the film industry in New Zealand. Not only did he have the drive to push himself to where he is today, he ploughed so much of his fiscal rewards back into the local industry. For christ sakes, JAMES FREAKIN’ CAMERON made his follow-up to Titanic in Wellington! Does it matter that I have gripes about the artistic merits of a fantasy film?

Don’t get me wrong; critics can serve a purpose. Taken with a grain of salt, they help people like me navigate my way through thousands of films each year to hopefully see the ones that I like while missing the drek. And chaps such as Eric D Snider are just downright entertaining in their take on the bowels of cinema. But, clearly, with the success of the likes of Wild Hogs and Transformers 2 (I have to fess up on this one too!) not everyone is listening.

Most critics, it seems to me, are failed filmmakers. Those folk that were unable to make it and like to gripe about it and those that never even had the backbone to give it ago. I fall into the latter category.

And, as I have recently been made aware, film is watching, yet, watch too much of it and you miss the chance to participate. Why criticise others when I have not had the temerity to try it myself? Jackson put himself on the line and went for it. With skill, a shit load of tenacity, and (he has to agree) a little luck, he succeeded where many have failed.

Now, I do not want it to sound like I am giving up on cinema. I love cinema.

Good films are intimate experiences of hope and despair, light and darkness, noise and peace. Films that make you think. Films that let you leave your troubles at the door. Some are entertainments (Iron Man, Raiders of the Lost Ark) that thrill with their narrative drive and visceral thrills. But some offer more.

Film can take you to times and places that you could only dream of. To feel emotions alien yet, through the conduit of another person’s craft, seem so tangible. And, in the rarest cases (Umberto D., The Seventh Seal, The Thin Red Line) you can feel humanity dripping from the screen.

Good films should be cherished, like fond memories: a first kiss, the way a lover looks at you with uncontrollable joy, the way a sunset cuts through the crisp night air. They can be carried with us to enrich our lives but should not be dwelled on at the expense of new experiences.

To paraphrase Woody Allen (which I could do all night): Love (and life) is like a shark. If it doesn’t keep moving forward it dies. Another wise man once said: “Do or do not, there is no try”. Well, he was a three-foot, green puppet, with a bald man’s hand up his arse, but I think I knew what he was saying. And I agreed with him at the time.

But, there is something to the trying. The attempt to do something extraordinary. To try.