About

6/26/16

This blog has become things I did not expect when I began one year ago. Its original purpose was upheld during that first summer to a degree of which I am proud. When I stated its mission to begin with, I did not consider how my active relationship with film would change, and so I was unprepared when environmental circumstances guided my ignorant self toward different kinds of interaction with film and with this blog. I mean this in the least romantic way; my film life was to become comparatively sparse and shallow. After July ended I took a month's leave from the medium, with strong intention, and then when late summer / early fall came I wandered back on, but this time without the lifestyle freedom to make film my central mode of artistic exploration. But I missed blogging, so I blindly tacked up whatever I could, relieving the consistency of the blog for love of blogging.

Looking back, I lament the death of last summer's MoviesEtc. blog, as I lament the death of last summer entirely. However I can take solace in the thought that artistically-impaired little me couldn't help but keep writing, keep blogging, like pasting bad drawings to a refrigerator. I do love it, and I will continue, and in the future I'll keep blogs as artistically consistent as possible -- as mature as I am at the moment of interaction.

As for this blog, I don't have plans yet. It would be an undertaking to make an attempt at reconciling the blogs into consistent wholes, particularly since film isn't an active part of my life currently. Or maybe it's the perfect time for a renovation. I'll let it happen naturally...

A few days later it seems like the solution is to regard the blogs as historical records, rather than pieces of art -- and for the better, since one could hardly consider such a continuous and elongated object a piece of art, at least not without a strong and stable vision behind it all. Mine was neither strong nor stable, so my blog is not a work of art in itself, although many of the individual entries are (in a loose form of the term). Perhaps I will continue with these two blogs in the future, and perhaps start a new one when I enter a new era for filmic experience in my life (a new ascension after a nearby plateau). Again, naturally....  It is to be determined when it is determined.





                                                                             

A fundamental new doctrine for this blog is that it must never be work.

You will see that reflected in the subjective nature of my assessments or thoughts, and in the free-form character of the writings. Even in this very exposition. I could put in a load of effort and create sophisticated reviews with well-founded judgments, and it would be most of the time a rewarding effort, and I would improve my writing skills as a sort of academic.

However, it wouldn't always feel good. Sometimes it would feel dry. Occasionally I would be watching movies with an intention other than to simply soak in the experience. The highest priority in my film-life is to experience films fully, and does not pertain to this blog. The blog is an extra source of fulfillment for my film life-- if I stopped watching movies, I could write about something else. But I watch movies for a reason. So the only way I can reliably keep a wholesome eye in my film experiences is if I intend nothing for the blog but to document and make sense of my experience, and not necessarily the film itself.

I want to keep writing, because I love it, so I have to do what I can to keep it from becoming menial or obligatory. This means that I write exactly what I feel the drive to write, every time, and sacrifice objectivity and completeness in my "reviews".

I think it worth noting that I have an absolute affection for the work that I do here (though I have just decided not to call it work...) and that, in my new method at least, it brings me more consistent fulfillment than almost any other occupation of my time.

In simpler terms, I really really love writing on this blog.

                                                   

This blog was created on June 23, 2015 because I was intensely uncomfortable putting Ingmar Bergman's Shame onto andrewtalksaboutmovies1, my other blog. There was too much fat there; Bergman would be sitting among such things as Sherlock, Interstellar, even No Country for Old Men. There was also a bright-ish red, somewhat funky background to that blog. I wanted to make a place where the age and depth of Shame would feel comfortable. Thus I created a blog dedicated to "high culture", with a more minimalistic background template and within which Bergman would be in the company of only high artists like himself.

In fact, perhaps the entire blog was fat, with respect to my new visions for film. I haven't had much of an interest for the past four years in "classic world cinema", because that long ago I decided that it simply couldn't reach the heights of modern film, demonstrated by such favorites of mine as Synecdoche, NY and Magnolia--so in a way, this blog marks what could turn out to be a revolution in my film life. I'll certainly stay on-board with filmmakers like Inarritu, Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson, and those brilliant innovators of our time (perhaps they will stay on the other blog) but I feel that I am ready for a deeper exploration into my favorite medium's history; ready to hunker down and suffer for that intellectual growth. And it will be suffering in a sense; I won't enjoy all of this new process. But I feel convicted enough to suffer through that in order to develop an appreciation and understanding for these new definitions of "genius". While I am keenly aware of the possibility that this effort could fail, and these more obscure movies won't hold up for me the way modern masterpieces do, this is my statement that I will put in the effort anyways.

Genius creators of film and literature, artists of the highest order: welcome.