Oops… all of a sudden, just as Mike predicted, I am a foreigner who just doesn’t understand. [Edited later: Sorry. Typical overreacting from my part. Stupid and unfair. I leave it as I posted it originally, though, for the sake of coherence, because it seems I still managed to make some valid points below.]Originally Posted by Still Servant
Seriously, guys, if it takes to be an American to understand that Jaws, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings or Terminator (even though I rather like that last) have the same artistic value as Le Notti di Cabiria, Repulsion, Rebecca, or The Seven Samurai, I think I’m better off without the honor.
All of my long life I’ve been watching movies and loving them without discriminating between French, Italian, American, Russian, Soviet, Polish, Hungarian, German, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and English cinema. I do, however, discriminate between films that touch my soul, on any level, and those that don’t. I have great respect for a lot American movies, just like I have great contempt for a lot of European (East or West) and Asian ones. It’s not where a movie has been made, it’s how it was done.
There are, actually, two aspects of the problem that I can see at the moment.
1. Movies as entertainment. I treat them with great respect. As I said in my post elsewhere, no moment of happiness is ever wasted, so I treasure all cinematic products that can give me those moments. I immensely enjoyed Sister Act or Mixed Nuts (to name just two that for some reason leapt to my mind immediately; but the list could be indefinitely long), but I wouldn’t call them great cinematic achievements, or nominate their directors for our tournament. It’s a different kind of enjoyment.
2. Films as art. Here we really encounter a problem. As I said before, I like a lot of American directors who offer what I believe is called “director’s cinema”, love many of them, and absolutely adore some. I already listed Lynch, Kubrik, Allen, late Hitchcock, Koster, Capra, Lumet, Cukor… the list may be longer. I would also add the regretfully forgotten Mel Gibson, whose Braveheart and Apocalypto I count among the best movies of all times.
Unfortunately, however, many American movies that are widely acclaimed mean nothing to me. I’ll try to explain it now. I want a movie to transcend my spiritual and cultural experience, to give me as much as I can take: I, a fully grown person in full command of all my intellectual capacities, with a considerable experience in both life and cinema. I want the director of a “serious” (for lack of a better word) movie to treat me with respect, as a grown-up. The movies like those everyone reproaches me of not understanding, though, all look to me either adolescent or pre-adolescent. I fully understand their importance in culture, as instruction for kids; but I am no longer one.
I can sometimes watch a film about the hero overcoming obstacles, slaying the dragon and winning the princess, but I am not very impressed, even if the product is additionally burdened with topical issues, social, political, psychological, or ecological, to give the movie more weight and make it pose as the real stuff. The seams are too visible, and the whole product too obviously fabricated (Shutter Island, anyone?).
And guys… please, no offence, ok? I love and respect you more than I can say, and people who’ve known me for a long time here can testify that it is the truth… but since we’re talking frankly here, there’s one thing I can’t help saying. I firmly believe that the existing reservations about European movies doesn’t stem from any “foreignness” of their culture, but solely from the lack of experience. It is very understandable, given the cultural policy of the United States, within whose limits the rest of the world is only granted some dim, dubious appearance of existence. I noticed at a lot of American film sites that there are “films” (of various genres), all American; and there are “foreign [language] films”, as if it constituted a genre in it itself. First time I saw it I thought it was a joke. No, it wasn’t. When I think of a lot of wonderful, fantastic movies that my friends here have never seen and are not likely to see in the future, it breaks my old heart.
Meantime, if nobody objects, I will go on watching weird, boring movies about a lost garrison endlessly waiting for attacks from undefined enemies; a miserable man losing his mind in the inferno of tenement; another miserable man slowly drinking beer in the armchair, on an impossible quest for his ideal, pure, promiscuous, saintly, whoring wife; a blind prince who plays the flute on the wall; a man who can no longer dream and steals kids to use their dreams; boys in a forgotten orphanage in the middle of a civil war... (just some that came to mind at random… does anybody see anything familiar? I've only listed some I hope someone has seen, but there are oh so many more others......... if you liked any of these, friends, just think of what a world of delight lies ahead of most, or at least some, of you...)
Also, thanks to all my friends here who, too, like this kind of cinema.
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