I don't know how to hate films

What I first think has to be accepted, before we devalue the notion of storytelling entirely, is to see that pretty much everything is narrative. Pierrot Le Fou is story. The Turin Horse is story. Dog Man Star is story. Scorpio Rising is story. Even Wavelength is story.


The problem isn't story. The problem is in what people expect from a story, and then, the ensuing fallout when those expectations aren't met. All of which inevitably can lead to some pretty dull and toothless comments about a film, especially when put in the wrong hands.


Some examples of the problem with storytelling affecting artistic appreciation below.


1) Nothing happens
2) There weren't any likeable characters
3) it lacked a clear resolution
4) it isn't realistic
5) it didn't make sense
6) it didn't need to be so long
Etc etc


The reality is that none of these are actually legitimate complaints about whether a movie was good or not. They might be reasons why it didn't work for a person, but they are still all elements which can intentionally be used by the director to get to the emotional places they are trying to access. Sometimes what storytelling might tell us is completely wrong of ineffective, is actually completely necessary for the film to do what the director is hoping to accomplish.


So what causes so many people to use these above examples as some kind of Trump card to prove a movie wasn't any good? Well, in short, they've been spoiled by the kind of storytelling that is basically designed to stop actual engagement with the film itself. That is meant to encourage passive viewing habits. That must immediately engage to the point of completely dulling our senses to any other pleasures or insights the film may have.


And in this way Minio is right. If you are just showing up for the storytelling, you actually probably don't like 'cinema' that much. Which, sounds offensive to some, but it's not since most of those people would happily rail against anything in the film that doesn't directly service story ie, the cinema parts.


Where I think Minio overstates the case though is that storytelling, even fairly traditional story telling, can be just as much an artform as all the other more esoteric elements. What a story decides to show, and decides not to show, is no different than what notes a musician decides to play, or chooses not to play.


Ozu, by any measure, and probably according to Ozu himself, is primarily a storyteller. He just happens to do this through film. But his particular cinematic style is deliberately stripped down mostly in order to push the story forward. And what is revolutionary about his approach, and ultimately artful about it, is the use of that style allows all the quieter elements of very traditional stories to seem as loud as your regular (and usually boring) narrative beats. He is turning what are essentially stories that, in bad hands, would be soap opera fare, and opening these same basic stories into something we don't passively accept, but need to observe.


And this is just as cinematic as anything Kubrick or Dreyer or Godard have ever done with their more pure fits of moviemaking.

The problem is most people aren't very artful with storytelling. So it ends up getting a bad rap for those looking for something more. Something cinematic.

I'm not really sure who the following is aimed at:

This seems to describe a hypothetical person who thinks story is the only element of filmmaking that matters. This person is not me, and I assume probably not anyone else here. Though I'd still be happy to engage with the rest of it, since I'd take issue with some of the reasoning along the way, and generally find little merit in the opposite idea, that largely aesthetic experiences are somehow purer cinema, or something.

Cinema, at its fundamental root, is simply the capturing of images on film, and then the process of manipulating/editing/juxtaposing these images. I don't think it's wrong to call cinema more pure the more it strictly concerns itself with these basic elements and little else ( or as little else as possible)


Yes, most of the time these manipulations are in the service of communicating a story, but I think it's fair to say those films that don't concern themselves with this element primarily or even secondarily, are probably by definition purer cinema.


But purer doesn't inherently mean better.


Plus, I should add as an aside, that at this point, story has become like a virus that has been introduced to a host and almost completely taken it over. To find the line where narrative ends and pure cinema begins, is probably a near impossible task at this point. And, being that we are essentially storytelling beasts by nature, it was probably an impossibilty for this merger to not ultimately happen. So for me the best approach in talking about or appreciating film is to find how these two intertwined elements overlap and complement eachother.

Not anybody in particular (at least here. [Let's hope so!])

The idea that a piece of art is something to be deciphered and translated into a message is an illusion fabricated by critics in an attempt to validate their profession. Narratives are a part of other arts, mainly literature. If we want each art to be disparate from the others, we must get rid of narratives and stories in film. Long live story-free cinema!

... or at least let's get rid of the idea that story is somehow the most important aspect. Even somebody as mainstream as David Lynch serves as a good illustration of this. I’m indifferent to his convoluted narratives, and my connection to (some of) his films is directly tied to the distinctive vibes his films evoke in me. It’s far from a cerebral endeavor with him.

I also like films that work like mirrors. They reflect you, so whatever you bring to them, they reflect back on you. If a film’s message isn’t readily apparent, it could be that the message is enigmatic, or it could be that the film isn’t attempting to convey a message at all. Paradoxically, some entertainment cinema falls into the latter category much more often than arthouse cinema, and I love entertainment without a message because it shows a sort of purity that's hard to find anywhere else. Paradoxically, those films are sometimes more cinematic than their more artistic counterparts. For example, if the film sets out to give you a good time or create an interesting atmosphere without any pretensions to raise a meaningful point, I count that as a plus. I dislike films that appear to be pure joy but then betray you and include a message or story that steers away from the fun of it. In that way, I understand the common moviegoers who just want to be entertained. It's fine if an entertaining film has a message, but it cannot get in the way of the fun. It's fine for an art film to be entertaining, but it cannot cross the threshold of making it less sublime. That's why I'm always conflicted about these middle-of-the-road movies like 80s & 90s Spielberg stuff and whatnot.

Spielberg is the director of the middle. He tries to have fun but also has a little bit of a message or story or some dumb point to make. But that's the least of his problems, though. He's mostly just so insincere. Maybe he's sincere as a person, but his art isn't. I feel nothing when I put on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The special effects are too good and the film is too well-made for its own good. Entertainment has to be rough around the edges for the most part. Somebody like Nolan is another example. His films are allegedly entertaining but also have something to say if you're really hard-pressed to listen. But he doesn't know how to have fun and show fun, plus he doesn't know how to say something in a meaningful way. His films are sterile when it comes to invoking emotions, too, and I don't mean Bresson-like sterile. Now, let's take a true auteur: Johnnie To. His films can be very entertaining, and his messages are often well-hidden and enigmatic for a common filmgoer, but quite illuminating and intriguing when unpacked. You can either choose to watch the films for what they are or deep-dive into them to understand the message better. You can also analyze his oeuvre to arrive at new points, as he rehashes many points and ideas throughout his work. He's a truly interesting director to watch, as he can entertain me with something like Seven Years Itch, move me with something like Romancing in Thin Air, troll me with something like Don’t Go Breaking My Heart 2, or do all of these at once with something like Exiled. All of that when employing the stylish camera work that somebody like Nolan can dream about.

On a personal note, I’d argue that many films known for their allegedly complicated and complex stories—even those that are critically acclaimed and award-winning—are (in their core) simple to the point of being juvenile. I might even suggest that there’s an inherently simplistic aspect to ALL films; the act of make-believe or immersing oneself in a fictional world, the requirement for an active imagination, the stirring of a sense of wonder, and so on, are all characteristic of a childish mind, or a simple peasant if you will. Cinema is the art of (and for) the common people.

I suppose if one is obsessed with understanding everything, they end up with understanding a lot, but getting almost nothing. It's no coincidence that the best cinephiles (including me) are fairly stupid and intelligent and knowledgeable people have bad taste in art for the most part.

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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.

I know I hate certain films, but that is never because of the cinema artistry in itself---i.e. I never hate a film in terms of its being a film (though I do sometimes become frustrated with certain stylistic approaches that I think were not what they could have been). The films that I hate are regarded by me in that way typically due to some sort of personal moral claim that I have against either the values that are expressed (typically, again, in regards to the story) or due to value conflicts with elements of the film production. For instance, I think El Topo is a visionary work of cinema, but I hate it because of the animal death involved in it.

I've seen plenty of movies that I hate, but that's sorta OK. If I hate a movie, that's a strong reaction and I might see it again eventually to see if it really is as awful as I thought it was. It's the boring, lower part of the middle range that bothers me the most. I don't hate them enough to get worked up and I just squandered 2 hours of my life watching something that was probably a reasonably well done production, but also a waste of all that effort and professionalism.

I'm jumping into this conversation late, but am wondering if people apply the "pure" label to literary mediums. I'm not well read enough to encounter the use of such terms there or have many examples at hand. With poetry, I imagine an equivalent would be something like word-association, beat-poetry, I could see someone referring to that as "pure poetry."


I'm not sure what the equivalent of that is for novels, nor do I think I've heard the phrase, "pure literature" (but maybe it does exist).
I've never read Finnegan's Wake, but I suspect that comes close. Maybe Naked Lunch has a coherent plot after a certain point in the story, but it seemed to become word soup to me when I read it (it didn't stop me from keep reading it). This question is posed in relation to other conversations I've seen started elsewhere that get couched on the grounds of, "cinema is really _______."


So, I guess I'm hoping someone more well-read than me can jump in on what is the analogous version of "pure cinema" in literature and how do people refer to it.

If I'm defining pure cinema as dealing directly with the actual medium of film and the manipulation of that material as the primary element that matters, not story or character, then...I guess we would have to consider pure literature as those writers who primarily concern themselves with words and the ensuing sentences that are created as those words are strung together. Then the eventual manipulation of those words and sentences to create an affect. I think this is probably found mostly in the arena of poetry, so I guess following this line of logic, literature that is more poetic in nature, is 'purer'?


So, yes, Finnegan's Wake would be a pretty prime example. Gravity's Rainbow, Naked Lunch, maybe Kerouac, Faulkner. And if we are stretching this, I'd even listen to arguments for Hemingway and Bukowski, due to the intense poetic feel of their minimalist writing styles. Maybe also the shorter works of Salinger, through the manner in which he uses language to shroud his mini narratives, making even the simplest details he describes as having an unsolvable mystery about them.


All of these examples are still heavily indebted to narrative though, even Finnegan's Wake. Which makes it seem like a cheat to call them 'pure' in this way. But as already stated about films, I don't really know how possible it is to make anything that is entirely narrative free. Even pure abstraction a lot of the time often has a kind of structure which leans on the expectations of a narrative form (for example, the images in a Stanley Brakhage film, even if just splashes of paint, have the intensity in which they are presented ebb and flow, become more and less intense, faster and slower, darker then brighter, cribbing a vaguely dramatic arc in the process)

Basically, yeah, this. Despite hearing the term Brakhian, I've never sought out a Brakhage film (not that they look readily available). I know there are experimental films, especially short films that have no story on them unless you impose one on them, and despite not knowing any examples, I feel like I've heard spoken poetry before that is basically playing on either word associations or just sounds, but wasn't sure if there was a novel equivalent of a Jackson Pollack painting. From the examples I gave and was given, it sounds like things are more Lynch's Inland Empire, less Jackson Pollack, in terms of "pure cinema" as used here.

Which is a start. I do wonder if trying to be that structureless could be maintained in written form for that long of a duration.

I guess to give a slight background on my curiosity, I've seen people respond to negative criticisms to movies such as Avatar 2 and Dune 2, pulling the "film is an audio-visual medium, the style is the substance," card. And I think the temporal-progressing factor about film, as opposed to photography, that also links it as a narrative medium akin to literature, even if it isn't as firmly required for film as it is for literature (though audio isn't necessarily required either, though would seem odd without them and there are counterpoints of examples where the visual aspect yields to other factors of film). When that happens, I sometimes see the person fundamentally misunderstand the nature of what narrative can mean, And I find myself wanting in breadth of knowledge to do comparisons to literature to frame an analogy (let alone a good one).

I'd feel awful naive if I liked everything I saw. An lot what's out there is derivative dreck, like bad TV....a waste of brain cells and life time. I don't dislike many movies I see because I do check commentary and reviews before I go, thereby avoiding the worst ones. I actually made a point of checking a couple lists of worst movies of 2023 and then congratulated myself for having seen none of them. That's a good thing.

It should be noted that my experience with experimental literature is fairly limited and has only grazed the surface of the most well known writers doing these kinds of things. And so, with maybe the exception of Joyce and Pynchon, most of it isn't even that far out there (and I frankly much prefer Joyce's less abstract works...the novelty of Rainbow wore off on me after about two hundred pages of not understanding a single sentence and Ulysses fluctuated between being fantastic quickly followed by crushingly dull and repetitive....as for Pynchon his more abstract is the better stuff, as far as I'm concerned)


So there might be much writing that is a lot more unmoored from conventions that I am not remotely aware of. I did have an acquaintance who became a published writer, and ultimately also a friend of William Burroughs, who used to do a form of writing that was complete unmoored from any kind of narrative. His process of writing had something to do with how each sentence was somehow determined by the kinds of words used in the sentence that preceded it, which forced him to construct his paragraphs like these puzzles entirely dictated by how many consanants or vowels had already been used, or some other thing that didn't make a lick of sense to me. And I also hated the results, so it didn't inspire me to dig any deeper.


So I do think things can get pretty extreme out in the wild if one wants to look. But my feeling is it would probably be about as interesting to me as the last twenty five years of modern painting (and don't even start me on that), where art really does become more a purely academic exercise and legitimately feel pretty exclusionary to anyone not already deeply immersed in that world

It's also very difficult for me to hate a film. Even though he's not good, he's still entertaining

Your self-congratulatory attitude is hilarious.

While you’re busy polishing your critic’s badge for spotting the ‘films that made a lot of money and are therefore good,’ remember that sometimes the most profound truths are found in the unlikeliest of places, like between the frames of a CAT III picture or the choreographed chaos of katana-wielding Richard Harrison.

But yup, no point in watching trash like Marvels or After 4 unless you're a masochist.

I'm not congratulating myself at all, but looking back with a sense of relief. I'm also relieved that, during the past year, I had no unneeded root canals, didn't replace the new tires on my car and didn't start a fire in the woods behind my house.

The cost of seeing a movie in a theater makes me cautious. I will own up to seeing Ant Man and the Wasp (at the request of someone else), but I did manage to avoid the remake of White Men Can't Jump or the horror of Winnie The Pooh, Blood and Honey.

Come to think about it, I AM congratulating myself and plan on doing the same for 2024.

Glad I managed to change your mind.

Even if a movie is terrible, is it really that bad? Is it worse than staring at a wall, or talking to some jerk at a bus stop, or peeing next to a bunch of men in a public toilet? Because, when it comes to what the average person does with their free time,that's the competition.

If those are my only options, like peeing in public, you're probably right. On the other hand, fortunately I have lots of options in my city, several theaters that have a diverse set of movies most nights, and if worse comes to worse, I can always stop at MegaLoMart and buy a pack of tighty whities.

In regard to "really that bad", if I come out feeling like I just wasted a couple hours and some bucks, yeah, It can be that bad.

In all fairness to staring at a wall, sitting in a comfortable recliner, while staring off into space and getting lost in thought is a much more common pass time for me than I'd like to admit, so let's not sell staring at a wall short. Everything else that involves interacting with other human beings is just supporting evidence for Sartre.

Staring at a blank wall not being that bad is part of my point. No one gets angry at walls they've been staring at, and I'm pretty sure no movie I've seen is worse than a blank wall, so people just need to chill if a movie isn't directly speaking to them.


A bad movie is never that terrible. I've seen a million of them, and not one would make my top million worst things that have happened in my life.

Have you seen the Human Centipede movies?