When you binge on a specific director...

How about some big old bear hugs for everybody

Ha, that's my middle name!

A: I've answered every question you threw at me. You'd ask four questions at once and I gave you answered. You alreasy proved you aren't reading my responses correctly, so I'll go against my better judgment and assume that you're the one who doesn't understand my answers at all. And as proof that I'm not delivering "bad answers," other people understood just fine.


B: If you can't grasp simple concepts other people here could, you're the child. I do everyone here the benefit of a doubt by assuming that they're NOT commonplace moviegoers that just wanna see cheap special effects and only believe something's good if the critics say so, the kind of person I worked hard for nine years trying NOT to become. I assumed everyone here had more experience than that and I still do. And I never brought it up until now because apparently, I'm not shown that same courtesy.

Dude, you don't make it easy.


Among the unanswered questions: 1) Why Jesus Franco? I mean, besides that you saw one of his films on MST3K, and it was the worst film you ever saw. What are you curious about him? What are you hoping to learn about the specific types of films that he makes (beyond "good", "bad" generalities)? 2) I've mentioned the style of these pictures, now that you've (presumably) finished the film by now, how do assess those elements of the film which are not like what you've seen in other films? Has it expanded your palate? (Standard question for auteurist evaluation.) 3) What are your thoughts/interests in the context of the overall genres involved? Because that might be pertinent for the viewing of the remaining dozen Franco films you may be seeing?



Sure. Not counting the ones who've fled in frustration.

Do me a favor, everyone, and when you have a response all written up that's substantive, maybe don't include that little sardonic barb (or defensive swipe) at the end which adds nothing? If that keeps happening I'm closing the thread.

I guess I found the "in-depth review", which presents Franco as a "simple director" "who doesn't put that much effort into his movies because he feels like he doesn't need them." So good faith?


But I should also apologize because I didn't have a very clear idea about Keyser before posting in this thread, and I realize now that I'm being unfair. You do you, KC.

Thank you. The apology means a lot to me.

You can watch movies while crocheting for all I care. It doesn't make you a bad person. But it makes you a film watcher whose opinions are from now on questionable to me. I'm not belittling you. But I'm pointing out that your way of movie-watching shows a strong indication that a considerable part of the movie's magic evaporates between the rifts of your pausing.
The above are media that are usually not meant to be experienced in one sitting in the first place. Films are. Canonically, you go to the movies and watch a film in one sitting in a dark room with no distractions or pauses. Yes, long films have intermissions but these are pauses intended and planned by the makers. It's OK to take breaks if you really must go to the toilet or if the film is more than 5 hours long and you can't take it. But any film of moderate length deserves your full attention and no pauses.
It's not really what you prefer but what the filmmaker wants. A proverbial filmmaker. Use common sense, Jesus. And no, Lav Diaz saying it's OK to take a nap during his films doesn't make it OK to do so during his movies. In the end, of course, you can watch a film while texting with your friend, jumping on one leg, and studying Cambodian, but your experience is never going to be as good as if you just sat down to watch it in peace and quiet.
Smarter people already explained why taking pauses when watching a film is wrong.
You'll not tease it out of me. Quality is accessed on a singular basis. You get a gut feeling of what is quality and what isn't. This gut feeling is subjective (duh) but let's all respect ourselves and have at least some level of taste here. I think your examples of quality would be not that far off from what I deem quality anyway, so this might be pointless to talk about.
The fact taste is subjective doesn't mean it can't be developed. There are some things you get right away and some things you get only after being exposed to similar stuff for some time. There are also things you'll never get and that's fine. But "get" has nothing to do with intellectually understanding it. You can understand it but still not "get" it on a subconscious level.

You can explain why something is good when talking about a particular film. But if you're using your feelings and emotions to explain it, others may still not get it. And the taste is mostly about feelings and emotions. You can put it into words and attempt an intellectual explanation, too. But this isn't easy, and it's mostly boring because it then most often boils down to either "this film is personal to me for this reason" or "hey, acting was good".

Anyway, I thought that the sunglasses emoji made it clear I'm being conceited here. I actually said this before, albeit maybe didn't phrase it best.

__________________
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.

Bless you for your charitable arrogance.

Not sure how to interpret this, but I do admit my sentence can be understood in at least two ways. What I meant to say was that your explanation was good and you're a smart person.

No, it sounded like you were responding directly to me. Sorry for the misunderstanding. This forum can be quite a funhouse mirror of social perception.

My fault - should've phrased it better. I was responding to the previous person, SpelingError.

I'm not sure if I agree or not, but assuming I do, what would be the point of comparing or contradicting things which can only be accessed on a singular basis?

I agree it's not easy. I also agree it's mostly boring, but I think that's because most people are very bad at exploring and articulating those kinds of feelings.

I'm not sure I've ever heard the idea that "taste is mostly about feelings and emotions." I usually think the opposite, that "taste" is the name we give for the understanding we glean by absorbing more of something.

Nah, it's cool, I got that. But I usually treat those as you half-joking, so I was addressing what I assumed was the other half.

Hmm, what I meant by "singular basis" is that every film should be assessed on its own. You asked what quality means and it can't really be answered in general. If you take a quality film you can say why it's quality or not. Theoretically, you could prepare some checkmarks a film has to check to be quality, but these would be different for different types of films. For example, "good acting" (wouldn't be a mark on my list, but maybe on somebody else's) is pointless as a one-for-all checkmark if firstly, there are no actors in the film at all and secondly, the filmmaker deliberately makes his actors act like mannequins (Bresson) or doesn't care about their acting at all because other things are more important in their movies (Franco).

Absolutely. I have a hard time putting my feelings into words, and when I feel I finally succeeded, friends call it just a pretentious piece of crap. Note how many professional critics write in a very non-personal manner. It's skillful but lacks emotions, some visible zeal, and excitement with cinema. When cinema is quite literally half of your life, it's hard to distance yourself from it.

Yeah, that too. But to me, taste is very intuitive. When I try to decide if a film is good or not, I'm not analyzing it or intellectually processing what it is about and what kind of substance it has, but rather instinctually tell if this is it or not. The intellectual analysis comes later after I've already made the decision based mostly on formal qualities, atmosphere, feeling, emotions, aesthetics, etc. That is why I have a hard time denouncing some films that do not agree with me ideologically. I don't mind it's a wrong Nazi or Communist propaganda film if this film is cinematically outstanding in one or more ways. This may be a problematic and faulty approach to art, I admit.

Thanks for expounding.

I dunno if that's problematic. I guess it's not super conducive to discussion, but that's only problematic for a discussion forum. I don't find myself immediately emotionally overwhelmed by films much, but it has happened (Magnolia is one of the first that comes to mind). Maybe it's just how I am, and if I were different it would happen more often, and that kind of experience would be a bigger part of how I approach films. Hard to say.

I think I would probably also be one who looks at the notion of taste similarly.



Acknowledging the value of something academically, or being able to articulate how well it adheres were to the general rules of craft, is definitely a good tool to have in your belt when discussing art. But when that's all you've got, I find it to be mostly an empty intellectual exercise unless we have also learned how to feel towards the work.



Also, much great art simply cannot be adequately discussed in words. It really only matters in the moment that it is acting upon us. And maybe the memories of the experience it implants in us. For example, most writings on Stanley Brakhage are about as interesting as watching dust settle on a collection of unread volumes of Proust. But his works are deeply sensual pieces. Watching them unfurl is where the beauty comes in. Talking about them is, frequently, pointless.

To be clear, I just took/take the word "taste" to refer mostly to the part of the process that comes from breadth of viewing. That shouldn't be taken as an endorsement of approaching all things through the lens of film history/convention (as you say, that leads to bloodless criticism), and heck, it shouldn't even mean that this is all we get from that breadth of viewing, either. Sometimes watching a lot of films means you've just deeply internalized certain things that make a film good, even if they're ineffable.

All that said, I do think that kind of bloodless criticism is the kind that's more lacking today. We do not lack for people just talking about how they felt about a film, and holding that fact up as self-justifying. The kind of criticism I'm thinking of is the kind written for the reader, not just the emotional journaling of the writer. And I think for the reader the best criticism is one that transfers bits of their taste and expertise.

I've*read some Proust, notably Swann's Way. To be fair, I think Proust is more fixated on appearing fancy than telling a compelling story, but on the subject of taste I find his grammatical style to be very tasteful

Okay, fair enough. I think you, Jinn, and crumbs have convinced me of your arguments. Just to be clear - I generally don't break up films. Well, I usually never do. There's only been a few viewings over the years where I did it, but I greatly prefer finishing them in one go. Or, if I do have to stop watching for whatever reason (running out of time, too tired to finish it, internet connection acting up), I'll sometimes start the film over the next day.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

Not that it’s any of my business, but the above shows yet again that you don’t really care about people’s views when they diverge from your own and are argued in ways you find incomprehensible; but you sure love showcasing your (supposed) intellectual superiority. Also, no one is under any obligation to respond to your questions if they find them irrelevant.