This kind of "language" tells us little, if anything, about the films or filmmaker, but tells a lot about the writer's impoverished critical vocabulary. "I don't like it... so it's shit!" What banal, totally unegaging language. I don't care what this person thinks, if there's any thought at all involved, which I doubt. This is reactive writing. Self centered writing. Bad writing.
Most of the time, that's probably true (and I'd add "lazy writing" to the roster).I do think, however, that scatological references are sometimes useful shorthand, and even appropriate. Someone who calls a Brett Ratner movie "shit," for example, is expending only slightly less thought than went into making the movie itself. One could write a detailed article about all the ways in which the Ratner film sucked, but if such an article was competent (that it would be very long is a given), one would, by definition, be expending far more thought on bashing the movie than went into making it.
Sometimes, this can be an amusing exercise--I picture Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog at a picnic table combing through old books in an effort to find arcane profanities for Kinski to hurl at Herzog and his films. Most of the time, it's pointless, because most upbudget Hollywood rubbish--the movies that most merit that treatment--isn't, shall we say, up to Herzog's standards.
The "summer blockbuster" season is well underway, Hollywood besieging us with their annual roster of "tent-pole" movies, a parade of brainless CGI-laden inanity that seems to find no denominator either common enough or low enough. How does one write a thoughtful, intelligent critique of a movie like ARMAGEDDON or THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW or INDEPENDENCE DAY or this year's X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE? Such films wear their cretinous idiocy and complete lack of value on their sleeves. Their mere existence is an insult to the universe itself, particularly given their budgets (which run into the hundreds of millions of dollars). They're the soulless, putrefying leavings of a system of once-mighty studios who, decades ago, stopped living and became mixed-up zombies. And not in any good way.[2]
And if one doesn't want to waste the energy necessary to detail, about them, deficiencies already patently obvious to anyone with more than a few functioning brain cells, I think it's all right to just call them shit.[3]
--j.
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[1] As this suggests, at least some little part of the objection to the use of defecation metaphors is that they're so often so poorly aimed!
[2] Think about this: 70 years ago, the studio system gave us THE WIZARD OF OZ, Laughton's HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, GONE WITH THE WIND, GUNGA DIN, STAGECOACH, ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS, THE YOUNG MR. LINCOLN--more great movies than can be counted. This year, we're getting a FRIDAY THE 13th remake, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, PAUL BLART: MALL COP, a LAND OF THE LOST rehash, a remake of THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123, YEAR ONE, and TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
[3] After all, is the bashing I've just given them here that much different? Some windier prose, some whimsical alliteration, some big words, but, when all is said and done, all I've done is call them shit in a fancier way.
It is a matter of lazy writing, often. Shakespeare is said to have had one of the most extensive VOCABULARIES of his age. In other words, he studies and memorized and used variations. That may have something to do why he's still considered to be the greatest writer in the language.
ReplyDeleteGreat read, though I think you're being a little unfair when talking about the state of modern cinema. Not that Hollywood doesn't deserve the bashing, but was the studio system of the 30s and 40s so much better?
ReplyDeleteActually, I really wouldn't know about this. XD
But, didn't some of the biggest players in the industry had their own B units? Weren't they shelving an unprecedented amount of B movies devoid of any interest that would soon after their releases be forgotten forever? Or was this only the case with the poverty row studios? Man, you got me thinking a lot.
"Great read, though I think you're being a little unfair when talking about the state of modern cinema. Not that Hollywood doesn't deserve the bashing, but was the studio system of the 30s and 40s so much better?"
ReplyDeleteThey certainly produced a much greater number of quality pictures than now, and they were of much higher quality, as well. That isn't to say they didn't have their own problems: the studios were factories that often treated movies like widgets and tried to impose a uniform style, and, as with everything else, a massive number of totally forgettable pictures were produced, but a large number of great works were produced, as well.
Think about some of the films from that era--CITIZEN KANE, THE MALTESE FALCON, the Charles Laughton version of THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Hollywood, in more recent years, has generated almost nothing that will have even a fraction of the shelf-life of such films. The summer "blockbuster" season is the worst. Forget 60 years from now; TRANSFORMERS 2 will be forgotten by August.
"But, didn't some of the biggest players in the industry had their own B units? Weren't they shelving an unprecedented amount of B movies devoid of any interest that would soon after their releases be forgotten forever? Or was this only the case with the poverty row studios? Man, you got me thinking a lot."
When the double feature became standard (as it was for many years), the big studios set up b-movie units to produce cheaper, shorter films to be shown as the supporting features with their major releases. Again, a lot of forgettable product, but, because the films were so cheap, the studio bosses didn't care that much about them, and they became a workshop for developing new talent. Those b-movie units gave the world Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson, and Val Lewton's RKO b-unit created some of the greatest horror films ever made, so great that, before it was over, they were often being shown as the A-picture on the double bills.
--j.