Bohemian Cinema By Jonathan Pacheco

…But Is It Really?

Tags: Criticism, Blog-a-thon, Andy Horbal, Jim Emerson

This entry was originally submitted as a comment to a post on Jim Emerson’s Scanners blog, and is referencing one of Andy Horbal’s recent posts, submitted to Jim’s Contrarian Blog-A-Thon.

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Jim,

I know you are referencing in part Andy Horbal’s post about blogs and blog-a-thons (regarding structure and the way we go about doing all of this). I respect Andy and his writing (why else would I subscribe to his blog?), but I read his post and my initial reaction was that I took issue with it.

It’s all a little too self-conscious. When he said:

Additionally, I’m frustrated by the imitative quality of much blog writing: specifically, the way film blogs imitate journalistic film criticism which, as I said, frustrates me itself…

…it feels like he’s saying, “Okay, pay attention and make sure you’re doing something different, because we’re trying to change cinema here,” which in turn makes me genuinely think, “Geez, I’m sorry. I actually thought I was starting to get okay at this.”

We all have a finite amount of time to dedicate to blogging and to compose a post or participate in a ‘thon by commenting requires sacrificing other blogging activities.

Why not let things happen, as girish points out, organically? As others have mentioned, I certainly don’t feel the need to participate in every blog-a-thon. I pick the ones that spark something and I know the others will have their own participation. Plus, Blog-a-thons provide content for your site too, y’know, so while participating in many would in a sense limit some of the topics you address, it does not change the fact that you are still putting your ideas about film out there.

The way Blog-a-thons came about seems natural to me, just as some people experiment with open letters to each other. It’s just happening. Obviously some people are not afraid to try new things. And I think part of my point is that instead of hearing someone say, “You’re doing this the wrong way,” I’d rather hear them say, “Hey, check this out! Wouldn’t that be interesting? Let’s try this,” or “Think of all the freedom you have. Think of everything you can do.”

As for the blog format itself, again, I think we just need to stop being so self-conscious about it and let it become what it will become, because I really don’t think we’re pointed in the absolute wrong direction. I understand Andy’s reservations about copying the “journalism” format too much, but maybe I just don’t see it as much as he does. One thing that he does catch onto that I agree with is that, at least in some part, blogs should be more like letters. The way I see it is that a blog is supposed to be a public journal, and what’s a journal but pretty much a letter to yourself? On my own site, I have a blog, but my “formal reviews” are on a separate blog elsewhere in the site. It may seem redundant, but I do see the logic in their separation.

The problem I find with some of these open letters is that the few times I’ve seen it done and publicized in the past, it feels incredibly masturbatory. It became one guy waxing another guy’s car and everyone basking in how smart they all are in terms of film theory and a lot of other boring hogwash. Part of my problem (but not all of it) is that I’m just beginning in my “film edification” so I don’t know a lick about Cassavettes or Bergman or Leigh or whoever is popular this year, and some of these discussions just come off as verbose snobbery, the kind that turned me off to the film community a long time ago. I know all of it won’t seem that way when I know more of what they’re (and I’m) talking about, but I do think some of it still will be. What’s refreshing is the SLIFR-TLRHB Oscar discussion, because so many times in the online film community, we feel like we’re “above” talking about certain movies or subjects like the Oscars. We feel like every conversation, to be considered legitimate, has to be about boring old films. The Oscar Club has proven, at least to me, that this semi-experimental form of open blog letters doesn’t need to be restricted to those types of conversations to be legit.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for intelligent, stimulating discussions. I don’t think “all old films are boring.” Being quite young, sometimes I don’t feel up to watching “heavy” films (they usually require a big meal beforehand), but when I do force myself to watch some of them, I do not regret it. I’m glad I do, and some of my favorite films are “old boring movies.” To catch up on old films and then to see what we can get out of them, and to see how modern day filmmakers are influenced by the past— I love it, and the online film community has gotten me really excited over the last few months. But then for someone to come out and say “I’m frustrated by the film blogosphere” seems a bit off. And then to point to conversation that, with all respect and self-ignorance acknowledged, feels like that film snobbery I used to hate, and then to say, “this is good film criticism,” well, as you can tell, it sort of put me over the edge.

(I am only now realizing that maybe I should have posted this on Andy’s blog, not Jim’s)

I know that Andy said that he in no way wanted to discourage anyone in his or her blogging, and I truly believe he doesn’t, but I can’t help but feel that this is what’s happening. Instead of thinking, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if I did this on the blog,” I’m thinking, “Goodness, I hope I’m not copying journalism too much. Am I copying it? Then what should I be doing? Goodness….”

What I liked about this Blog-a-thon is that it showed that there’s room for discussion for anything. There were posts about “contemplative cinema” and there was one about Freddy Got Fingered. There were posts about “classics” and there were some about You’ve Got Mail and Epic Movie. I found them all to be legit; no one is above anything, and we shouldn’t be. The only thing we should be above is a poorly thought out argument. If you can support your ideas, I want to hear them. And this acceptance includes me accepting what I carelessly and sometimes ignorantly refer to as “film snobbery.”

Reading back over this, I do realize that I have exaggerated a lot. See what you’ve done, Jim? All this contrarian talk. Again, I respect these open letters. I respect Andy, I respect his writing, and more importantly I respect his opinions and his intentions. These are merely mine. But I think it’s good to have these ideas around. How can we make all of this even better? I hope that his observation of blog-a-thons and blogs in general this year will not serve as negative discouragement, but more as a barometer for us to see where we are (which, I believe, is mostly his intention).

PS - And I was complaining about being verbose….