Please don't watch stupid bullshit
A letter and a plea!
This is entry three into The Public Letter Project— I invited anyone who feels so moved to send me a letter, and I’ll write public replies to a few of them. Sort of like an advice column, but without direct advice. More details here.
Hello Catherine,
My name is Erik. I love your work.
I also like movies. I recently saw and enjoyed Conclave. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a movie about 108 priests jockeying for an open pope position. I had a good time, a three-out-of-five-star experience. I later found out it’s based on a book, which I haven’t read. From what I gather, the book is an airport read, something to blaze through, enjoy, and then forget about (which is kind of what the movie was for me).
For some reason, I don’t have any interest in reading the book despite the enjoyable experience of watching the movie. Yet, on the occasions where the opposite true—I enjoy the book and find out there is a movie based on it—I will jump immediately at the opportunity to watch the movie, almost no questions asked. And it got me thinking: why this one-way street with the different mediums? Why will I enjoy a fun, pulpy movie, but will avoid a (potentially) fun, pulpy book?
Is there something built in to the experience of reading a book where I expect a higher return emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, etc.? Do I just need to get over myself, be a bigger omnivore book-wise and dive into some three-out-of-fivers? Is this soft snobbery something unique to me or do others feel it as well? I watch more than my fair share of fun trash movies, but am much more selective with books of fiction. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Erik
Dear Erik,
I want to see Conclave, but haven’t yet. It seems like the queerest thing ever— all that high fashion and repression and bickering and the unfettered desire to be The Main Character.
And though I haven’t seen it yet, it seems like you’ve set yourself a higher bar to clear when it comes to what counts as a pulpy/fun movie. (Not a dumbed down rom com, or an action movie, but rather a semi-fictional look at the inner workings of the Catholic Church.)
For a few months I’ve been thinking about writing a post about how too many people are injuring their brains by watching whatever random crap is suggested to them on whatever streaming platform they subscribe to at the moment. But every time I tried to write such a post, it just came out sounding too angry and preachy, probably because I am angry about the way people’s watching habits are degrading their reading habits.
Many complain they don’t have time to read, and yet those same people have intricate thoughts about something like The Bear (which by the way is just normal average television with hot, yet relatable people in it and so you feel mainly good about watching hot, relatable people talk to each other and later decide that means it was really good. Listen, it’s just not. I did watch a few episodes of it after people insisted it was really great, and I am still bitter about that lost time.)
In such a bleak moment in history, very few can get by without one form of dissociation or another. Some people dissociate by becoming rabid fatalists, or online trolls, or bitter hermits. But I think many people aren’t comfortable with fully embracing their most sinister fears, so instead of being outwardly fatalistic, they just stay home and watch television and let their brains go soft.
But I know what you mean— it does seem like we all have lower standards when it comes to the intellectual heft of a film, versus that of a good book. Perhaps it’s a matter of time investment. Perhaps it’s a matter of how active you have to be reading a book versus watching a film. Yet if that’s true, shouldn’t we be expecting more, intellectually, of a film?
You could also say this is an economic question— pulpy, easy to digest, easy to understand films are easier for the industry to make because they promise the possibility of greater returns on the investors’ money.
However, in this particular moment, the internet is a huge resource for finding films that are both a joy to watch and still meaty— wonderful and weird and compelling and intense and engrossing, sometimes all at the same time. Here are my favorites that I saw in the last year, many of which are on Mubi or available to rent/stream in one place or another:
Any of the films of Pedro Almodóvar, which I’ve already written about at length. More specifically, Tacones lejanos, Volver, or Hable con ella if you’re looking for a place to start. Just be prepared for melodrama and know there’s a reason for it.
My First Film - Zia Anger; I am totally unable to explain this film, which is made from the wreckage of Anger’s first stab at making a film, which she then made into a work of documentary performance art.
La Chimera - Alice Rohrwacher; As close a film can get to being a song.
Lazzaro Felice - Alice Rohrwacher; As close as a film can get to being both a poem and a story from The Bible.
His Three Daughters - Azazel Jacobs; An excellent film that partially felt like a play and partially felt like it was a family drama unfolding in my own living room.
Janet Planet - Annie Baker; The beloved playwright’s leap to cinema deeply satisfied me, a longtime reader and viewer of her plays.
My Neighbor Totoro - Hayao Miyazaki; I have a small-minded resistance to watching animation, but let me be the billionth person to say this film is thrilling.
Fallen Leaves - Aki Kaurismäki; I had a good serious cry after watching this one.
Passages - Ira Sachs; This was a re-watch because I loved it so much the first time. I wanted to write about it, but felt totally stumped by how I could do so.
Vridiana - Buñel; There was a Buñel retrospective at MoMA while I was living and working nearby and I saw a few of his absolutely whacko films there.
Problemista - Julio Torres; I think Torres is going to make a new genre of film if he continues making films and I wish I had billions of dollars I could give him to ensure he keeps doing so.
Totem - Lila Aviles; Absolutely stunning. It has a lot in common with His Three Daughters, above.
Eileen - Will Oldroyd; A thriller based on the
novel. It’s totally satisfying on both on a pulpy/fun level, and as a real work of art. A real porque no los dos situation.Fremont - Babak Jalali; An absolutely gorgeous but somewhat slow-paced black and white drama that’s also a comedy. Somewhere in between Harold Pinter, Eugène Ionesco, and Fellini.
Anatomy of a Fall - Justine Triet; Everyone saw this one, and I guess you could make the argument that this film was over-exposed or over-hyped or whatever. It was still pretty excellent in my opinion, and fulfils the criteria that a film be both gripping and intelligent.
Sibyl - Justine Triet; I watched this one after Anatomy, just wanting to see what other things obsess this director. Also very good.
Ripley - Steven Zaillian; This was, shockingly, a Netflix mini-series adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley and it astounded me that so few people seemed to watch it. Perhaps because it was a Netflix mini-series for people who don’t watch Netflix at all. It was both gorgeously shot by cinematographer Robert Elswit and obviously cost Netflix a fortune. This was the only good television that existed last year, if a mini series counts as TV… I really have no idea. (If I hear anyone else say there’s so much good tv right now I’m going to chew my own hand off.)
Sincerely,
Catherine
When I am with friends and the topic of tv comes up my eyes glaze over and I tune out until the conversation is finished. While reading at a bar recently I was asked if I had seen a specific tv show (strangers always seem to feel that a woman alone at a bar with a book is an invitation) and the look I got when I replied that I don’t really watch a lot of tv was one of shock and disgust.
I rebuke the idea that TV is inherently dumbing. What is inherently deep about a kitschy dark romance novel with a shirtless man on it? Probably not as much depth as Crime and Punishment, and yet they are both books. Similarly, in Television you have both Love Island and Chernobyl. In comic books, you have Archie and Watchmen. The medium isn't a prerequisite to the depth. What is important is our commitment and perceived depth.
Engaging with art is an active process, the author does as much work creating as you do interpreting. If you view television as shallow, you will not gain anything from watching television. Similarly, there's an elitist notion around the idea of books as prestige media; some books, like It Ends With Us, are more simple than others and that's fine.
I think it's way more important that we change our philosophy to engaging with art rather than denigrating certain classes altogether.
I will acknowledge that certain formats are more likely to attract "surface-level" art. It's easier to turn your mind off with a movie than a book because it's passive and stimulating, so you have to be more discerning when deciding on movies and TV than you do with books. There's also a cultural aspect, because books are "prestigious", intellectuals write them with greater commitment to depth, and because movies are "popular", producers make them to be crowd-pleasing and simple.
Ultimately, I don't want to disparage certain media altogether, but I will accept that there are certain realities related to them, and it's best that we accept both realities.