Bryan Way's Blog, page 2
January 9, 2017
Elitist, or Populist?
Deep into my education at Temple University, one of my fellow undergraduates saw fit to label our colleagues in the film program with adjectives ridiculing their general nature. 'Narcissistic' was almost certainly one of them, as was 'sycophantic', but the one I remember most clearly was applied to me, and that was 'pretentious'. I protested; I made no pretense concerning my film projects or rhetoric, and I most certainly did not think myself a more important or capable student than my contemporaries. Naturally, he concluded my response was pretentious in itself, I suspect more to rile me up than because he truly believed it.
In retrospect, 'vain' might have been more accurate. Though I concede a momentary air of pretentiousness, I made no attempt to impress through affectation, and I wasn't precisely egocentric; selfless collaboration is one of the elements that drew me to film in the first place, and I thoroughly enjoy helping others with projects in a manner that best suits their needs. But, at the end of the day, was I more interested in my own work and opinion? You bet.
Nevertheless, the incident had me recalling my first encounter with the truly pretentious in college: Teaching Assistants. Not all of them, mind you, but many of these graduate-level film students were young enough to be full of excited theories and vehement opinions, but old enough to believe they had the right to drum perceived naïveté out of greenhorn undergraduates. They would, with regularity, dismiss Fight Club or American Beauty as unmerited drivel. They considered Steven Spielberg passé. One contrarian excoriated Darren Aronofsky, praised Bad Santa as 'incredible', and felt George Lucas was a 'genius' for the title Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones . I'll never forget one student approaching a TA after class to argue in favor of fun and entertaining movies, only to receive a savage dressing-down on the necessary artistic integrity of the medium. At the time, it was an impressive display of aesthetic erudition. In retrospect, it was an appalling demonstration of pretentious elitism.
To make allowances, as the incident came so close to the beginning of our college education, this scolding may have merely been an appraisal of the student's preconceived notions; if he graduated with the exact same opinions he had before he arrived, he'd have received no education at all. And, to be fair, dozens of students major in film because it seems fun and easy. However, rigorous grading and attendance policies in early courses wash out the scrubs better than browbeating, especially since getting an arts education is already fairly self-defeating; as my recently deceased friend would say, "teaching students is like trying to strike a match on soap." Some students just vamp for good grades until their heads are rich with lather. It easily washes away, their curiosities going unignited; they pass, but they do not learn. On the other hand, if you press too hard, you break the match. The easily dissuaded are more brittle and drop out, but the remainder will then defy you to strike them out of spite, increasing both the difficulty of ignition and the likelihood of burning your fingers. The trick is to bring the soap and red phosphorous, hoping more heads seek the striker.
Matches? Soap? What the hell am I talking about?
The average moviegoer is a populist. They care not if a standard set by Citizen Kane is upheld when they seek two hours of fun in a dark theatre. Theirs are the $10 increments that helped Avatar , Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens , and Jurassic World earn more than the GDP of a small country. Any elitist who turns his or her nose at that notion is an idiot. There's no doubting that film is an artistic medium, but like most forms of expression, the medium came first, then had art conferred on it, not the reverse. Vincent Van Gogh did not direct the first film; Eadweard Muybridge photographed a galloping horse to prove that it lifted all four feet off the ground at some point in its stride. The successive 24 frames, known as Sallie Gardner at a Gallop , became the first motion picture. Despite the overtures of artistry, the allure of the Kinetoscope, where you press your face into a peephole for 20 seconds of entertainment, abides.
On the other hand, while I don't exclusively identify with elitists, I do empathize with them. There's a classic anecdote where Alec Guinness encounters a prepubescent Star Wars fan who owns to having seen the film over 100 times. While giving the fan an autograph, Sir Alec insists that he never watch Star Wars again. Guinness recounted tears from the boy and scorn from his mother in his autobiography, and though the boy in question would offer a differing account some years later, both came away with the same well-meaning sentiment, expressed by Sir Alec:
"I just hope the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy world of secondhand, childish banalities."In short, you can't thrive on sweets. You gain no better understanding of film by subsisting on nothing but summer blockbusters and holiday classics, just as you do yourself a disservice by presupposing your favorite films from some institution's top ten list, or by buttressing an argument over a film's quality with the phrase "But it won an Oscar". There's more to the medium than those films on which studios spend millions marketing and the ones 'experts' and organizations insist are great, whether by consensus or not. As an example, and in spite of the fact that I feel Ghostbusters is the greatest film ever made, Lost Highway was the film that put me on the path to film fanaticism.
I caught it on late night cable, tuning in as a gangster dragged a motorist from his car and beat him senseless while quoting traffic statistics. At 13 years old, this was weird stuff, particularly as my cinematic diet had been personified by Jurassic Park to that point. The intrigue of those who might color outside the lines overcame me, and I could have no better guide than David Lynch. There is no doubt in my mind that Lost Highway is the movie that saw me major in film. It was ignored by awards institutions, scorned by critics, and did poorly at the box office, but it saw me swearing off contemporary fare and watching anything that arrived before I did, listening to and often repeating the disparaging comments about the mainstream fostered in my college environs.
Then, after four years of Soviet Montage, Scandinavian Revival, French New Wave, Italian Neo-Realism, dialectics, dutch tilts, 24p filters, Stansilavskian elocution, Oscar Micheaux, Maya Deren, and Marshall McLuhan, I realized that Ghostbusters was better than I ever gave it credit for. I'd developed the tools to appreciate its editing, cinematography, production design, and seamless blend of genres, but after years of analysis, perhaps I respond most to the beauty of its accessibility. It is simultaneously a technical marvel and refreshingly free of subtext. It's one of the few films I can think of that no one dislikes. Enjoying it doesn't require cinematic literacy, but knowledge of the medium deepens your respect for its achievements. Art is definitely a medium of communication, but perhaps I'm being naïve when I assert that its best examples can unify through mutual appreciation? It's a populist idea, I grant you, but it's being made by a seasoned elitist.
Maybe 'pretentious' was the right word?
The balance of standards between the elitist and the populist within calls into question where you set the bar. Are you more likely to enjoy something that stimulates your intellect, or your emotions? Would you favor a visceral reaction to an introspective one? Do you prefer funny 'ha-ha', or funny 'ah-ha'? Star Trek , or Star Wars ? What I discovered through my childhood, and then through film school, is that my bar does not have a fixed height. I suspect more people than not have this attitude, but I harbor equal scorn for anyone who claims insurmountable standards as I do for those with marginal ones.
The populist manifests himself in my general openness to watching and enjoying almost anything. I respond to astonishing effect sequences, kinetic fights, and stupid sight gags as much as the next person, and regardless of whether I love or hate the final result, I always ask myself "How well does it accomplish what it set out to do?" On a qualitative scale, you don't compare Mozart to KC and the Sunshine Band. They clearly had different goals.
The elitist, on the other hand, is a formally educated and active student of film. The vanity of my acknowledging this is a subtle thing. Like my early days as a student, I don't believe my degree imbues me with intellectual hegemony concerning film, nor do I wish to browbeat with my opinions. The notion that others would infuriates me. The acid-tongued elitist is unleashed by such provocations, as well as those who suggest I don't 'understand' something with a variety of narrow-minded dismissions such as not being experienced or old enough, or with self-glorifying claims that own to a greater perception of the art because of one's occupation or field of study. Disparaging someone else's opinion instead of clarifying your own is a craven way to undermine a subjective discussion.
In truth, the biggest issue I encounter is when others mistake the excitement and forcefulness with which I express my opinion as intolerance toward dissent, when, in reality, I couldn't oppose it more strenuously. Whether your reaction is emotional, intellectual, visceral, or introspective, if it speaks to you personally or makes you feel something, good or bad, the elitist - and the populist - wants to know why. If I had my way, everyone would explain, support, and defend their favorite films with equal enthusiasm, and their opinions would be received, accepted, or debated just as enthusiastically. Perhaps that's an elitist idea. I honestly don't know.
More than anything, I try to remain both open and pragmatic in my diet of films and attitudes toward them, and I do my best to extend this openness to the opinions of others. An unembarrassed zeal for discussion lies buried in the rhetoric I espouse, as does one simple truth I embrace with every fiber of my being: no one can tell you which films to like or dislike, it only matters if they move you or not. I just want to share in your passion.
Now, if that's pretentious, I'll need to start owning it.
November 23, 2016
Snapshot
Five months ago, I had an epochal day.
It's not as though I consider job promotions, marriages, the birth of children, anniversaries, or deaths insignificant life events to memorialize, but I find myself beholden to a more surreal standard of defining incidents. Namely, I can pinpoint a few innocuous moments that have sustained relevance due to my own extreme self-awareness. The first I remember was when I was four, sitting in the backseat of my mother's car in a heavy winter coat, waiting for her to return from picking up my brother at elementary school. The moment of silence felt strange, because on some level, my contemplation pushed my self-perception to what felt like external observation, as though I was watching myself in a dream while certain that I was awake and lucid. It happened again when I was a Cub Scout camp councilor in 2001; while participating in the colors ceremony at Fort Akela in Camp Garrison of the Musser Scout Reservation, a light rain began to fall as we prepared to lower the flag. Every detail of that bittersweet, melancholy moment is etched permanently in my brain. I've forgotten what would have been the third moment, but I suspected at the time I was trying to manufacture one, so that ephemeral epoch became apocryphal.
However, on June 23rd, 2016, the sensation hit hard. I was standing on my back deck, nursing a drink as my best friend puffed a cigarette on this warm, serene, and perfectly humid summer night. Perhaps coincidentally, it had been roughly six months since I'd moved into my new apartment, and I was feeling unusually good about the arrangement. I was in the midst of relating the particulars of my day, wherein a customer at work occupied an inordinate amount of my time talking incessantly and obliviously about whatever crossed their periphery. I spared no effort to be accommodating and polite, even indulgent, but after seven hours of listening, I realized that my patience for such vapid monologuing had eroded to practically nothing, leaving my overall tolerance for bloviation severely damaged. In spite of this revelation, I was in an excellent mood.
The forthcoming election was still a humorous distraction, too far away to be real. I had just heard about Kindle Scout and was mentally preparing to submit Life After: The Void for a campaign. My best friend had recently met a young woman with whom he thought he could establish a long-awaited fertile relationship. I felt comfortable, optimistic, and filled with rational hopes for the future. A few days later, when I began the campaign, my fiancée, who is without a doubt the most honest, dedicated, and pragmatic supporter of my work, said "You deserve a win." Though I am much more likely to self-flagellate than self-congratulate, and would never personally insist upon my being 'deserving' of anything, I tended to agree. At that point, Life After: The Arising had been rejected by 30 agents, and many of my attempts to publicize it had been disappointing. I continued to sacrifice the prospect of starting a career, instead maintaining a flexible retail job to increase my writing time. I had also dedicated more than a decade of tireless work to writing, revising, and editing in pursuit of publication, including a two-year frenzy of trying to make Life After: The Void the best book I possibly could without professional help. I was certainly not immune to visions of cupidity, but I had been practical about my opportunities, and a successful Kindle Scout campaign seemed like a tangible goal. 'Tangible goals' may not sound especially sexy, but the mere possibility of things to come left me feeling as though I was on the precipice of something momentous.
That was five months ago.
In that time, I put everything I had into the Kindle Scout campaign. I was rejected. I took it hard, but turned dejection into exertion, conducting a marathon of editing to prepare Life After: The Void for a self-published release. When I had time to internalize what had happened, the experience left me feeling emboldened. I did let some petty issues in the physical publication of the book get to me, but such is the fate of a perfectionist, and they were ultimately corrected to my satisfaction. Some time later, I suffered through a crisis of confidence that had me questioning the point of my writing career, but I endured.
During this time, my best friend became newly single.
Meanwhile, the parade of daily lunacies that had been the election turned into morbid theatre, where the posturing of four deeply flawed candidates incited more venomous discord than I previously thought possible. Like most, I openly expressed a desire for it to be over, but the final tally did nothing to assuage my fears as it exposed a partisan, discriminatory, hypocritical, spiteful divide among Americans that seemed to champion ignorance and isolation. I never expected such disagreements to be solved or compromised in a day, but to see conservatives and liberals alike mock, scorn, and ridicule each other while stockpiling rage to support their stubborn ideations in willful opposition to understanding and compassion was enough to fill me with existential dread.
Then, last week, an immediate family member lost their longtime job. Not for wrongdoing or negligence. Just a victim of slow business. That such a decent, honest, hard-working person could be so unceremoniously sacked only deepened the dread encapsulated by my already fragile worldview.
Two days ago, I received my first royalty notification following the two month delay after Life After: The Void was made available to pre-order. It was blank. I am normally loathe to examine tracking statistics before such payments arrive, but following this, I had to see what was in store. As it turns out, Life After: The Void has sold less than 20 copies. Though I am not destitute, I was hoping the profits of the new book would aid in the purchase of holiday gifts.
Yesterday, I was informed that my former professor, mentor, and friend passed away. An Academy Award-Winning production designer for such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Kramer vs. Kramer whose lovable irascibility and brusque wit belied the heart of an eminently giving man who was always free with his time, solicitude, and erudition. We'd had dinner together often after his classes, he'd invited me into his home, and he'd read and reacted to everything I'd ever written. He was concise, plain-spoken, relentless, and encouraging with his criticism. He had both the keenest artistic intellect and the most finely tuned bullshit detector of any individual I have ever met in my life. I empathize entirely with his family and close friends, not only because I will miss him, but because he is irreplaceable, having made both the world of motion pictures and the world itself a better place. For the rest of my days, I will write imagining him tapping me on the shoulder to spare me my excesses, or slap some sense into me with the encouragement he once gave Dustin Hoffman on the set of The Tiger Makes Out : "Stay tough."
This is not a pity party, nor is it intended to elicit sympathy. I realize, now more than ever, how incredibly fortunate I am to be an employed and insured white American man who has an apartment, food, water, electricity, heat, possessions, and a means to indulge a passion for writing. I am healthy and alive. I'm also fortunate to have an abundance of supportive friends, family, and loved ones who enjoy many of the same rights and privileges. Don't doubt for a moment that I take none of these things for granted.
This is a merely a snapshot of life following this particular epoch, which, just five months ago, felt like the beginning of a hopeful new era, blah blah blah. Instead, the world around me seems to be a dubious, divided, darker, drearier, and more terrifying place. Not that I'm planning on withdrawing myself or quitting. It just seemed important to remember.
