Look. Here’s the thing. In the world of instant information and information exchange, opinions can become collectivized in a way, that is to say that sites like Rotten Tomatoes, for example, collect reviews and in the end produce a seemingly correct score for a particular movie. Popular opinions are repeated because they find agreement and attention.
But does it even matter what the majority thinks? Does it matter what well-respected movie critics think?
I’d argue that no, it does not. Because popular or ‘objective’ quality assessments don’t dictate how much enjoyment or pleasure you derive from watching a movie or how much it moves you or sticks with you. Of course, taste has always been subjective. Different people like different things and are attracted to different narratives and aesthetics. Still, there’s a subtle expectation that you have to respond positively to high quality movies and ‘low quality’ movies are deemed ‘guilty pleasures’ as if you have to feel bad for liking them.
I’m not saying there isn’t a way to determine a movie’s quality that’s a bit more objective. You can judge narrative structure and integrity, character building and development, cinematography, scoring, costuming, acting, cutting and post-production according to somewhat objective standards. Naturally, film studies isn’t an exact science and for nearly every assessment there could be a counter argument. But nobody’s disputing that some movies are just qualitatively better than others. However, the point I’m trying to make is that quality alone doesn’t determine a movie’s merit for you personally.
I’ll illustrate it with a few examples. Interstellar is a movie of high quality. Critics agree, Nolan fans obviously agree and yes, I, too, agree. Nevertheless, I have absolutely zero desire to see it again. I probably wouldn’t even watch it if someone asked me to. It was fine, it was good, but there’s no reason to watch it once more. Now, Jumper on the other hand, a movie of questionable quality, is something I like to watch again and again from time to time. I enjoy the teleportation and the resulting action sequences, the banter and Jaimie Bell’s character in particular. Its ‘objective’ quality is much lower than Interstellar’s but I like it a lot more.
Another example, this time two movies that are from the same genre: I like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy just fine. I recognize that The Dark Knight is a high quality movie and that Heath Ledger’s performance is iconic. There’s a DVD boxset sitting on my shelves. Nevertheless, I love Thor, one of the more mediocre Marvel movies, a lot more. It’s such an enjoyable movie to me that I always think fondly of it and rewatch it for the purpose of cheering myself up.
Often you can’t even articulate why you like some movies more than others. Sometimes it’s just how it is and that’s okay. There’s no need to conform your tastes to an objective standard that doesn’t even exist (not to mention that this ‘objective’ standard tends to be biased in favor of white male creators and stories). Just like what you like. There’s no need to feel guilty for liking silly romance movies, for example. If it makes you happy and harms no one, it’s all good. Liking high quality things and hating on popular blockbusters doesn’t make anyone smarter or better. You can enjoy one or the other or both or neither, because the enjoyment derived from consuming media is why we are all doing this.
Satori over and out
No comments:
Post a Comment