I didn’t see films as a child, so, when I discovered the cinema at the age of fourteen, I fell in love with it and - I think immediately - found that what I wanted to do was to make my own films. At the time, the films that I wanted to make were silly action adventures that veered from plagiarising “Star Wars” to plagiarising “Lord of the Rings” depending on the season, and it’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve come to an understanding of the potential to do truly brilliant things with the medium.
My subscription to the DVD rental service (previously ScreenSelect; now called LoveFilm) that I’ve been using expires in April, and I shan’t be renewing it. Not because of arguments that I’ve had with them in the past but because, in the year since I took out the subscription, I’ve come to realise that I don’t enjoy watching films any more. I am a ruthless critic, and I can’t truly enjoy a film that isn’t utterly, infallibly brilliant; if only nineteen out of its twenty facets are perfect, I can only criticise. I’ve seen just one film at the cinema in the last six months; it was “Casino Royale” (a film that boasts less of a narrative arc than a series of uncomfortable bumps, each more painful than the last, yet has been reliably heralded by most as a brilliant revival) and it entirely convinced me not to waste any more money at the multiplex.
We are settling for a quality far less than that which is achievable. I want to change that.
One often hears people citing legends of film, and I think that it’s borne out of a desire to have legends for the medium, rather than an existence of them. We have geniuses of music, of painting and sculpture, of literature and the stage (all much older mediums); we have also a need to label makers of films the same way. But, as yet, there have been no geniuses. So we shout Scorsese! and Spielberg! and de Palma! yet their films are smothered with a lack of invention or sense in one area or another: in writing, lighting, editing, narrative (how often is the absolute need for a solid narrative arc equally absolutely disregarded!). This upsets me, because we are settling for a quality far less than that which is achievable. I want to change that. I want to achieve something far superior, and I want viewers to settle only for such quality. I love film now more than I ever have, but watching films only depresses me, because I see only disregarded potential, I see only waste. I think that the potential of film has barely been touched yet.
Come April, then, I will have essentially cut myself off from film. Already when I stop by web sites selling DVDs or I walk past Blockbuster, I’m amused by the fact that I don’t recognise any of the titles advertised - a notion that I would have met with incredulity a year ago. And the fascinating thing is this: that I’m excited. To stop despairing at the state of filmmaking so far and to channel that desire for invention and creativity and brilliance into making my own films is a truly compelling idea. I’m not excited about films any more; they’re nearly all rubbish. I’m excited about film. Film isn’t rubbish at all; it’s just that barely anybody has realised it yet.
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Postamble
Here are some examples of my “ruthless criticism”. (I honestly can’t help being this cynical.)
Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” (which is rife with errors, but I’m referencing one that few others will have spotted, to highlight my ultra pickiness) opens with a shot of a cargo bay at the docks. The camera pans from the cargo boxes that Ray (Tom Cruise’s character) is moving with his crane to Ray in his crane, operating the machine. Then we cut to another shot of the cargo boxes, which pans to Ray in his crane, operating the machine. This is horrendous editing! The editor has just established the same thing twice in a row. It’s akin to reading in a fictional book: “Ray worked as a crane operator at the docks. He was a crane operator down at the docks.” The second shot is entirely superfluous.
A more comprehensive complaint. “V for Vendetta” features something that few other films do: a central character who spends the entire film behind a fixed mask. This presents brilliant opportunities for inventive and exciting lighting and framing. (Think of the moment in Hitchcock’s “Psycho” when the mummified corpse is revealed and Janet Leigh sends the light bulb swinging, creating moving shadows across the corpse’s face that make it appear alive.) Yet there isn’t a single creative shot in the film. I don’t even remember a close up. Film isn’t just a matter of putting a story on screen; a camera isn’t just a means to record an image; the elements of lighting, framing, setting, movement, editing should be used to say something about the story that is being told and the characters that are within it.
Let’s come back to Casino Royale (also packed with faults, only one of which I’ll deal with), because it’s a fine example of awful, awful narrative. The film starts with a superfluous sequence in which Bond achieves his “double-oh” status (a plot extra that is both unnecessary and confusing), then, after the credits, gives us what should have been (since it’s also entirely irrelevant) the pre-credits sequence. But let’s forgive and then forget it its befuddled beginnings. Most of the film is concerned with the casino game that he plays with villain leChiffre. Eventually, he wins the game, thus defeating leChiffre. That is the end of the narrative arc (albeit a rather unsatisfying ending, since we’re all aware that we’re watching a Bond film and so the villain has to die). Then the film continues. (Bump.) Eventually, leChiffre is defeated again, this time by a fatal bullet. We’ll ignore for now the fact that this development goes totally unexplained. The villain is dead and Bond is safe. The narrative arc is now unquestionably complete. Yet the film goes on… (Bump.) …with a tacked on love story (which, when the revelations occur, becomes absolutely implausible, but I won’t explain how in case anybody capable of enjoying the film wants to see it “unspoiled”). Finally, this excess chapter comes to an end, only for another one to begin: (BUMP.) a short one, mercifully, in which Bond kills a character who I think was present at some point early in the film, and apparently has some bearing on the plot. Or maybe he’s just there as a device so that Daniel Craig can say “Bond. James Bond.” A narrative should, as you’ve gathered, be an arc, going from equilibrium through disequilibrium to new equilibrium. Casino Royale goes from equilibrium to disequilibrium to new equilibrium to new disequilibrium to lengthy new equilibrium to lengthy new disequilibrium to new equilibrium to brief disequilibrium to new equilibrium. I am simply stunned that practiced filmmakers and critics can consider this to be acceptable.
