It’s okay if it’s Not For Me
I wrote this week about black and white films — almost exclusively, actually, though that was more of a fluke than a plan. Two of this week’s major releases (Passing, which made its Netflix debut, and Belfast, which you can see in theaters for now and digital soon enough) are in black and white, as is next week’s terrific Mike Mills film C’mon C’mon and Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, which comes out, perhaps gutsily, around Christmas. That’s just a few of the many this year.
And so in addition to reviewing Passing and Belfast, I wrote about the new rise in black and white movies, and how it’s now primarily an aesthetic choice rather than related to cost of shooting. Not that it wasn’t an aesthetic choice in the past, of course. Just that that’s all it is now. Directors might choose to make their movie in black and white because they want to emphasize the lines and shadows of their images (Macbeth), or because they’re subtly underlining some moral or ethical matter (Passing, and, well, Macbeth), or to recall the past, or any other reason. Nothing dictates that color film is “more real” than black and white, or that one should be the default. And in the age of pervasive filters slapped onto any old video or photo we take on our ubiquitous pocket robots, I hope we’ll get more comfortable with that.
Anyhow, I say all this because while I was writing I was once again confounded by the reminder that there are people who say things like “I don’t like black and white films” (what?) or “black and white films are boring” (good grief). Or people who “don’t watch movies with subtitles” or skip whole genre classifications. Even I fall into this trap; I have rarely watched a Western that I enjoyed much, and usually keep clicking when I’m looking for something to watch.
Perhaps the one thing I have learned over the past 15 years of writing criticism somewhat professionally is how deadening that kind of incuriosity is. Actually, of all the medium-level vices of our time, incuriosity is the one that irritates me most. It’s one thing to try something (a food, an author, a type of movie, a city) and not like it and decide to spend your time elsewhere. Or to have a trigger or allergy or something of that sort. But it’s a whole different thing to wrinkle your nose and simply refuse to stretch your palate.
The times I have decided I will try something I don’t think I’ll like have been the most invigorating and exciting, even when in the end I still decide it’s Not For Me. And anyhow, what’s the harm in trying something and discovering it’s Not For You? I suppose you could think of it as a waste of your time, but it’s not, really. If it’s Not For Me, it’s probably for someone else, and by watching that movie or reading that book or seeing that show or eating that food, provided it’s not actively trying to poison me, I am experiencing, ever so briefly, what it is to be the target audience. Maybe it’s Not For Me, but it Is For You, and now I know you a little better.
I will say my grumpiest-oldest-person opinion, which is that this is the whole problem with our on-demand, microculture-driven world — that we are less and less often forced to experience things that Aren’t Really For Us. Which is a little uncomfortable, maybe makes us feel out of place, like we’ve stumbled into a cafe where the menu is in a language we studied for three months in high school and don’t remember, and the flavors are a little off. Or we’re listening to a story that we’re not really interested in but that we need to pay attention to anyhow because the person in front of us, telling it to us, is after all a human being too.
We just don’t have to do this a lot. I think a benefit of my job, honestly, is that I am forced to sit through lots of movies that are emphatically Not For Me and still sort out whether I think there’s something of merit there. Or vice versa — the movie that’s very much For Me but, I know, kind of sucks.
Art made in the past was literally Not For Us. It was for someone a while ago, who had, for reasons of time and space and physics, not lived through as much of human history as we have. Honestly, it’s a complete miracle that any art from the past still connects with us, when you think about it. It’s a little mysterious, a little spiritual that way.
I guess all that is a roundabout way to say: A good way to feel unstuck is to get a subscription to the Criterion Channel or to MUBI or something, or buy a book by someone whose culture is far away from your own, or go to a restaurant that seems a little scary, and try something you might not like. Like C.S. Lewis says in An Experiment in Criticism, “Look. Listen. Get yourself out of the way.” And if you still don’t like it, then good. You did it right. Do it again.
I’m talking to myself as much as anyone.
Been writing
The aforementioned piece about black and white films was fun to write, mostly because (as a person with no actual formal education in film) I didn’t realize how abjectly wrong the idea that black and white movies are “old” actually is. The history is totally fascinating!
Passing is really terrific, and it kind of sneaks up on you. It’s streaming on your friendly neighborhood Netflix right now.
I also wrote about Belfast — not as good, but still quite good, and probably going to be an Oscar-season juggernaut — which is based on director Kenneth Branagh’s child’s-eye view of The Troubles when he was a kid. The man cast Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan as his parents, which ought to garner some kind of award for most audaciously hot retrofitting of one’s memory.
Been reading and watching
I watched some great movies this week (Licorice Pizza! The Power of the Dog! To Die For! Basic Instinct! Misery!), and also some truly off-the-wall ones (I won’t give it away, but it rhymes with Mouse of Smoochie). More on many of those to come.
I finished reading Robert Caro’s book Working this week and highly recommend it. It’s a collection of essays and reflections and even some fragments about Caro’s working process, which is definitely a thing that you want to read about from the guy who wrote the most-used-as-a-prop-during-pandemic-Zoom-TV-interviews book The Power Broker and, to date, four volumes of what he jokes is his three-volume biography on Lyndon B. Johnson. (He’s reportedly rounding the corner on the fifth and, theoretically, final installment.)
Odds and ends
The reason I was reading it is extra cool: I’m finally at liberty to say that I’ve sold my next book, We Tell Ourselves Stories, to Liveright, which is a very old and venerable publisher that’s published some of my favorite recent books and authors. I am tickled pink. What I can tell you about the book right now is that it’s a cultural biography about how Hollywood has shaped American mythology and public culture, with an assist from a few major cultural figures who helped and critiqued along the way. I spent most of summer 2020 working on the proposal for the book (in between writing my upcoming book Salty) and proposals just take a long time to get out in the world, so I’m very happy to finally be digging into the real thing!