I went to a 50th Anniversary celebration for my High School back home a few years ago and I reconnected with an old acquaintance (she was a year ahead of me and remembered me much better than I remembered her. It's very likely that the tables have turned since this last meeting) who told me that she had started a blog about cooking and recipes and how it eventually turned into a new and exciting career for her that took her all over the world to taste food and discover/disseminate new recipes. Her parting advice to me was this; Everyone needs a blog, YOU need a blog!
This conversation, in particular the parting shot before we said our 'goodbyes' left a strong and lasting impression on me. Do I think that it is going to propel me to the top of the film industry some day where I will realize my dreams on celluloid (or High Capacity Storage Device) and finally put my education to work where it belongs? Probably not. Nevertheless, It was good advice then and it still is. At last, I will have a place where I can talk freely about one of my VERY favorite subjects; FILM, and hopefully find an interested audience. My goal is to enlighten and educate readers on the basics of film theory so that they may go away with a little more understanding of what makes a great film and why they are so depressingly rare! Along the way, I will be featuring favorite films that the world has largely passed by and newly found gems that deserve to be watched and enjoyed which is much more than I can say for the vast majority of the offerings at your local RedBox.
Gentle Readers, if you haven't detected it from my tone by now, I will spell it out for you; I am a film snob. My eldest sister has proclaimed me thus and I admit that I proudly and willingly wear this title. I watch a lot of films. Most are lightweight entertainment, many are well acted, well costumed, well-lit but poorly constructed. I generally don't watch these films more than once. Some are TERRIBLE. In fairness to these films, I usually sit them out to see if they make anything of themselves by the time they get to the end (some of them surprise me) and it is rare that I turn a film off prematurely. Then there are the other films. The ones that hit me over the head with their brilliance (VERY rare!), The ones that stick with me and cause me to go back and review them, once, twice, thrice, The ones that I watch, not really sure how I feel about them immediately afterward and then feel a drive to watch them again, years later and discover that I had missed the point the first time along with the original release audiences.
Briefly, my background is that I was a movie-addicted child who decided as a teen that he wanted to become a film director. I decided before I even finished High School that I would study Film Theory in college with the intention that a person cannot become a great director unless they understand what makes a film great. I earned my degree in Theater & Film with an emphasis on Theory & Criticism from Brigham Young University. To this day, twenty one years later, I still think that my approach was sound and correct but also insanely impractical. Other than a few stints as a production assistant on some low budget shoots, I turned my back on the film industry, totally disillusioned when I discovered I was never the one who was "in the right place at the right time" or "knew the right people". Many of my fellow students were still trying to work their way up into the ranks of 'A' productions when I lost track of them long ago. I discovered that the people with clout on a set never earned a degree in film and usually had no intention of going into the industry, it just 'happened'. I have been toiling away in various positions in the personal care/cosmetic products manufacturing industry since 2001. A major depression at age 42 urged me to reassess my cinematic aspirations and I decided that I needed to write. I wrote my first screenplay, "Strigoi", in two and a half weeks of evenings and weekends and the sudden burst of creativity jolted me out of the depths of depression (I discovered that a British film with the same title was just finishing production when I wrote "The End" but it was too late- I could not envision any other title for the film. It has not been produced- it hasn't even been shopped around- this is my baby and I will be clutching it protectively to my breast in hopes that some day I will be able to produce it myself. Maybe I will tell more about this later...). The second script began well but halted repeatedly and came to rest at about page 79 three years ago and may never be revisited at this point. I am not daunted. I am only 47 years old and that gives me plenty of time to re-tackle the film industry in the future.
It's been a long time in coming to the subject of the title of this blog (brevity has never been my strength). It was recently announced that "Citizen Kane" is no longer the greatest film of all time and that now it is "Vertigo". At first, this announcement baffled me; after all, how can two films each made over fifty years ago suddenly switch places as far as cinematic value?? Did someone suddenly discover that "Kane" was actually a less significant achievement than it was previously believed? Has new information been discovered about Vertigo, available for viewing since the early 1980's and while hailed by many as a masterpiece, it still was not considered Hitchcock's greatest film by most people "in the know". And yet, somehow, suddenly it is the GREATEST film of ALL TIME. This was the final straw that prompted me to start my blog
It is my belief that the value of a film cannot change over time, especially in relation to other films that it has already been compared against repeatedly. No, it would have to be a newly made film that could upset the order of the great films. What HAS changed over time is the film critics and film directors who are evidently the people who have been given the authority to make these distinctions for all of us. In college, I had the reputation for 'knowing my stuff' when it came to Theory. I knew a lot of 'stuff' but it took several years of pondering and individual study before I really felt that I understood the nebulous world of film theory and could put it to practical use. It is not a cold and hard science but fits more into the subjective and fluid realm of art.
This first post has gone on way too long but I will close it with this statement; rest assured, "Citizen Kane" is still not only the greatest film of all time (to date) but it is also by far and away the most important film of all time. "Vertigo" on the other hand, is not even Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film. I think that would belong to either "The Lady Vanishes" or "Rear Window"- two delightful films that rely heavily on cinematic narrativity to tell their respective stories in a uniquely visual fashion. One big thing that escapes most film critics is that when talking about film, the image is king and the word is merely a servant in the king's household.
I will next follow up with a post about just WHAT makes CK the greatest and most important film ever made- in the nebulous world of film theory, its maker, Orson Welles, leaves vast amounts of concrete evidence pointing to this fact. Until then...
