062 Following Up

Let's trawl through film criticism's back catalog

I’ve never been much of a podcast listener. This is particularly true for film-related podcasts, although I read a lot about film, particularly in my casual social media use. I think there may be two film podcasts to which I've listened to multiple episodes, The Gauntlet and The Cinephiliacs. I mention this because I wanted to cite the origin of an idea I had recently while listening to Adrian Martin’s 2015 appearance on the latter.

At one point in the discussion Adrian talks with host Peter Labuza about the difficulties of focusing and sustaining attention in film criticism, journalism, etc. Loosely paraphrased: “We can publish a great article and everyone loves it, shares it, retweets it, and a week later, it seems to have been forgotten!” In other words, the life and afterlife of thoughtful film criticism, or thoughtful writing in general, is hard to sustain. I suspect this has only worsened over the past ten years. The algorithmic content mills churn out new variations on tried-and-true material. That veneer of novelty or innovation is what allows something to make a quick splash among its public, and then vanish. There is so much verbiage, so much information, and such a premium on newness and (ostensible) relevance, that claims advanced in a painstaking piece of criticism—however insightful—seem to depreciate far too rapidly, like driving a new car off the dealer’s lot. After all, some new poll about the 64 best TV shows of the 21st century probably just dropped. (Quick, let’s rehash, is Twin Peaks: The Return “television” or “cinema”!?)

You may be familiar with the idea of thought-terminating clichés, which sink debates into uselessness because someone trots out one of these TTCs and assumes the conversation is over—because, as conversation, it is. I think there’s a comparable, if reversed, discursive mechanism (perhaps someone already has a good name for it) that we might describe as “short-lived conversation starters.” What are your favorite ___? Who's the best ___? Is ___ ideologically sound, yes or no? These sorts of questions, or frames, are good at eliciting quick and easy responses, perhaps even little fiery discursive volleys, but rarely seem to result in discussion of intellectual substance, nuance, or generosity. The questions themselves might seem fertile, since they provide immediate engagement, but they’re typically not.

One way out of this morass of pseudo-debate is simply to ignore a lot of it, avoid it, and to embrace that one’s activity—in the attention economy—simply, probably won’t matter. Anti-mimetic, non-algorithmic behaviors and discourses are just not going to win games they aren’t designed to play. They won’t get the most likes-shares-and-subscribes. The shape of the interactions is not so easily captured by our dominant metrics. Good. Leave those metrics to them. Fail your way out.

As wild-haired buzzword guru & snake oil salesman David Shing says, the “attention economy” is an old way of speaking. We might want to look to intention rather than attention. Well: one intention I have in months ahead is to dedicate some entries to extended consideration of interesting ideas and writing that may have been overlooked or under-explored. That’s right. Let’s take up Adrian Martin’s challenge here.

So here’s my open request. I want to make this participatory, and something that allows others to take up suggestions, if they want. Email me, or comment below, and share the names of pieces of film criticism, theory, etc., that you think introduced compelling ideas or methods but which did not enjoy the sustained engagement they deserved. I’m interested in what people recall as interesting things forgotten, overlooked in the rush for newer takes.

• Books, essays, articles, twitter threads, video essays, all fair game

• Academic pieces, critical, essayistic, creative, what-have-you

• Any era: resurrect something by Iris Barry, or spotlight an anonymous Tumblr post that made you think some new thoughts

• Feel free to promote something you made yourself

I ask only that people suggest relatively specific, discrete items to grapple with. Not entire bodies of work, or subfields of study. What do you think merits some extended (re)consideration? What pieces still need response, revival, corroboration, expansion, embellishment, or microscopic review? I’m interested in learning about and diving in to some of these. Maybe I won’t get to each suggestion, but then again maybe someone else will.

I’m not a big account, so I expect participation of this old school sort will be low and slow. That’s fine; that’s great! But if anything comes to mind for you there, reading this—reach out, speak up.

Just for fun …