How I Think (Feel) About Film
Back from the dead
Rebirth
Hello readers, I am back!
2023 was a period of violent hibernation for me. Imagine I’m Stephen Chow in this scene from Kung Fu Hustle:
While it was a turbulent year for me personally, it was also one with a huge opportunity for change and growth. I find myself in the middle of 2024 with clarity about what I want to achieve with this newsletter and my podcast, Deep Cut, that I record with my dear friends Eli and Wilson. I want to write or talk about films I enjoy because there is inherent pleasure in the process, and I want to more consistently share them with you. I have also realised the motivation to write should come from the act of writing itself, on films and topics I am excited about, rather than a hope for my insight to be deemed meaningful by someone else.
When I was younger, the main guiding lights of “film criticism” I had were the videos by Every Frame a Painting and the writings of Film Crit Hulk. While I am indebted to their content for opening the valve for my love of film, I realised that the quality standard of their criticism, rooted in specific and thorough analysis, became a toxic goal for me. I only wanted to write what would make me sound smart. I was always searching for some insight that was absolutely original, which is extraordinarily difficult to do. I took a similar approach with my film essays at Wesleyan, and now that I am in my 30s I have realised how much that desire has curtailed me from consistently producing any kind of writing. My need for the writing to be deemed intelligent or novel meant there were few writing ideas that fit that high standard even before I even began to write them. Both Every Frame a Painting and Film Crit Hulk have their tremendous, seemingly effortless insight from years of doing the work. I need to put in the work.
Which is to say I want my writing here to be unpolished, experimental, and maybe even a little stupid. I want to give myself the licence to write whatever comes naturally to me, without a need to hit some arbitrary standard of quality others or I may set for myself. While people have complimented me about the quality of my film criticism or analysis, and I have even won an award for my writing, I now feel wary regarding the ways we cultivate competitiveness in film criticism. I think the process is more important than the product. Film criticism is an act of learning.
I have heard the sentiment that some do not consider themselves “cinephiles” because they do not have the education for it or do not know where to begin to think about film. They think they need some kind of syllabus to learn to appreciate film better. It is as if there needs to be a learned identity shift from layman to “cinephile” before they may even approach less mainstream films.
I hate that. I hate that we have inadvertently cultivated this sentiment among people outside our cinephilic circles, because I think film is simple.
The reason I love film is because it is a set of tools rooted in sound and image that can immediately and easily give rise to both emotional and intellectual reactions in an audience. Film is meant to be accessible, regardless of dichotomies of “mainstream” versus “art-house.” Like magic, you do not need to know the way the trick is done to be wowed by the performance of it. It either hits for you, or it does not.
In an effort to democratise my own learning about film, the following section is a simple guide on How I Think About Film. This is years of me watching, thinking, writing, and talking about films boiled down to what I think to be the bare essentials to deepen one’s experience and appreciation for any film.
How I Think About Film
In my year end list on Letterboxd for 2023, a piece of writing I am actually really proud of, I wrote this:
It can be pointless debating on end with others or yourself about what makes a film sing or sink for you. Ranking is a meaningless exercise in the grand scheme of things but it reflects inwards, and forces you to contend with what you find most meaningful. I've found that when I've struggled with how I felt about a piece of art it was helpful to lean on a little phrase I've used to anchor myself in a year of change: "Go with the feeling."
So when I say “how I think”, I don’t actually mean think. I mean “feel” and how I take that feeling to discover personal insights from any film.
My journey in learning to appreciate film has been an exercise in deliberate mindfulness. The viewing experience should be active and split into two directions. One where I process information the film is projecting to me through the elements of sight and sound, and another where I am noticing the physiological and intellectual reactions that arise in me. I am turning the self into a subject of observation. In a theatre, that observation of the self can even extend to other audience members where I get to see if my reactions are in alignment with the crowd or not. In connecting with the self, I am discovering what is having an effect on me.
As I note these feelings or thoughts bubbling up inside me, I am asking a set of fairly basic questions (feel free to come up with other kinds of questions for your own use):
What am I feeling or thinking right now?
What made me feel or think this way?
How much of this reaction is a result of what the film is doing, and how much of it is something arising from me?
How did the film make me feel or think this way?
What is making me laugh?
What is making me cry?
What am I empathising with? Why?
Typically these will have answers rooted in film form, storytelling devices, or patterns across multiple films. Some examples:
The edit was rapid and it made me feel stressed.
Before she got her goal, all hope felt lost, so the ending felt triumphant.
The lens used made me feel like I was far away, so it felt like I was spying on them.
The silence was accentuated by creepy sounds, so it felt like there was heightened danger
I thought the actor only played a certain kind of a role but this role surprised me. They exhibited new range to me.
The director usually favours close-ups but this film uses more wide shots, so it feels more objective to me. They are trying something different because of the change in subject matter.
Knowing more specific technical film terms might help better articulate these answers, but I believe the questions are more important.
There, that’s my very expensive film education in three paragraphs. If you’re thinking Ben, that’s overly simplistic, well, it is simple! Keep asking questions, then begin asking more complex questions to find more complex answers. Then those personal insights into film form get more valuable, more insightful, and slowly one discovers what it is about any film they most respond to. While I say it is “simple”, this process might not be easy. More difficult questions beget richer answers, but may require deeper reflection, whether alone or with others. For me, this process of questioning has been a long and fruitful journey in defining and redefining my taste and I am still excited to discover further dimensions to that taste.
Largely, the exercise of trying to connect more closely with a film on either an intellectual or emotional level is a process of self-reflection. If you were to try to objectively argue that a movie made you feel a certain way, but the film actually doesn’t have an effect like that on you personally, it would ring hollow. There are no right answers, only right answers to you.
Films live in the conversation between screen and audience. The former never changes and the latter is always changing in the grand scheme of things. An audience from Japan will have different reactions from an audience in Morocco. And guess what, you don’t get a choice as to which kind of audience you are. You are who you are. Your only tool for experiencing film is yourself.
While you don’t get to change who you literally are, maybe the act of engaging with the film on screen can change your own relationship with the self. That’s the magic trick I keep talking about. I have learnt so much about myself and the world around me from watching films. Some of my favourite films have changed me.
So, no, you do not need a rubric, special class, or silly newsletter article on substack by some random dude to learn how to appreciate how a film works. Go with the feeling; go with your feeling.
What’s Next for The Kinetoscope
I have some ideas but I am not fully certain yet. Some possible pieces of writing and formats I am mulling are:
Reviews but I mostly dive into one specific element or scene I find fascinating, maybe in video form.
Personal reflections revisiting directors whose films I have not seen in a long time.
I really thought this list would have more ideas when I started it.
The goal here is simple: to find out what excites me and write about it. The Kinetoscope looks at films but really it peers inwards towards myself. Yes, these are probably going to be writings about film, but I am tracking my personal journey into discovering cinema and what it means to me. This is still mostly for me. Unless there ends up being thousands of you subscribing, then maybe it really is for you (and me again, making money, hopefully).
Maybe, by writing a bit more and sharing it, I can help to cultivate a more personal appreciation of film for myself, and also encourage you to do the same. I would love for this artform to feel more accessible and rewarding for others.
I am hoping to write on at least a bi-weekly basis from here on out. So if you like where I am headed with this and want me to keep it going, subscribe to this newsletter. Feel free to scream at me in the comments to keep me accountable. I will not take it personally.
If you are one of my existing 10 subscribers, thank you for not unsubscribing after receiving this. If you are new here, I hope you enjoy whatever lies ahead.
Notes
Thanks to Eli and Wilson for reading the first draft of this.
I’ve already recorded my first video for the video version of The Kinetoscope. You can subscribe here if you want to see it the moment it goes live. ;)