MB and Me on Movies

For this blog post and hopefully future ones I have invited my friend Mary Beth to respond to a question about movies.
  

Cole:

Last night we watched Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," about a German town just before World War I that undergoes a series of strange and brutal events, perhaps by the design of some really creepy children.  I think we both liked it, but I know we both also struggled to stay awake.  Like many artistic European films, this film just felt so long and slow.  What obligation do you think a director has to make his or her film entertaining?  Do you consider movies like "The White Ribbon" to be less good because they're boring?

MB:

First I would like to say that an artist has no obligation to make his or her artwork entertaining. Artists have a right to present their work however they think best suits it. The White Ribbon certainly fits the definition of art. It is beautifully shot; there is some very impressive acting; the story is affecting. It is altogether an admirable film. That said, by the middle of film I would have given my right arm for a car chase, a ticking time bomb, a pseudo-jive talking sidekick, anything to break up the monotony

When you have a boring film, you don’t necessarily have a failure of filmmaking. What you really have when you have to will yourself to finish a movie is a failure of storytelling. There is a reason that the oldest stories we have inherited from the past have been adventure epics. Beowulf hunts monsters. Moses works miracles as the leader of wandering gaggle of screw-ups. Odysseus soldiers on despite being shipwrecked, sidetracked, and seduced a dozen times. Gilgamesh wrestles with the beasts of heaven itself. The stories that endure not only have something to say but say it with excitement, intrigue, suspense, a little pizzazz. 

The best stories are also those that are tautly told. You can have descriptions of magnificent scenery or examinations of stymied ambition but underneath it all things have to move forward and be revealed. If that doesn’t happen a story feels self-indulgent and people don’t have the patience to wait for the storyteller to once again care that his or her audience is shifting in its seats and eying the door. Audiences can’t stand movies that don’t tell their story well and filmmakers that don’t have the inclination or the talent to be good storytellers deserve to have their work turned off with an hour left to watch. 

Cole:

I definitely agree with you that the artist, or filmmaker, doesn't have an obligation.  As a matter of artistic expression, any man can film himself shaving for two hours as far as I'm concerned, and there's a marketplace that selects the movies worth watching, via the highway robbery of modern-day ticket prices.

That brings me to your point about the stories that endure.  They have obviously survived in this marketplace for a very long time.  But does that really mean they're good?  Perhaps Homer was dismissed as too commercial in his day.  The blindness shtick had to annoy his competitors.  Maybe in the next town over there was another, less appreciated storyteller recounting the struggles of slaves or inventing social realism, but the audience of the time just didn't care.

In fact, your logic about the epics from past millenia frightens me that three hundred years from now people will still be watching Avatarwhile The White Ribbon lies idle on library shelves.  If that turns out to be the case, would we call James Cameron a superior storyteller to Herr Haneke? 

MB:

Dear God. Never let it be put in writing that I called Avatar a timeless classic.

With that chilling thought aside, maybe Cameron is a better storyteller. A better philosopher or examiner of the human existence? No. A man who can keep you hooked from scene to scene? Yes. I contend that the story of Avatar will eventually fade from consciousness. The most enduring tales (the ones that survive centuries) combine big ideas with a gift for spinning a yarn. Cameron was clearly out of his depth philosophically with Avatar. His filmmaking talent exceeded his grasp of the themes. But if given the choice between watching Avatar again with all its ham-handed lessons and watching 2001: A Space Odyssey again where we watch a ship dock fortwenty minutes (I cross myself as I say this as I know I speak blasphemy) I pick Avatar. And I hate that movie. If filmakers want their ideas to endure, they have to at least feign an interest in engaging the audience.

Works bursting with innovative, thought-provoking ideas are rediscovered later, but the best stories are never lost to begin with. They are passed on not just because they are edifying, but because they are enjoyable to experience. They entertain.

Cole:

The insult toward 2001: A Space Odyssey requires no detailed rebuttal here.  I trust time and your reliably good taste to accomplish this for me.


I think you're right that the golden mean of entertainment and insight makes a great film.  And to be honest, if I were forced to give up either The Ghostbusters or The Seventh Seal for all eternity I would quickly choose the former.  Once every twenty years I could put a cape on a creepy old Scandinavian, play chess for two hours, and be satisfied.

Unfortunately, if one refuses to watch boring movies, one also misses out on perhaps half of the "great films" in film history.  So now I'm just curious: knowing that they are likely to be as or more slow and ambiguous as The White Ribbon, do you plan to watch other films by Haneke, or his partners in plodding, Bergman, Tarkovsky, etc.?

MB:

I plan to watch more films by the less...thrilling directors, but since I have so much more of film history to explore, I have a feeling that their films will get pushed to the back (Hmm, I should probably watch more Bergman, but hey, isn't my knowledge of Hong Kong action film just as thin. John Woo it is!). Part of me wishes I had the patience but part of me thinks that directors shouldn't make movies that inspire about as much enthusiasm as flossing does.

(On a separate note I actively sought out The Seventh Seal and was enthralled. Meandering meditations on the nature of God and the existence of evil? Where is my popcorn?!)