No. And let me repeat again for the benefit of clarity, no.
This is one of the most common accusations levied against those who defend difficult artistic material, whether it be film (Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, Malick’s Thin Red Line, and some other filmmaker whose name ends in “ick”) or literature (Joyce, Rushdie, Hoban) or music or sculpture or whatever. Somebody says, “I didn’t like it.” The defender responds, “You didn’t get it.” And the first person says, “What, are you calling me stupid?” And then the battle lines are drawn for an unproductive discussion.
But here’s the thing: Just because you didn’t get something does not mean you’re stupid. It just means you didn’t get it.
Listen. I consider myself a knowledgeable and perceptive movie person. Click on the red house at the bottom of my post to visit my website and read my film reviews. I’m confident in my ability to “read” a film from top to bottom, differentiating between the contributions of the script, the acting, the editing, the cinematography, and so on, and using this knowledge to make a judgement about the film’s intended ambitions. And if a film doesn’t seem to work, I feel secure in my ability to point out exactly why. Look at A.I. Artificial Intelligence, for example, a movie I believe doesn’t really work as intended but that contains a lot more interesting material than people give it credit for. In my review on my site, and further in writing on this board, I believe I was able to tease apart the threads of its construction enough to show the way it was intended to work, and to illustrate that it had the potential to be a masterpiece — but that the filmmakers made a number of miscalculations and as a result the movie doesn’t really hold together as it was conceived. In general, I wouldn’t be writing my reviews if I didn’t feel confidence in my perspicacity, and I think my writing speaks for itself.
And yet: There are some movies I just don’t “get.” Take, as probably the best example, Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal. Cinema cognoscenti regard it as one of the top, say, twenty or thirty movie masterpieces of all time. Regularly comes up in the Sight and Sound polls. Towering accomplishment. Work of genius. Filmed with God’s own camera. Blah blah blah.
Does nothing at all for me.
I’ve watched it a couple of times, in different settings, trying to see what everybody else sees. Originally, I found it mildly irritating that I don’t get out of it what my fellow film geeks do, which is why I’ve subjected myself to it on more than one occasion. I can see the symbolism, I understand the thematic architecture, and all of that, and it still leaves me cold and vaguely bored.
But at a certain point, I’m content to leave it alone, and here’s why: It’s not me. It’s not the film. It’s the interface between me and the film.
All art is subjective. Everybody perceives things differently. The same work can thrill one person and bore another to tears. This says nothing about the objective value of the work, because there is no objective value of the work. It’s all about whether or not, and specifically how, the work connects with the individual viewer.
I know movies, and feel that my ability to dissect and evaluate a film is in the ninety-eighth percentile of cinematic literacy, insofar as such a subjective discpline can be measured at all. At the same time, The Seventh Seal has to have acquired its reputation somewhere. And yet, it doesn’t connect with me. Its message doesn’t reach me. I sit here, and the movie sits over there on the other side of an experiential canyon. I can read its message, sure, but at a distance, as though through binoculars; it neither thrills my mind nor touches my heart. And I’ve decided that this will not bother me. I am not personally insulted by my failure to recognize and internalize the greatness of an acknowledged masterpiece of the cinematic form.
It just happens sometimes. I shrug and move on.
So to those who are calling Adaptation stupid and worthless: You’re wrong.
And to everyone who labels those detractors illiterate and dense for not understanding Adaptation: You’re also wrong.
All o’ y’all need to take a step back, I think. This is an argument neither side can win, because it is inherently unwinnable.