Not at all. That is not what I’m saying. And I simply disagree with the rest, without any contradiction in my position. I’m not talking about “impressions”, I’m talking about, say, studying a lost film, one that can never been seen again. Movies can be described in such great detail, with such precise vocabulary, that…you know what? I don’t think you actually read my post at all. I’ve covered all this. Can you respond to what I wrote? I specifically said it wasn’t “as” valid, or complete, but that it could be a valid way to form an opinion. Do you honestly feel you have to see every single movie or refrain from having an opinion on it, even on whether you’d like it? How do you decide which ones to go to?
Once again all you’ve done is assert your arbitrary rule, and it seems like you’re either ignoring what I’m writing or we’re having a complete communication breakdown.
I never said all interpretations are equal, I said interpretations can’t be wrong. Big difference.
By “actual,” I mean “first hand.” Reading critical essays about a movie is not first hand experience with it: it’s second hand, at best. Which is valuable in and of itself, no doubt, but it’s no replacement for seeing the movie yourself and forming your own opinion on it.
The purpose of this entire board is ultimatly debate and discussion, even in the “films I hate” thread. To debate something, you need a fully formed opinion with supporting evidence and reasoning. “This movie sucked!” isn’t a debatable position. “This movie sucked because it spoonfed the audience a series of obvious conclusions and acted like they were a great revelation,” is a debatable position, because there’s a basis for the opinion that’s open to argument. Which is more or less what CandidGamera said in that thread. The problem there, though, is that he wasn’t presenting his own opinion, he was presenting the opinions of people he had read or talked to. This makes it impossible to debate those opinions, because the people who formed them aren’t on the boards: CG is only thier proxy. If you’re going to put forward an opinion, put forward your own opinion, and be ready to defend it. If you haven’t seen the movie yourself, you don’t have your own opinion on it, you have someone else’s opinion.
Sure, have an opinion on it. But if you haven’t seen the movie, keep it to yourself, especially in a conversation with people who have actually seen the film. Because otherwise, no one cares. Your opinion is not relevant.
I’m sorry, I cannot find a way to your universe. I read your post, I responded to the parts I could fathom a way to respond to, and ignored such things as your dishonest mischaracterizations of Miller’s position, for example.
I’d like to hear your response to my last paragraph, which seems irrefutable to me.
Well, to be fair, Miller, that dictate’s going a bit far. But I’d say, if you haven’t seen the film, feel free to express an opinion on it. But understand that if you decide to defend that uninformed opinion to the death, you will look like a tool.
If Miller finds my characterization “dishonest”, I’m sure he’ll tell me, and I’ll apologize, because I may have been mistaken, but I was trying to be honest.
I imagine you would like me to “refute” your last paragraph. It’s either a strawman, or further evidence that we do not in fact understand each other. It has nothing to do with my position.
We do almost agree. I think that saying that looking at shot-by-shot stills, reading scripts, reading interviews, viewing clips and studying critical essays - especially taken all together - means one is “uninformed” is ridiculously, obviously false. But I agree that it’s dickish to tell people who have actually seen the movie that your haphazard, barely informed analysis of it is better than theirs, sure.
Somehow this pisses me off; a study in cheap extremes to distract from the point. “Looking at shot-by-shot stills, reading scripts, reading interviews, viewing clips and studying critical essays” = “informed to defend an opinion” if that’s all that’s available to all parties. The mythical director’s cut of Greed, for example. But to claim such a bizarrely attenuated circumstance to prove your point is esoteric to the point of near total irrelevancy; it’s such a non-standard circumstance as to be almost dishonest as an example. In the second place, “looking at shot-by-shot stills, reading scripts, reading interviews, viewing clips and studying critical essays” instead of just frickin watching Supersize Meis an exercise in hubristic, pompous, own-foot-shooting stubbornness of a scale I find it difficult to comprehend. ESPECIALLY since, now that you’ve “proved your point,” that devoting 47 hours of research can provide a pretty solid foundation for discussing the cultural and critical *context *of a movie, *you still haven’t seen the frickin movie.
*So whatever “magic” happens between the frames, whatever ineffable effect of light and sound and personality and voice and expression and sequence and juxtaposition and transition and whatever that makes a movie a MOVIE, instead of a book, is still not part of your “informed” opinion.
Alright, I’ll concede that at a certain point, sufficient study of a film can lead to an informed opinion. I still maintain it’s not a first hand opinion until you’ve actually seen the film itself, but it can still have value in a discussion of the work. Obviously, CG’s opinion on Supersize Me falls far short of either of our standards for an informed opinion. I think we can both agree on that?
Well, I’m being a little over-emphatic in that post, but I stand by the basic idea. I don’t get all torqued up when someone says, “That new Pink Panther movie looks pretty stupid.” But I consider that statement to be on the level of empty small talk, about as interesting as, “Looks like rain today.” Fine for what it is, but out of place once the conversation turns to an actual discussion of the film’s merits.
Or, wait, are you saying you can use “looking at shot-by-shot stills, reading scripts, reading interviews, viewing clips and studying critical essays” as a frinstance, but I can’t use Groundhog Day or The Last Temptation of Christ?
No, I’m saying that my position has nothing to do with whether a person’s mind can change about a movie after they see it. Of course it can. It has happened to me dozens of times as well. That’s never been my point. If I’m missing something by writing off the new Pink Panther, well, so be it; to rephrase Douglas Adams, you can’t care about every damn movie. But I’m certainly not saying there’s no way I could ever be wrong, or that people who boycott movies they don’t know anything about are right, or any of that.
Well, you were insisting there was no way to be informed without seeing a movie. I pointed out that that is false. There are other ways to be informed. I believe that my litany of ways to “read” a film are not necessary to apply in every case. I don’t have to apply them to Pink Panther to “get” the movie. I “get” the movie right now. Maybe I’m wrong about that, sure, but I certainly know enough to know that I won’t miss it if I never see it.
I’m a strong believer in the “magic” of film myself. That’s why I’ve said, over and over, that one cannot completely grasp a movie without seeing it. We agree about that! It’s impossible! But it is possible to grasp as much as is necessary to form an opinion (which is subject to change), and how much information one needs to reach that point varies depending on the complexity (and possibly quality) of the movie.
We can. I can also agree that it is not a first-hand opinion if one hasn’t personally seen the film. I’ll go even further and say that even at the highest level of study of a particular film, it should still be disclaimed when the speaker hasn’t actually seen it, and that speaker should try to shut up and listen to people who have.
Do you really have no idea how internally contradictory, cake-and-eat-it-both ways this is? And how clear it seems to me now that you’re just arguing to hear the keyboard click?
Well, I’m not sure how to do that. The way cthiax stated it made sense to me. I don’t know how to change it without knowing where you see the internal contradiction.
