I had some lofty ambitions when I decided to create this blog. I wanted to write on classic films that are important to the medium as well as some new films and hopefully expand the tastes of people that happen upon this blog.
I've had a lot of ideas that I'm not sure will come to fruition or not. I wanted to watch Fellini films and write on them (never mind that 8 1/2 is the only Fellini film I've seen). I thought about watching and writing on silent films and comparing them to modern films. I wanted to chronicle the films of certain directors and write on their particular style of film making.
Instead of trying to be all artsy-fartsy, I'm just going to write on the films I see and feel are worthy of writing about. I may work my way up to my original grandiose ideas, or I may not. I need to give myself time to evolve as not only a writer, but as a film viewer as well.
Sure, I'd like to think that I have an encyclopedic knowledge of film and can impart it to anyone who reads this (if the sarcasm of this sentence isn't evident, let it be now), but the fact of the matter is, just because I know who guys like Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder are, I haven't seen any of their films yet and and I don't really have any authority to write on them just because I may watch a couple of their movies.
For those of you that know me personally, I do know a lot about film, but mostly just American directors, and recent ones at that. I can talk at length about Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson, but I know very little about the French New Wave directors that influenced their films.
In the long run, I hope that this blog can not just challenge the people reading it (however few there are), I want it to challenge me and make me grow as a writer and critic.
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Have you seen "A Trip to the Moon"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JDaOOw0MEE It's one of my all-time favorites. So charming. Also, if you don't mind reading children's literature, there's a book by Brian Selznick called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" that I recommend. It's a historical fiction inspired by Georges Méliès and his automata.
ReplyDeleteHey Beth, thanks for the link to the Melies film. I'm pretty sure that I watched it for the first time in a film history class I took about 4 years ago. I enjoyed seeing it again very much. I'll have to check out that book, too.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, I just watched and reviewed the film, "Moon" on here. I think that it and "A Trip to the Moon" would make a great double feature!
I also love the homage that the Smashing Pumpkins did in their "Tonight, Tonight" video, of course I saw that well before the original.