I hate movies.I sympathized, mostly. Not that I find everything predictable. Actually, I don't. My boredom takes the form of viewing each scene as something to be gotten through, to be tolerated. I have the feeling that nothing will happen, even though I constantly tell myself, it's a movie, something always happens, in every scene. But it's just going to be one of those movie things, that happen because something always has to happen to make it a movie. Two characters are having an ordinary time, and my usual boredom kicks in: Nothing will ever happen. I realize: But this is a movie, so it must. I reach a new level of bored: Yes, something violent will happen or be revealed or someone will get very concerned or upset for some reason.
It's not the movies, so much. It's how long they are.
After one hour of predictable complication, the second hour of predictable resolution is unbearable.
For example, "Spellbound," which I watched last night: People would be sitting around talking about a swimming pool, and Ingrid Bergman would draw the shape of the pool on the tablecloth with a fork, and Gregory Peck would get all upset. That's not a good example of the way movies bore me though, because there's a cool little mystery about why parallel lines freak him out, which is what you remember if you haven't seen the film in a long time and decide to give it another go. But there are many unspiffy scenes with actors pretending to be psychiatrists, gliding along gloomily through a shadowy house that you're supposed to believe is a mental hospital.
Ingrid Bergman is either in her glasses, with her hair pinned back, and icily fending off what today we'd call sexual harassment but was apparently the daily norm at this place, or she's got the glasses off, her hair is mussed, and she's hot for her new boss -- Gregory Peck -- so that she'll get up in the middle of the night, put on a gorgeous bathrobe, and glide on up the shadowy stairway and right into his bedroom, in search of sexual harassment. I'm complaining about movies, but I loved that scene. Not only did icy Ingrid's sexuality emerge, depicted by a surreal sequence of opening doors that really felt like emerging sexuality, but her bathrobe had parallel lines on it, so Gregory Peck got another chance to subtly freak out. And poor icy Ingrid wasn't going to get to float through the doors quite yet.
And on to more scenes, scene after scene, with shadowy stairways and fusty, harass-y psychiatrist/actors and windblown outdoor shots to get your hopes up about Ingrid's sexuality and Gregory getting all worried again and when is that Dali dream sequence going to show up so we can turn this off and go to bed?
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10 comments:
Ingrid Bergman, parallel lines, and people pretending to be psychiatrists - sounds like a winning combination!
Peter O'Toole - "The Ruling Class"- from 1972, is non-boring, although you may not sleep well afterwards.
Well, at least it's been awhile since we've had a 'Althouse doesn't like movies' post. I could have put money down on this one occuring! Good thin g you didn't go into the vortex of 'Vertigo!'
Too many PC messages in movies these days (nothing new for Hollywood), from casting choices to themes to dialog. Maybe that's why I enjoy light British comedy, mindless action and good sci-fi. They almost qualify as "just entertainment." The rest tend to be just manipulative - hitting all the demographics, victim memes and emotional archetypes. Ugh.
!!! Who's "Henry" ????
Richie D: This is Henry.
Beware: The off-blog Althouse has melded with the blog personae.
Wurly: "Napolean Dynamite" probably fits both of your categories at the same time.
I'm almost never in the right mood for a movie.
What bugs me is the fact that every movie tells a story that unfolds at the unvarying rate of one second per second. Most of the time, I'm simply unwilling to give up that kind of control over my own imagination.
Give me print anyday -
......which is why you are always better off with novels.
With a good novel, even when the plot comes to a standstill, you can still meditate upon, and pontificate over, sentence structure, and word choice.
Watching a movie is passive. It's being fed to you.
Reading a novel is active. Your imagination is doing the work.
Is Althouse so advanced that she couldn't use some work developing her imagination?
Love, Maxine
Who's "Henry"
Henry is one of those arrogant artie types. He sneers at the common man. He actually once watched a mini-series consisting of a snail attempting to mate with a ground sloth.
Unless this isn't the Henry I think it is, in which case he's just a publicity hound.
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