That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard, and I've heard some doozies. "If you don't share my tastes, you're critically inferior and constitutionally incapable of understanding the medium of cinema." Wow. I've come to expect ignorance from humanity, but that's truly one for the record books. I can't say I loved "Marnie", but I enjoyed it and thought it was a good film. The beauty of cinema, however, like any art form, is its ability to be subjectively interpreted in an infinite amount of ways, from an infinite number of perspectives, from a virtually infinite number of people. I don't discount whatever you and Mr. Wood saw in the film that made you love it so much, but the reality is that that perspective will not be shared by the whole planet (nor should it be -- if it were, cinema would lose all value and be essentially worthless, given that subjectivity is the cornerstone of any art form). The fact that they don't share your perspective doesn't make you right and the others wrong. Nor does it mean you're wrong and they're right. It simply means that different people have different opinions, and neither yours, nor mine, nor Mr. Wood's is intrinsically more valid than others. I could just as easily make the statement that anyone who loves "Marnie" doesn't understand cinema. But that would be equally absurd. I've watched tens of thousands of films, from the 1890s all the way through the present -- American, British, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Swedish, Chinese, Polish, Russian, Canadian, Australian, Filipino, Bengali, Finnish, Hungarian, Dutch, and more -- I believe I understand cinema as well as almost anyone. By my standards, "Marnie" is a good film, but not by any means a great film. But my standards aren't perfect, and neither are yours. The reality is that there is no "right" opinion as to how good this or any other movie is. All we have is our flawed opinions based on incomplete knowledge, and yet, in light of that, we try to respect the opinions of others, and the reality that their opinions, however nonsensical they may sometimes seem to us, are as valid as ours. For example, the idea that "Marnie" could be considered a great film given the best films of Bergman, Fellini, Godard, Pasolini, Tarkovsky, Buñuel, Ozu, Rohmer, Antonioni, Fassbinder, Visconti, Herzog, Bresson, and so many others, is completely nonsensical to me. But that doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, because my opinion is not inherently superior to yours or anyone else's. It's often difficult, but I make an effort to accept the idea that someone having a different opinion than me doesn't make them any less knowledgeable or sensible on the subject than I am. I try to accept that idea, because there's a word for those who accept that idea: "humble". And there's a word for those who refuse it: "arrogant". Are you really so eager to be the latter? Or am I naive for trying to appeal to a logic that you may or may not possess?
reply
share