ANNOUNCING: The Contrarianism Blog-a-Thon: Do the Contrarian (Part III)

Jim -- Great idea! I'll announce it in my next post to help spread the word...!

Jim,

in case you're interested, I'm hosting a Lovesick Blog-a-Thon a few days before that, on (naturally enough) 14 February 2007.

http://lmcnelly15.blogspot.com/2006/11/blog-thon.html

I agree: this is a fantastic idea. I've really enjoyed reading your Contrarian Week posts, and I'm exceedingly disappointed that right now I just don't have time to respond to them at length and in great depth as I'd like to.

Christopher Hitchens' Letters to a Young Contrarian spoke to me in a way that Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet never did, and I admire many of the critics you've been discussing, like Rosenbaum and White. This, I suppose, makes me something of a "closet contrarian."

A good contrarian challenges you to reconsider your own beliefs, which is precisely what you've done this week: you've made me reconsider my pro-contrarian stance. Reconsider, but not necessarily recant. Now, thanks to this 'thon, I'll have a chance to really dive into the fray!

I LOVED your contrarian week, Jim! Please consider my contrarian fallacy post as a "Contraranism Blog-a-Thon contribution" avant la lettre. Hmmm, come to think of it... I may decide to draw another cartoon for this special occasion.

As far as Oscar-speculation sickness is concerned: check this out.

Hi there,

Not a blogger myself, but MY favorite contrarian arguments happen when folks go to the effort to demonstrate how our culture's vulnerability to sentimentality causes us to overlook the real merits of the IDEAS in a piece of art.

Point in case-- "Saving Private Ryan." That first battle scene does indeed belong in a time capsule, but as soon as its over, we find ourselves in the middle of a pretty conventional, rather formulaic war film. The film stock is washed out, and the detail for historical accuracy is stunning, but it's still a pretty conventional movie, one or two scenes accepted. It works by broadly establishing character, pushing the ole' tear buttons a time or two, and by giving us jolts of action designed to demonstrate the moral worth of the different characters in the story. This is all well and good, but wasn't the purpose of that opening to encourage us to see war as arbitrary, horrific violence? Aren't we told through that scene that this is the ugly truth about WWII? It's as though the film sets us up to see an existentialist drama and then delivers a John Wayne movie. Tom Hanks eventually becomes a kind of Christ figure, which might be appropriate in another film, but not here, not for me anyway.

I think the reason nobody says much about what an uneven, contradictory experience the film really is is that we take for granted the sentimental assumptions that inform the story. My experience with "SPR" wimping out is not an uncommon one, and the critical neglect of the problems that sentiment and convention present can present for ambitious films like "SPR" (at least among "first responders" who review films while they are still in theaters) is sadly, the norm. I think the mixed reaction that "Crash,s" mix of convention and daring got should happen to many films that get a "pass" simply because they are not as audacious as "Crash" was. Not that "Crash" was any good (I am among those to hate it), but at least it took risks, and at least it was aware of the conventions and preconceptions we have about fiction to try to make its points. I liked the over-the-top, contrived storytelling technique of the film, and I thought that that its strategy of alternately embracing and undercutting cliches was appropriate for its message about how universal and problematic racial prejudice is. The trouble is that that particular message is pretty old hat, and pretty useless, really. Admitting that we all feel prejudice doesn't really do anything to help anybody and it doesn't really teach us anything we didn't already know.

I don't think that using archtypical or conventional material makes a film bad, but when this stuff is simply presented to us without any consideration of how that material might affect the point of the film, its a big ole problem. "Crash," as vapid and smug as it was, at least understood how its method affected it's message. "Saving Private Ryan," on the other hand was a mess. How's that for contrarian? I'm elevating a film I hate over one I kinda like (even if it is terribly overrated).

Excellent idea. Even if it means I'll have to break my New Year's resolution of being positive and non-"crackpotty." Oh well, I would have broken it, anyway. Count me in.

I'll be taking up this offer to explain why The Shawshank Redemption might be the most overrated film of all time.

Oh boy, am I in. But in the ensuing several weeks, I'm going to have to decide what to dig into: "Fight Club", "Gone with the Wind", "Blue Velvet", "The Silence of the Lambs"...so many (un) worthy candidates.

I like the idea of studying auteurism and its effects. The Scorsese discussion is a great example of how auteurism can be damaging to filmmakers. I hope to assess the work of some other filmmakers who are perhaps unfairly judged based on previous work. It will all hopefully contribute to my discussion of critical consensus and why there seldom seems to be varying positions on a filmmaker or a film. Unfortunately, even critics buy into so many popular visions of directors and filmmakers. We're supposed to rely on filmmakers to incite discourse and different ways of thinking, but on the whole, journalistic critics seem to pander to readers, seemingly emulating the hottest trend without question. This is a problem since critics who position themselves quite often are viewed and contrarians and rebelious for the sake of being different. I hope to get into these and other issues more for the blog-a-thon. Great idea, Jim!

Contrary to everyone else who's posted here, I think this blog-a-thon is a terrible idea.

If only you fools could recognize this!

Matt: You are my hero.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that simply being a foreigner in Thailand made me a contrarian by default.

Oh, this will be wonderful! I can't wait to weigh in on why I think Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a misogynistic, hypocritical mess, and why Natural Born Killers, a film you have demonized for being hypocritical and dangerous, is actually a brilliant (if flawed) masterpiece. And although I know you've stated you don't think that there's a single reasonable way to praise Stone's film, I believe I have good reason to think that the apparent hypocrisy is part of the film's intention. I also may consider revealing why The Graduate is one of the five worst films I've ever seen.

Ted: This is where it get interesting, because while critics certainly do not agree on the merits of "Natural Born Killers" -- I don't like it much myself, and I'm a huge fan of certain Stone films, particularly "Nixon" -- it doesn't lack for passionate defenders. The more high profile and/or respected critics who've backed it include Roger Ebert, Peter Travers, Majorie Baumgarten, Owen Gleiberman and Armond White. And the movie's Rotten Tomatoes score is 48%, typical of love-it-or-hate-it movies. So I gotta ask, is writing a defense of it really "contrarian?" Contrary to the roughly half of critics who didn't like it, yeah. Personally, though, I'd be more curious to see takedowns of movies that were almost unanimously praised (for instance, "Pulp Fiction," which has an IMDB rating of 8.8 out of 10, and a staggering 95% Tomatometer rating!) or praise for movies that almost nobody seemed to like ("Gigli," anyone?).

Damn, though -- I'd love to read that evisceration of "The Graduate," one of my desert island movies. And I know somebody who's written an essay about the many ways in which "The Godfather" sucks, which strikes me as a pretty good way to get one's citizenship revoked.

I can't decide to write in praise of "Gummo" or against "A History of Violence" (again!).

I was never much of a fan of "The Graduate" either. I wouldn't call it terrible; I'm just not on the bandwagon.

Matt: For what it's worth, I'd be interested in reading a positive piece on Gummo. Rosenbaum had some nice things to say about it, but I remain pretty unconvinced of the film's merits.

I really want to think of a much maligned film that I can write lovingly about, but pretty much everything that comes to mind has its contingent of staunch defenders. Interestingly, there's no shortage of well-loved films that I can trash, but that seems too easy.

I'm in and I'm going to spread the word on my blog. Great idea.

Jim, I could have sworn that I dropped a comment here letting you know that I was most definitely in. But apparently I did not... until now, that is. Beware, sacred cows (and scared cows too)! I've got one in my sights, and I just KNOW I'm going to make someone livid as I position myself as the ONE person in film culture who can see through my film of choice, which shall remain unnamed until the day of reckoning. (And no, Matt, it ain't The Godfather. Forget citizenship-- they'd have to strip me of my blood heritage if I spoke out against that one! Before being assassinated over a plate of spaghetti, of course.)

JE: By all means, Dennis: Take the cannoli.

I don't have a blog (yet!) but I am interested in this contrarian conversation. I am an enormous lover of all films, from bubble-gum rote by-the-number action films to deep, engaging dramas.

and I HATE "Forrest Gump". all hail the mighty idiot, who in his blissful ignorance peppers our society with gems of "wisdom"!! I find this idea of folksy backwoods "simple" intelligence to be offensive, and all the historical gimmicks in the film are just not-so-clever tricks. The only character I liked in the film was Lieutenant Dan, because at least he had the cajones to challenge God.

I've got a blog about short film production.

Anyone see Henry Fool? Target is selling it for like 10 bucks as part of an IFC Indie DVD collection.

I love Hal Hartley films.