Things About People

I hate things about people — specifically films. Don't you just hate those films — those characters studies — that explore interconnecting relationships with dull medium shots and boring locales? Don't get my wrong, I'm not some film illiterate who needs ten cuts a seconds and explosions to keep me interested, I just can't stand independent cinema nowadays. Obviously the other end of the spectrum is utter rubbish as well — but for this attack, I'll ignore them.

For one, I don't see the point of making these sorts of films if they are all about the actors and their relationships. This is basically because it is a waste of the film medium. Can't you do the same thing — but better — with a novel? And if you're an actor nut, why don't you just go to the theatre? I couldn't give a stuff about real people; I don't want to see their downward spiral milked out over two laborious hours in a cinema full of skivvies.

Think 2001: A Space Odyssey. Could any other medium do it justice? No. Yes, I know it was a book (which I haven't read) but I can comprehensively say that you couldn't ever get the same experience as the film. Words would ruin it, if anything. This is the best example of a film using the medium to its full potential — and not wasting it. In fact no single film has used the medium better then Kubrick did in this.

I'm not about to turn this into a 'film died with the introduction of sound' discussion, because that is not true, but nevertheless silent cinema was cinema in its purist sense. Buster Keaton's The General, for instance, is another example of a film that would only work as a film. You could never write those gags down; you could never paint those gags; you could certainly never listen to those gags. They only worked on the screen (its ambition would leave theatre in its wake thanks to the cross-country train journey). So if you have some bleak story about a couple of doomed lovers — or drug addict criminals for that matter, write a book and make it easier for us to ignore you. Alternatively, if you can't write, fuck off.

Bring on the first dimension, I say. And don't get me started on black-comedies.