Fear of Cinema

I’ve been thinking a bit about certain prejudices and often irrational fears in the world of cinema. Some are glaring points of contention that have the mark of the uncultured or downright ignorant, some the opposite with distinct odor of film snobbery, but even the most balanced of us regular movie watchers have some fear of cinema and it comes in places you might not expect it.

Let’s discuss some of the types of fear I’m referring to. Type one is rather simple it’s the fear of a genre. Have you ever met someone who absolutely refuses to watch horror films because they’re total wussies and are too scared of their own shadow that even the most mundane Saw film can actually terrify them? Chances are we’ve all met someone like that and usually shook out heads wondering how the hell these people still exist but realize that this is the most pure form of film fear. In a literal and figurative sense it really is a fear of a type of film, much in the way other people are scared of clowns, spiders, or heights.

This genre fear can take a few forms, the straight man who won’t watch any “chick flicks” or sit through some “faggy musical”. These people swear to their masculine allegiance and realize that anything that doesn’t involve gore, titties, and massive casualties better be a Coen brothers film otherwise you’re a total fag for watching it. Now this macho man/repressed homosexual is another type of friend most of us has who is free to dismiss a film like Brokeback Mountain while proudly proclaiming to never see it, and vowing never to see it. Musicals ranging from Singin’ in the Rain to the Sound of Music, and even more recent offerings like Chicago and Moulin Rouge are clearly not “manly films” so therefore have to be disregarded while that manly man spends his time watching Transporter 3 confident that his sexual preference won’t come into debate again.

There are also the nerdy connotations associated with science fiction and fantasy that make other people proud to avoid Star Wars for a lifetime rather than ashamed. The people who might love Lord of the Rings but dismiss Harry Potter as a much weaker franchise. Often the people with this prejudice are actually fans of the genre. Chances are there are more Star Wars fans who hate Star Trek than average people who dislike both. Nerds are a passionate group of people who will defend their champions with their last breath and campaign against everything in opposition. Perhaps like the macho man the fear here might be that they actually like the film(s) they’ve been bashing and have to proceed to apologize to all those friends whose opinions they bashed.

The fear of horror results from direct fear of being scared so I don’t think many people avoid horror films because they secretly worry they might like them, instead I think they avoid them because they don’t feel like having nightmares all night long. However there is a different reason to avoid films in this genre, and that is the lack of quality/waste of time quotient. Every year no matter how much we wish for it several horror films are remade. It seems that every one of these remakes removes nudity, dulls everything interesting about the original, and uses more handheld cameras to give it an “edgy” tone. So most of us might not fear watching the remakes of The Crazies, Last House on the Left, or The Stepfather, but would rather stick to the originals and save ourselves the headache of sitting through an inferior remake of a film that probably could have been improved upon. Call this a fear of wasting time, which certainly can fit into this blog topic.

However the idea of fear isn’t so simple regarding genre prejudices. Have you ever been scared to watch a film a second time because you fear you might not like it as much upon a closer inspection? Some films captivate us so perfectly on a first viewing that sitting through the film again might diminish that original opinion, sour the taste for us, reveal that the film we loved so desperately was in reality somewhat average. Or perhaps that film with a surprise ending won’t seem as extraordinary when you know the ending. The night I saw Pride and Prejudice in the theater was the result of a lot of changed plans and wound up being one of the loveliest evenings I’ve spent in the past decade. I wondered if with the situation and company change would the film hold up as well. After over 5 years I finally decided to give the film another chance and loved it as much as ever, proving that a great film can transcend any conditions, or perhaps the memory of that original night gave me a warm feeling of nostalgia sitting through it.

The last real fear of cinema I want to mention is length. This goes along with the fear of wasting one’s time. Plenty of people have probably noticed that I recommend a lot of ludicrously long films. My number one from 2010 was a solid 5 hours plus, my favorite film of the 80s was a good 15 hours long. Many of the greatest films of all time are long, sometimes to the point of absurdity. Yet very few people feel like spending multiple hours following one story, just like many people who love to read are scared to pick up that 1000 page book and may be more comfortable settling into that 200 pager. After all you can spend 100 minutes watching a film, or 210 chances are you might prefer the shorter because it’ll take up less of your time. This is one fear that seems hardest to overcome for many people, but looking at my numerous lists of favorites, there’s plenty I’d recommend.

There are plenty of happy endings when we conquer our fear of cinema however. What seems like a century ago I had the American Film Institute’s 100 Years 100 Movies list, the first one. It was in late 1999 and I had spent the night at my grandmother’s house the night before. I turned on TCM the next day and found Yankee Doodle Dandy was coming on. This was #100 on that list and a *gasp musical. I couldn’t stand burst into song crap or so I thought and wanted nothing to do with any of the numerous musicals on the list. I recorded it anyways because it was on. As it progressed I started to watch it, and was amazed. Not necessarily because the film was so great, although I enjoyed it immensely, but because the songs were in context. People didn’t spontaneously start singing and dancing, instead the songs were part of the narrative, recreated in stage productions, rehearsals and all serving the narrative. The concept of the old backstage musical was new to me at this point in time and I wondered if this film could surprise me, maybe it was time to get over my bias towards musicals. Later that day on the way home I stopped at a used book/video store and purchased Singin’ in the Rain. When I got home I helped put up Christmas decorations while watching the film and was even more impressed. I realized then that I’d watch all 100 films on this list.

Overcoming my musical fear was just the first step. I realized if this genre could house gems then so could the scary world of silent cinema, foreign movies, even an animated Disney cartoon. The next steps were fairly swift and I realized that if a film was given a good rating I’d watch it free of fear. Now don’t get me wrong there are some films that I approach with great hesitation, make no effort to go out of my way to see, and put at a disadvantage. In 2008 Doubt came out and I couldn’t be less interested. I was growing tired of the annual Meryl Streep Oscar nomination, and a somber film about a priest being accused of molesting a child sounded like a plea for Academy recognition that plagued plenty of previous would be contenders (Cold Mountain anyone?). After two years I finally saw the film and wasn’t impressed much. To say it was a bad film would be misleading, but to say it was worth seeing wouldn’t exactly be true. Perhaps I had unfairly relegated the film to the dungeon before I saw it, but if the film was exceptional it would have overcome that obstacle.

Take another film from 2008 that worked the opposite direction. Ever since Ron Howard inexplicably won a best director Oscar for A Beautiful Mind I’ve had very little if any interest in his work. When Frost/Nixon made a few top ten lists I wasn’t interested, but then it appealed to my weakness, it got nominated for best picture. For those who know me will know that I’ve seen all but 4 films nominated for best picture since the Academy began handing out awards, so there was no chance I would avoid this film for much longer. I took myself to see it and was quite impressed. Perhaps I set the bar so low that this film had to live up to it, or perhaps this just overcame the prejudice I assigned to it. I’m not saying the film was a masterpiece, but it certainly struck me as a better film than the guilt trip known as The Reader.

So perhaps I need to make a final appeal to sum up my argument. It’d be a cliché to say “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, and well I think it applies. We can avoid films that are scary because we’re big babies, or plenty others because we feel uncomfortably homophobic about its content, maybe another because its too long, but well there’s greatness everywhere. So get over it, and dig in people, there’s nothing to be afraid of.