What’s the Point?…Or Something Like a Manifesto

For about a year now I’ve been struggling with my “cinephilia.” What is the point in writing about movies? What is the point in going to movies? What is the point of making movies? Wouldn’t my skills, time, and effort be better used in the service of something more directly meaningful in the world?

If you guessed that I am middle-aged, you’re correct, however I don’t think this concern is confined to my age range. You can probably recall numerous times in your life when an existential crisis stared you in the face and left you temporarily paralyzed; I know I can. And if you are, like me, someone involved with the arts—a field that I feel stronger every day has much to offer this disturbing world, but which is rarely celebrated as “important”—that questioning of your life’s purpose probably pops up more often for you than it does for those in fields more readily accepted as valuable to society.

So why write about movies? Isn’t it a medium that vacillates between meaningless Hollywood product and inaccessible, irrelevant “small films”? I don’t really have the answer, but I do know that for me at least some of the most enlightening experiences I’ve ever had have been in a dark theater entranced by someone’s vision. And on occasion, I’ve even been transfixed by such visions on the small television screen in the comfort of my living room. I’ve seen worlds I could never witness first hand. I’ve met characters that help me understand my place in the world even as (or maybe because) they do not resemble me in the slightest. When I learn about a film coming out by a director or writer that has given me this in the past, I am delirious with excitement. So often I find that the film I am anxious to see never makes it to a movie theater near me because I do not live in a city anymore. I travel hundreds of miles to film festivals to see such films so I can share them with someone either through this blog, through my work at Provincetown Magazine, or even just in private conversations and on social media. This deeply held connection I feel tells me there is something there that is worth writing about.

Why make movies? There are lots of ways to communicate with the rest of the world creatively and otherwise, but in the 25 years that I’ve been making films professionally, I have found that there is no better way to learn about aspects of life that mystify you. Whether interviewing feminist sex workers, Cold War era veterans, or Catholic nuns, spending time with an eccentric recluse, or exploring the dimensions of my grandmother’s religious faith and mental illness, each film as forever changed me and made me into who I am today.

I can’t make any promises because this is a blog I write without compensation from anyone and with very little feedback from anyone, so it is hard to sustain my motivation. However, I am going to try to continue writing here about films and filmmakers that move me. I do not want to write about films that don’t move me or that are poorly done unless they hold some mirror up to our society and show us something about ourselves that needs discussing.

There is something beautiful about the empathy films can generate.

There is something enchanting and magical—even now, in the age of the Internet —about losing yourself in someone else’s dream on the screen.

Film is not the only art to have the capacity for building empathy or for mesmerizing us, but it is an incredibly important one because of its sheer ubiquity. Cinema came about as a working-class art form and remains that way for me, even as it’s been elevated in academic departments and media studies echelons (even ones I belong to as a Associate Teaching Professor at The New School). It will always be an art for the masses, and I think it could become an art by the masses as well. We are finally seeing films by people of color, women, and others who have been relegated to small projects in the past, and I am heartened by this.

So I will continue to write about films that stand out to me as much as I can, and I will continue to make films about people who do things I would never do. I still don’t know why I make films, why I obsessively see films, or why I write about them, but I continue to feel this powerful urge to engage with others about what I experience on the screen, and so I will continue to do that here. I hope the point will become clear to me some day, but in the mean time please forgive my self-indulgence, if that’s what it is.