In the Age of Distraction, Film Needs Us to Sit Still.
A recent article in The New Yorker dinged some of the biggest films from last year for lacking originality and being obsessed with literalism. And not the usual popcorn, tentpole movie fare, the “arthouse” films, the “glitzy, awards-buzz” films, or “Artisan Films” as AMC markets them (I hate that term, I feel as if I’m in a Sargento Cheese commercial). The kinds of films where we expect filmmakers to rise above pandering, where analogies and allegories should be allowed to stand on their own strength rather than be watered down for viewers who might not track political history or recognize a callback to Lawrence of Arabia.
The article’s author, Namwali Serpell, called out Megalopolis, The Apprentice, and Gladiator II as especially egregious for not trusting audiences to catch the nuances. I largely agree, though I’d challenge some of her inclusions. I’d encourage her to listen to Nickel Boys director RaMell Ross explain how the first-person camera isn’t, as she claims, just a gimmick. It’s an inventive and thoughtful synthesis of observational documentary and fictional cinematography—a critical reflection on how we observe the world. The observational documentary mode, rooted in the Russian concept of “kino-eye,” presumes objectivity, but we self-impose blinders inherently limiting our objectivity. Ross doesn’t cave to that dynamic, but takes it further, prompting us to ask what documentarians see—and what they instruct us to see.
Ironically, the one film Ms. Serpell praised as rising above this tendency to announce the meaning behind every prop and symbol was Conclave. I wonder Ms. Serpell stepped out to the bathroom when Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal Lawrence complained a secret stairwell meeting made him feel as if he were at “some American political convention, or when he lamented, “Is this what we’re reduced to, considering the least-worst option”—the “least-worst option,” straight from the mouth of undecided voters all over Iowa! I find it impossible to read Conclave as anything but a heavy-handed—though enjoyable!—allegory for American electoral politics. The jockeying and maneuvering among cardinals projects party insiders trying to decide which candidate is least likely to alienate voters (not necessarily the best! Just the safest) onto the papal nomination process.
Quibbles aside, Ms. Serpell’s point is valid. As a filmmaker who gives emphasis in originality and innovation, this trend towards hyperliteralism needs to end. But I would argue the bigger issue is why it’s happening. Are filmmakers choosing simplicity, or are audiences resisting complexity? Increasingly, it seems audiences dismiss a film as “bad” if it demands reflection or a subsequent viewing. But requiring reflection isn’t a bug but an asset. Great films not only expand the form but they expand us. They challenge how we see and what we believe about our world.
This conundrum reflects the broader attention crisis of our time. In The Sirens’ Call, Chris Hayes writes about the new and expanded role attention has taken on in our society. He argues that because everything and everyone is vying for our eyeballs, attention is the new form of currency. Attention speaks just as much as money does or used to. The more people watching, the more power a message has. But when film is seen as frivolous—“just a movie”—it struggles to earn that attention. The problem, then, isn’t filmmakers dumbing down their work, it’s that audiences lack the bandwidth to meet them halfway. Fewer filmgoers deem movies worthy of the mental bandwidth.
The filmic language doesn’t come naturally to us. It’s trained and honed through experience and self-education. We recognize great writing by listening to films with witty, sharp dialogue; we recognize great cinematography by watching cinematographers maximize what a single frame can hold. We recognize great editing by how a film moves us in our seats to lean in closer, flex backward in revulsion, and tighten up in suspense. It’s a rich and colorful language, and it takes time and effort to appreciate it.
I’ve been guilty of balking at the idea of watching something twice. There’s so much to consume that rewatching a film can feel indulgent or like poor time management. But I’ve never regretted it. I saw the cut to Robert DeNiro in Killers of the Flower Moon, during the Osage town hall, gauging how well he was covering his tracks. I observed patterns in Sing Sing’s close-ups, they’re designed to mirror incarceration itself. My first viewing of a film is often just a marathon to keep up with the plot and characters’ names. That’s fine! It’s not a deficiency of the screenplay or the director’s ability to portray abstract ideas on the screen. The need for multiple viewings is an indication the filmmakers (including writers, set designers, actors, costume designers) incorporated so much detail in their work that it’s too much to absorb in a single viewing. After we familiarize ourselves with the story and message in the first viewing, our brain is less focused on keeping up with the plot and can notice all the other aspects of the frame and the message. We pick up new things and grasp new information on each viewing so that together, we have the complete picture (no pun intended). This requires time and mental investment, yes, but demanding simplistic, instant gratification, we’re both selling the medium and ourselves short.
The solution is not to simplify but to support directors who trust their stories and their audiences. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a recent and excellent example. On the surface, it’s easy to see a vampire movie with a blues soundtrack. Underneath though is a history of the Delta blues, the ties between African and Irish music, and the argument that American culture is a derivative of the creativity of enslaved people, immigrants and the poor. Furthermore, Sinners prods the audience to question how much sin in our lives are we willing to tolerate? What sins—in this nation where half of us is obsessed with returning the America to a godly country—what sins are we willing to capitulate to, normalize, and rationalize as justifiable, and which do we excuse? The lines between them can be more arbitrary than we might want to admit.
Sinners does all this with style, depth, and rewatchability. And yet, the film had only been in theaters for hardly a week and pundits were already chomping at the bit to question the film and its commercial viability, especially whether Ryan Coogler (not coincidentally a Black director) would be able to hit the financial targets. Unsurprisingly, within three weeks, the film has fully recouped its budgets and turned a profit in the millions of dollars. When a film respects its audience, people respond.
That's what happens when we invest in directors and filmmakers who care about story and the filmmaking craft. The sin of Megalopolis and Horizon wasn’t ambition but neglect. Coppola and Costner, it seems, surrounded themselves with yes-men who would never tell them when an idea was bad or when the pacing was too slow. No one told them or they didn’t want to listen to why audiences might not connect with those stories and characters. All three films, Sinners, Horizon, and Megalopolis are big creative swings, proper directorial visions. The difference between Sinners and the latter two is that Coogler understands the audience hasn’t been living with the story like he has during production, and so we can’t be affected by it and learn from it unless we feel an emotional connection with it. All his collaborators speak about his dedication to ensuring each scene and frame invite the audience to connect with the story. That connection is not a given, filmmakers have to earn it.
Sinners proves that people are willing to invest their time and attention in a good film if filmmakers hold up their end of the bargain. Ryan Coogler had a clear vision for a Delta Blues epic and wielded all the filmmaking tools at his disposal to build it. He used the traditional three-act structure: Act I takes it’s time introducing us to world of 1930s Mississippi and the characters that inhabit it. Because the characters haven’t seen each other in years, they have to catch one another up on their personal histories, meaning we learn their personal histories. We get situated in the environment and establish emotional ties to Smoke, Stack, Sammy, Annie, Mary, and Delta Slim. Only then do we move onto Act II where the vampire plot comes into play and the story takes off. After a transcendent climax at the juke joint where the barn-burner dance sequence, my apologies Ms. Serpell, literalizes the ties between these different genres and eras of music, we enter the third act of the film which is a survival story of if all these characters we’re invested in will make it through the night.
And as far as I see, I don't see any blatant examples of literalism that Ms. Serpell would find objectionable. Though Ryan Coogler is going on podcasts and shows elaborating on the film's meaning and the role of Delta Blues in American cultural history, and world history, the film also seems to be perfectly okay with the fact that some viewers might not grasp everything about it and that's okay. For those of us who care deeply about film, respect Coogler as a filmmaker, and enjoy seeing film being made in its highest form, Sinners is a joy and privilege to watch. But for those who don't care as much, or don't grasp all the nuances, it's okay, they don't have to be forced to understand. Coogler doesn't need to write dialogue making the subtle unsubtle. He trusts us to grasp what we can and revisit what we miss. That’s what we need more of: filmmakers who wield the medium skillfully, and audiences willing to meet them in the middle. Not every viewer has to unpack every reference. But films should aim higher than split-attention entertainment. If you’re watching TikToks during The Brutalist, it’s not the film’s job to cater to that divided attention. Doing so weakens the experience for us all.
Films should be fun after all; for many people, the salve after a difficult day is an escapism and absurdity that often conflicts with logic, Bicycle Thieves (Bicycle Thieves is no one’s go-to after a rough day—though if it’s yours, I salute you). But neither should every film be watered down so it’s comprehensible while doing laundry. Films (and television!) also exist to push us to think about world in different ways, someone else’s way. To change how we see the world and reflect lives we’ve never lived. That can’t happen without complexity—without challenging writing, layered camerawork, and thoughtful editing. Nuance abounds, but we’re capable of catching all of it if we can sit still long enough to see it.
Background Reading: “The New Literalism Plaguing Today’s Biggest Movies”
Link: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/critics-notebook/the-new-literalism-plaguing-todays-biggest-movies
