Time to get the monkey off my back...Or at least my screen
Posted by Jared
King Kong (2005)
Peter Jackson
viewed 01.03.06
2006 can only get better.
I have been spending much of the last two days trying to come up with an effective metaphor to communicate how bad this film is. Something that can combine (1) the boredom of watching Jackson bang out his two notes of CGI absurdity and Karo syrup sentimentality over and over and over again, (2) the fascination of watching one ridiculous concept after another appear on the screen (30's era sailors quoting Heart of Darkness from memory; Kong and Ann "skating" in Central Park; Ann teaching Kong the word "beautiful"; pretty much anything involving Kong and Ann), (3) the confusion of watching story lines evaporate, and (4) the blank, empty feeling of not being asked to have a single meaningful thought for over two hours. No luck so far.
Since this isn't a review I'll share a realization this experience has provided. Everyday I find it harder and harder to identify with much of the world around me.
I scanned a number of viewer and critic reviews and the vast majority were positive if not gushing. Phrases like "master filmmaker", "this is what cinema was made for", "classic storytelling" were used. Used by critics I consider quite good. I realize most people think divergent opinions in film are matters of taste and not to be take seriously. Perhaps, but these "tastes" also seem to indicate a difference in approach, not just to film but life (I often have trouble with the distinction).
The desire for distraction over and above revelation is a disturbing characteristic of our time. We are a people that go though our day attending to one meaningless and fleeting social, economic, and professional task after another. We take on stress-laden responsibilities that prevent us from thinking any further than the matter at hand, and when we are finally able to carve out a few hours to ourselves, we feed our souls another meaningless and fleeting bit of film or TV. How are we not starving for more? Why aren't upset when our time, money, and attention are spend on things that lack any significance?
I'm currently reading The Anchor Book of Short Stories edited my one of my favorite authors, Ben Marcus. In his introduction he describes how the stories in the collection "conspire not to be forgotten".
"If we are made by what we read, if language truly builds people into what they are, how they think, the depth with which they feel, then these stories are, to me, premium material for that construction project. You could build a civilization with them. They are toolkits for the future. They could be projected by megaphone onto an empty field and people would grow there. These stories reveal that many stylistic literary traditions...can produce colossal feeling and manage to be true, deep, memorable, and brilliant."
Every time I walk into a theater or put in a DVD this is the experience I am aching for. I understand that sometimes people want to be entertained, they want to escape. What they miss is how extraordinary it is to escape with something more, and upon returning finding their world made new. I refuse to believe cinema is made for the pleasing but vacuous, for the dazzling but empty. I've seen work that has improved me, taught me, films that change the way I think and see. I am troubled by less than that, and confused by those who aren't.