Watching movies is an indispensable part of many people's lives. As the number of movie viewings increases, we will find that movies are not just a kind of entertainment, but also a knowledge with its own knowledge system. How can you learn to analyze good and bad movies? What should I do if I can’t watch a highly rated classic movie? The Paper invites film critic Meng Jianxin to talk about how to learn to appreciate movies.
Click on the picture to ask questions
@silence2021: Now I watch movies just for fun, forgive me for being shallow! How do you learn to analyze movies and know what is good or bad about them?
Meng Jianxin: Don’t underestimate yourself. As a representative of popular culture, movies are not so profound that many works require sitting up and studying. But you have begun to consider interpreting movies in a certain way. This shows that you are not as good as yourself. A "shallow" person used by Qian. Therefore, I have some Wang Laos selling melon fields who would like to recommend my humble work. In fact, a very important point of my work is: start thinking about the movie from the part of the plot that touches you.
Because of its concreteness, movies can easily arouse perceptual cognition: resonance or opposition. A person with certain critical thinking ability will make analysis and judgment through his own experience (first-hand or second-hand). The evaluation method used by scholars is usually a theoretical framework. This method has a certain effect on learning, but the theoretical framework is equivalent to a "ruler", and each theory has its own weights and measures system, such as the use of feminist It is difficult to measure the scale of consumerism with a ruler. Scholars study and learn, just like going to different ruler shops, buying different rulers to measure the same material, and generating either new data or simply designing a new ruler. These are of little significance to most ordinary viewers, because sometimes films that are highly praised by some rulers may be uninteresting from a viewing perspective, and some are even deliberately made difficult to understand in order to qualify for some made-up rulers. To give a slightly extreme example: dogma95 is a creative method. If it is defined as a certain "good" standard in a method that is completely consistent with dogma95, it is certainly "good", but it is really a test for the audience.
This is what I mentioned. For ordinary viewers, the most real thing is your own feelings: what you think is good, you will definitely list good reasons in your own heart, and what you think is not good, there must be details to support you. judgment. The essential issue you have to contend with is not your personal judgment of "good or bad", but that your own judgment is different from others. So at this time, the value of so-called independent thinking is here: if it is really the conclusion you come to after thinking for yourself, even a film that has received rave reviews from the outside world may actually be nothing more than that (such as buying a navy). The quality of what the outside world hears and the quality of physical experience can easily form a 2*2 matrix. A mature person actually faces his own heart sincerely and insists on his own judgment: in this world, in addition to movie reviews, There are few fields where one can be so subjective and communicative.
@silence2021: I don’t understand many classic works of art in . What should I do? For example, I read Calvino's "The Lost City" seven or eight times, but the knowledge did not enter my brain. So many people gave it five-star reviews. I was so flustered and felt like a fool.
Meng Jianxin: Everyone has their own different hobbies and tendencies. According to the traditional saying of three souls and seven souls, the characteristics of each person's three souls are different, and their preferences are also different. For example, some people prefer physics, and some prefer physics. Some prefer chemistry, some like history. Different hobbies constitute different personalities and temperaments, forming different people. In this way, when you interact with different people in this world, you will see differences and similarities. Both nature and our human society pay attention to diversity. Different differences constitute the starting point for everyone to communicate, that is: why do you think this is good, why do I think this is good? That's good.
Communication in a mutually inclusive environment can make people realize the state of "listening to both and understanding".However, one reality is that many debates nowadays completely abandon rationality, so such discussions can easily turn into arguments. I always advocate discussion rather than argument because once people get into an argument, there will be no practical results and it will also make them feel bad. Work is already very hard, so why add such extra troubles for hobbies?
As for the five-star reviews, if you really feel that they are inconsistent with your own reviews, I think you can do the following. First, read 1-2 movie reviews that you agree with (the opinions may be different from yours, but try to understand the reasons for those opinions). If the sharer can state the opinions through more film facts besides theory, it is very basic. For example, the composition, or the meaning of the source (such as the symbol in the series of movies, similar to the orange in John Woo's movie, etc.). Then, through that analysis you try again and see if there is any change in the film - and if there is still no change, then there is no need to force your heart.
Respect does not mean the need for approval. Respect comes from politeness and approval comes from the heart. People always have to be honest with themselves, so there is no need to force yourself to convince yourself. Moreover, some good reviews may be due to pretending to understand, or for other purposes. For example, Duchamp's "Fountain", a representative work of modernist art, is only meant to represent modern art style and theory. A male urinal on the exhibition stand can I have always found it unacceptable to be called good art, so I respect its historical significance but do not consider it a work of art. Even if others think I am a fool, then I will tell myself: Foolish people are blessed.
