The Night I Discovered that I’m (kind of) a Film Snob
I didn’t choose this life, but I will live it nevertheless.
There are pivotal moments in every man’s life that can shape his future and define him for the rest of his days. I experienced one of those moments last week.
I’ve been using a lot of my free time to catch up on some movies. My sister and I are both movie lovers, and she came up with a list of ninety movies that she wants to watch during our quarantine. Last week, we watched one of the films on her list , a critically-acclaimed drama from 2007 called “There Will Be Blood”. The picture stars Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a profiteering oil baron at the turn of the 20th century who will stop at nothing to expand his oil empire.
At the end of the film’s two hour and 45 minute runtime, my mom and my sister gave the movie a resounding thumbs down. My mom said it upset her to the point where she had trouble sleeping that night, and my sister kept asking how much time was left. Like we were on a family road trip to Maine and she forgot to use the bathroom before we got in the car.
I completely understood both of their criticisms. The story is about as grim as it gets, and even its happiest moments are wrapped in an eerie instrumental score, similar to that of a horror movie. To my sister’s point, it was definitely one of those movies where Paul Thomas Anderson (the director) could have shaved off 45 minutes if he wanted to.
However, even though I sympathized with their opinions, I thought the movie was great. Not only that, I thought their points of criticism were the very features that made it so. The whole story is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of greed and expansionism, and a criticism of the hypocrisy of both the corporate world and the religious community. It had to be grim and miserable in order to get its point across. If the selfish oil tycoon who stepped on everyone in his path rode off happily into the sunset at the end of the movie, the moral of the story would have been tarnished.
Sure, maybe Anderson could’ve trimmed some fat here and there, but I was completely fine with him using the full two hours and 45 minutes for a film of this scale. Everything from the cinematography to the color correction of the shots was incredible. It was like watching a portrait come to life, and Anderson needed 165 minutes of screen time to showcase all of these details. I’ll admit it was a little slow at points, but it’s damn near impossible to sustain an engaging plot line for nearly three hours.
Despite all my praise, I knew in my gut this was a movie that should’ve bored and upset me, too. So why did I enjoy it? Puzzled by my own opinions, I started to look up reviews of the movie on IMDb later that night. Here’s a sample of what I found:
- helenkirkwood007: “The saga is filled with long silent moments of tension that take place in a cinematic canvas and an actor’s head… I for one stand up to applaud his daringness.”
- murtaza_mma: “The world of cinema has seen and marveled at a plethora of phenomenal performers, who over the years have entranced billions of viewers globally with their guile, grandeur, subtlety, eloquence, and idiosyncrasy, but I dare say that none of their performances can match Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Daniel Plainview in “There Will Be Blood”, for sheer ruthlessness, panache, eloquence and cheek.”
It didn’t take long for me to realize I was clearly reading the reviews of bona fide film snobs. You know, the kind of people who refer to movies as “works of cinema” and call directors “film auteurs”. I mean, just look at those reviews.
“I, for one, stand up to applaud his daringness”???
“Guile, grandeur, subtlety, eloquence, and idiosyncrasy”???
How much more pretentious can you get? I felt like I was reading a transcript of Founding Fathers drafting the Constitution. I rolled my eyes and chuckled to myself for a bit, but then it hit me… I agreed with these people. But I didn’t just agree with their opinion of the movie. I liked the movie for all of the same reasons they did. At that moment, I had to ask myself a question: Am I a film snob?
I had to run through a mental checklist.
Question 1: Had I ever been to a film festival?
Answer: No. Good start.
Question 2: Had I ever used the words “motif”, “three-act structure”, or “tour de force” in a conversation about a movie?
Answer: No.
Things were looking up. Then, I had another, even more startling realization. I wasn’t a film snob. No, I was something far worse. I was a fake film snob.
Sure, that’s a term I made up. But think of all the people you’ve come across in your life, and I guarantee you’ll find more than one person who fits the mold of a fake film snob. It’s an objectively awful character trait, arguably one of the worst.
Film snobs might be pretentious and stuffy, but they put in the work. They attend all the Indie Film Festivals and read actual film critiques (not critics, critiques). They’ll travel hours to a podunk theatre to see the premiere of some Stanley Kubrick movie that no one’s ever heard of before. They might be pompous about their films, but they’ve earned that right.
Then, you have fake film snobs like me. I would never go to a film festival (well, I would never pay to go to one). I barely even go to the movie theatre anymore. But whenever I watch a movie like “There Will Be Blood” with people who don’t like it, I feel like I need to explain to them why the movie was actually great, and why they didn’t understand it. The problem is, I don’t use words like “grandeur” and “eloquence” in my explanation. Why not?
Because I’m a fraud. I don’t want to admit to my family, my friends, or myself that I’m a film snob, so I try to repress the film snobbery within me while simultaneously attempting to give a coherent review of the movie using layman’s terms. In the end, I’ll just end up spewing nonsense comments like, “because of the symbolism”, or “it’s one of those artsy movies”. Just a jumble of nonsense words strung together in a sad attempt to sound intelligent.
If I ever found myself in a conversation with a real film snob, they would wipe the floor with me. They would expose and humiliate me so quickly that I would have no choice but to completely give up watching movies for the rest of my life.
As I lay awake in bed that night, I realized I only had two viable courses of action. Option 1: I become a full-fledged film snob. This option would require the most effort. I’d have to start watching foreign films, indie films (yuck), silent films (double yuck). I’d also need to hide my love of Marvel movies from the film community.
Option 2: I abandon the film snob persona entirely. I throw every ounce of film snobbery in my being into a closet, lock the doors, and melt the key. When someone asks me what I thought of “There Will Be Blood”, I’ll say precisely this: “It was good. Kinda long though.” Nothing more, nothing less. I’d live out my days as a closet film snob, holding my tongue during every casual conversation about themes or character arcs.
Which path have I chosen? To be honest, I haven’t decided yet. It is a decision that cannot and will not be rushed. The choice I make will define the kind of man I want to be for the rest of my life, so I must choose wisely. For now, I’m living out this two-faced existence in quarantine, preparing myself for the next family movie night.
