George Washington (2000)

I watched David Gordon Green's fascinating debut, George Washington, today, and it inspired me to put some of my ideas on film into writing. It has little to do with the film, really, but was inspired by the world Green has created in it. The film itself really impressed me. It's filled with fascinating characters dealing with complex, thought-provoking problems. The cinematography has a natural splendor about it, a beautiful simplicity that fits the film perfectly. I'd highly recommend it.

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I don't usually think about what makes a movie bad. The acting might be a little off. There's no action. There's not a whole lot of drive to the narrative. There may or may not be continuity errors. Not enough attention is paid to the historical context of the film. Not all the supporting cast is as well-defined. There's too much or too little symbolism.

I almost never notice these things. I never make these acute observations that professional reviewers can. It doesn't bother me, though. I'm not critical, because I'd much rather see the good in work than the bad. I don't ruminate on how much better a film could be with different casting, a larger budget, a different producer, more time spent on the script, more action in the fifth reel. I accept films as they are. It just seems so obvious to me. A film is what it is, nothing else. It's a document, a record, for better or for worse. I accept the characters as they are written, directed, acted, lit and edited around one another. I accept that they are who they are and that they do what they do and don't do what they don't do.

I've always had trouble trying to accurately review media. Music is tough, because it's easy enough to enjoy, and even the worst artists have their own fans. Film is the same, in some ways. I would have argued otherwise a while back, when I thought of film as strictly a storytelling medium. But, some of the greatest artists in the medium don't try to tell a story as much as they express themselves or create their own works of art. See Bergman, Tarkovsky, Kubrick, Bresson, et al.

Not to say that I love every single film I see. I'm still a human being with my own tastes and my own vices. I do notice if a film bores me, doesn't engage me, doesn't move me on an emotional level, annoys me, or just plain sucks.

I don't think that I'm necessarily easy to please, I just think that I'm accepting. It's easy to speculate endlessly on a any particular film and the ways it could have been improved. For me, though, it's a pointless exercise, most of the time. I accept them for what they are and do my best to explore the worlds that they create.