Hard to Watch by Matthew Strohl
Have you ever been flummoxed by a film? Does David Lynch come to mind? Matthew Strohl’s Hard to Watch is a guide for the perplexed and a call to act. In a world where thousands of options are streaming, should we continue to dip into the trough of easy, mindless slop—or should we seek the hard stuff in films that challenge our perceptions, sensibilities and received ideas?
Strohl isn’t against the pleasure of a good car chase or a heart-stirring romance. The balm of escape from our world can soothe troubled souls. He understands the hook of a decent serial, their “stickiness,” but just as a little milk chocolate isn’t a bad thing (especially if it releases endorphins), a steady diet of sugar is sickening.
Using Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder for example, Strohl considers the need for filtering out distraction. For difficult or unusual films, it’s easy to write them off—if they don’t immediately click with our preconceptions or even our moods—as empty or pretentious (a word employed by pretentious critics who seldom know what they’re talking about). “One of the most important leaps I’ve made in my four decades as a film viewer is that I’ve learned to be skeptical of my own responses.” The value in reading a good film critic (and they are rare) is that they can provide an alternative set of responses, a new way of understanding a film.
Strohl, a University of Montana philosophy professor, takes on the algorithmic dictates of Netflix and the aggregated mush of Rotten Tomatoes as well as the intellectually incurious culture promoted by faux progressives such as the Disney empire. He is on guard against cine-snobbery while denouncing those who “avoid art that makes us feel bad or uncomfortable.” Hard to Watch is a cogent reminder that many of life’s most profound experiences require work on our part—or at least an open mind.
Hard to Watch: How to Fall in Love with Difficult Movies is published by Applause Theatre & Film Books.
Get Hard to Watch at Amazon here.
Paid link
