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The other day I was watching a talk show about cinema. There were some famous critics talking about the box office, the new films... Many of them quoted references to old or not so old films. Reviews are not just a matter of feeling and taste. It's often about what you've seen/heard before, and that's a big difference between the public and the critics. Maybe that's why I don't feel in tune with other people's taste, especially in cinema, when I see what's at the top of the box office and what I like. Yes, I'm an old man now, 50 years old, and that's not representative of who goes to the cinema, who buys music and so on. I remember that when I was young I had problems finding critics in the cinema magazines that suited my tastes. Now I don't read those magazines and I don't read other people's reviews. Sometimes I don't even watch the trailer because it tells me too much about the film... So I agree to make a mistake by going to see a film because I have an unlimited pass.
For example, I'm not going to see Dune 2 by Denis Villeneuve. The problem is that, like the director, I read the book as a teenager and imagined the whole universe. There were things in the first and second books that were important to me. They were not in the first film, and they do not seem to be in the second. I felt like I was seeing a different story on the screen. The second problem is that I'm very much influenced by all the space opera films I've seen over the last 40 years. Dune came much too late in the genre. Many films have been inspired by Frank Herbert's books, starting with... Star Wars. For a teenager of today, Villeneuve's first film might be impressive. Not to me. David Lynch's Dune was also different from what I had in mind, but sometimes it's not too far from my own imagination. I didn't want it to be filmed, I wanted it to be a nice souvenir, a nice dream. I have the same feeling with other books from my childhood or teenage years. For example, I don't want adaptations of Lovecraft's novels. It's too difficult for me to give the same feeling in the cinema as in the book. I'm sure some writers have a kind of fear of seeing their novels on the screen, because it's something with personal thoughts, feelings, secrets that you can't tell. It's the same with the reader, who puts something of himself into the imagination around the story. It was a lot better for the first «Lord of the rings» from Peter Jackson, but I had the feeling that the 3rd episode was from a different book....Please don't ask me for «the Hobbit», a book made for children...
Sometimes I have strange feelings about songs. I don't understand everything from the lyrics (sometimes in a language I don't speak), but from ... the intention of the musician or singer. I can't explain it, but I've often had the feeling that a song was written for this moment in my life, and many years later I discovered that it was this meaning for the author. For example, when I hear «Ya Rayah» by Dahmane El Harrachi or in Rachid Taha's version, I always feel sad, I don't speak Arabic. But I felt it was about someone who is sad to leave his country and never see it again. My wife had the same feeling (she often does...) and it's linked to the history of his family. For me, maybe it's in my genes, because my family had to leave because of war in the 19th century. It's more than culture, but there are some issues that are close to my heart. Epigenetics is trying to understand that, and it's fascinating...As I said weeks before, we are so ignorant. The point of view can be changed by this.
Now that I'm older, I feel all that in a different way, and maybe that information that's written deep in my body is coming back. We are all different and have different histories and cultures. Sometimes I don't understand the success of a series, a film, a singer, and I think of the little boy who used to annoy his parents by listening to rock bands. That's life, and I try to deconstruct my immediate feelings to give them empathy. I understand that someone who has never seen some classic films can be fascinated by a remake, a copy made with modern special effects and CGI. I feel that the imagination is less careful today, and that's bad for creation. My culture came from books. Now it's coming from other media. The consequences will be different for the next generation of creators, and the culture of the audience will be different. But I can't wait to see. It's not only a question of age. I remember that my father was «Science-fiction proof». I know other people like that and I can't understand why they don't give this kind of movies/books a chance. They have to see something that could be real… I'm a dreamer and I'm quite the opposite, trying to imagine something different. It's like the way we could imagine an extra-terrestrial life : Many people sees that as a kind of humanoid, sometimes with more legs, arms or eyes … But it could be completely different, … if the planet is different from earth.
I don't like to give negative reviews. It's so easy to criticize, to find defaults... For Dune 2, I will see the film soon and I'm sure that Villeneuve was honest with his own feelings of young reader. It won't change my own vision of Frank Herbert's books. As a big fan of musical movies of the 30-50s, I didn't like La La Land because the level of dancing and singing was ridiculous for me (Not in West Side Stories, Blues Brothers, Sister Act, Chicago....). It was the same with The Artist (and an injustice to have forgotten Berenice Bejo and to have given the oscar to such a bad dancer/singer as Jean Dujardin). That's life and I know that my feelings depends on my tastes and my culture. I can't have a positive feeling that many people could have with those movies. Many critics should remember that before writing reviews that show off their own culture rather than dealing with the subject: the work of another human being with their own culture. I've read again many of the reviews that I made in the 15 last years and 90% are not very interesting...because there so much of me that I can't write when I like, and so few interest for the rest when I don't like. Sometimes I don't remember a lot. Try this : Write a list of the major movies or music albums that were important in your life : You'll be surprised.
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