Yeah, I recently found myself in another thread noting this kind of thing but I think you pinpointed it much better. I disagree on a couple things, one being that I don't think it's new whatsoever that people aren't watching things with the biggest priority being entertainment, as art films have existed since film began. I'm not sure I'd say it's more widespread, even, as Eraserhead enjoyed midnight movie success and Cassavetes was a pretty big name, appearing on Columbo and talk shows, despite his films being extremely hard to sit through. Two is that I personally haven't seen Endgame dominating film discussion, or really anything about Endgame at all, despite frequenting cineaste circles. I'm familiar with the recent Star Wars trilogy being lambasted and picked apart, but that's all that comes to mind. I also wonder how iron-clad the observation is of Western countries being the culprits of over-analyzing, as there are a fair number of scholarly books dedicated to analysis of Evangelion, whether from esoteric or political angles, that have existed since the 90s in Japan. One of the earliest examples I read of panning Thrice was a Japanese essay.
roblucci01 wrote:But it's too late, Cinephile is not just an identity, it's now an industry.
I found myself wanting to disagree on this specific point, as the likes of Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert have been around since the 70s, but there is a big difference in what's going on today. And I think it can be chalked up to social media. Media analysis was once deferred to experts, academics and enthusiasts, but now seemingly everyone operates on the idea that they're an expert with (at least the potential) of a global platform. Everyone seems to have an opinion, often expressed vociferously, on even the most niche, obscure and nuanced topics, ones we used to leave to specialists and that laymen, even those that are intelligent, lack the time and actual expertise to understand to the level that it matches investment in terms of their frequent internet spats. I've often seen two people argue about something back and forth until it reaches a point where it becomes obvious
neither side actually understands the subject matter in depth.
To apply this to Eva, I've seen Thrice haters begin on what seems like a sound foot only to end up implying that Anno was merely selling his soul to embed his project with conformist "breed more" Abe propaganda, and I've seen Thrice lovers express their appreciation in sound terms only to devolve into spats and end up claiming that Anno discovered the key to the big questions about life and that if you didn't jibe with his message you're irrevocably broken in some way psychologically, if not spiritually, highly likely a basement dweller refusing to touch grass. So in my experience the dichotomy among Thrice viewers isn't
those who liked it and stay in their lane and
those who hated it and behave toxically, quite the opposite, I've seen an immense amount of toxicity from those who praise Thrice, as I mention in a couple posts starting
here.
I don't think this general thing among internet film buffs you pinpoint is just a hatefest, either, and that the pendulum swings the other way and there are instances of over-praising. I watched a film the other day and thought it was okay; entertaining but with glaring flaws, and that was more or less the extent of my reaction. I hopped onto Letterboxd and read the top review, which posits that the film is a once-in-a-lifetime masterwork that has grand philosophical implications for all time. The elements of the film used to substantiate their arguments seemed, to me, as if they didn't exist in the film, that they were embellishing if not inventing wholesale, and the more I read, the more I felt like they were describing a different film entirely. Whether it's rooted in toxic negativity or not, there's this feeling that everyone is in a competition to out-pan or out-praise everything; pretty much every top review on Letterboxd raves about any conceivable film you could look up, no matter how lighthearted, schlocky, pretentious or whatever, as the literal second coming.
In both of these cases, the 'criticism' such as it is often gets away (far, far away) from what there actually is to appreciate in a film, and the intentions of the author get hopelessly obscured under irrelevant projections.
I don't think it's being critical per se that's an issue, but rather that it's not being critical of your own criticism. In many of these cases, it's not people being analytical for its own sake, out of some kind of interest, fascination, or preference for analysis, but often it's more like the actually important motivation is some kind of display of ego, brow-beating, or war of identity, which is substantiating itself using the guise of critical analysis but crumbles pretty quickly when you apply any actual rigor to it; long paragraphs, sure, the appearance of an argument, yeah, but when you start lobbing counteracting critique and strip away any present logical fallacies, piece by piece it's wittled down to some kind of neurosis or shallow tendency. Film is a subjective medium, and some level of interpretation is bound to be intimate and unique for each viewer, but it's another thing entirely when someone takes their gut reaction and runs with it and uses it as a way to get into arguments where the thesis, the purpose and the reason why they want to argue might as well not be about the film itself, and more like the film is an excuse.
And I think social media primes its users to operate in this kind of poor faith because it's not modeled around discussion, it's modeled around declaration. Whatever methods are required to drive home your expression of confident correctness is paramount, and I have to wonder if it's sometimes enforced subconsciously. A tweet, or review entry, or top-voted reddit post is, in essence and in best effect, a mic-drop. It's not at all like a discussion forum, which endorses back-and-forth and de-emphasizes "winning" in the contest of most eyeball traffic, and it has some semblance of policing via moderators instead of zero accountability unless someone types in a bomb threat.
