tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7349866.post8252245231786133636..comments2023-10-05T13:13:52.933-04:00Comments on The Listening Ear: Books - Very Lush and Full of Ostrichesweepingsamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11885871104310819374noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7349866.post-28051159027017763562009-06-05T07:59:34.212-04:002009-06-05T07:59:34.212-04:00Well, it was a good idea that didn't really ge...Well, it was a good idea that didn't really get taken up before - I did it in the middle of a blogathon on criticism, and I remember 2-3 other people doing something similar - but it's definitely worth a meme of its own. <br /><br />I suspect blogging tends to highlight my formalist tendencies - maybe because formal properties are something specific to write about. It's a kind of discipline. I suppose it's also a hedge against feeling like I have to say something important every time I post - if I stick to the text, I'll find something there to talk about...weepingsamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11885871104310819374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7349866.post-54109535559564953272009-06-04T23:27:55.935-04:002009-06-04T23:27:55.935-04:00I did not know that this meme had, more or less, b...I did not know that this meme had, more or less, been taken up before - jeez, even in a relatively new medium like blogging it's all been done already...<br /><br />I really, really liked the older two posts you linked up to, particularly the one which broke down the different elements of movies - and reading abotu movies - which interested you. Curiously, around the same time you wrote that (I was not yet a blogger) I would say I was primarily a formalist too. Yet I find that, as my own work recedes into the past and as I begin to WRITE about movies more, my formalism tends to ebb away. Empahsis on that latter point - it's since I started blogging that I've noticed I talk far more about themes and ideas and even moods and auras than I do about concrete formal elements, about execution, even though I still hold that those aspects of cinema are the most crucial, and the most rewarding to celebrate. I suppose it's because it's easier to go off in a more impressionistic direction when writing longer essays. Not that I don't like this kind of writing - Pauline Kael epitomizes this approach and she's always been my favorite - but it is a surprising departure from what I would have considered my sensibilities to be before starting a blog (actually I was not so long ago worried about not being able to see movies the way casual viewers did, conscious of their methods as I was. Now - and here I think it's the lull in my own (however scrappy) filmmaking that's the culprit - I'm as much taken in by the spell as the most naive moviegoer).Joel Bockohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11238338958380683893noreply@blogger.com