My internets is all dusty and cold, due primarily to my lack of anger-fueled love towards it (I hit you because I love you!). Of course, I could just do a shitty clip show that TV programs do when the writers are too high to think of anything original; but I digress from the point I haven't made yet.
I've come to realize over the last few years of my schooling that I'm not really learning anything - and that I'm a high-70's student (or a B+, for those of you that are in the "No child left behind" program, and are thus illiterate and mathematically retarded). Whenever I need to really know something, I just go back to one class in highschool - Grade 12 Communications. I've apparently learned an entire University degree when I was 18, because apart from reading idiotic essays from illectuals that are in more poverty than I am, most of the "information" I've learned in my degree is essentially just extensions on things I already knew.
Of course, given my degree, lots of the content I learn is opinion-based via the prof. (Think National Cinemas). I've had to endure 4 months and about 500 bucks out of my pocket on courses I absolutely don't give a shit about (like Soviet and Polish cinema), which although some have fading moments of interest, it's mostly harping the same shit for the entire course. There's a few problems here;
1: There isn't enough content to justify a 13-week (or god forbid, a 25 week) course that'll eventually lead to my degree/40,000 dollar debt. I'd take another course not in my major, but fuck, half these courses are required for me to graduate. I don't give a shit about Eisenstein's theory of montage (if you know the definition of "montage", you've just equalled Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein's life work), and knowing it doesn't justify making me sit through Battleship Potemkin, Strike, or anything else he's done. And for fucks sake, his essay in the book I was forced to pay 100 bucks for had DRAWINGS all over it. DONE BY THE BASTARD HIMSELF!. Anyway, it doesn't end here. I've already told people in my faculity (and they agree) that I'm basically writing the same essay over and over using different movies. I have my strengths when it comes to analytical essays (which, by the way, is all I'm ever required to write), and it's always Film Aesthetics, and bullshit (not in that order). I've sat through.. hmm.. lemme see here... about 150 movies in the last 8 months, and I've totalled 606 hours of class. . . . 324 of which was watching movies (approximately). So yeah, I'm sitting in a dark room for over half my year watching movies - sounds like a sweet deal, right? Imagine watching your favourite movie 100 times in 8 months. Sure, the first few times you find out different things that you didn't notice before. But after about 25 watchings, you just don't wanna do it anymore - and you're only 1/4th of the way through. Now take those 75 other viewings and start analyizing EVERYTHING about your favourite movie - ranging from who the director is, to the political ideology, to gay undertones, to reinforcing traditional values, to the evil of the corporation funding it, to the actor/actress inside it, to the shot style, to the colour choices, to the meaning created by shots, and pretty much absolutely everything you can think of. The short: Your brian dies and you stop caring or liking your favourite movie. . . because school has destroyed your movie-watching soul. Now do it for FOUR years and 40 thousand dollars! AND EVEN THAT DOESN'T GUARANTEE YOU A JOB OR THAT YOU'LL EVEN PASS!.. cause after destroying your favourite movie, you have to write a 15 page essay about it - and you have to "research" your topic, because you're far too stupid to form opinions without some quoting some educated hack 800 times. . . and what makes his opinion more valued than yours? Well... he's done what you have, except he decided to do it for his entire live. Hell, YOU got off easy.
By no means am I saying my major is difficult - I don't have to do much of anything, and there are some good movies in the mix - and hell, some of the readings aren't soul-crushingly boring (although 90% are). And on occassion, an industry dude, filled with years of cynicism and bitterness towards his wasted talents because the studio hacks edited his film comes in and does a talk at the University - in the process shutting down the one prof you couldn't stand. (Yes, that was sweet). I mean, it's not like I have to learn chemistry or something I know absolutely nothing about. At least in my major, I can fall back on my foolproof, never-fail bullshitting.
2: It's not that the professors don't do a lot of work prepping the courses - and fuck, they get underpaid like nobody's business to do it - but having a prof come and teach a course that's opinion-based will ultimately lead to a clash of opinions. What one person's masterpiece is, is another persons sack of shit. You have to be able to look past the verbal shit these profs give, cutting the opinion out from the actual need-to-know/need-to-bullshit-to-pass.
3: Writing. Who the hell writes theories on this shit? And why do I have to know it? I'm well-aware I made a wrong decision to take this degree as opposed to a technical film one, or actually going to film school (which I'll have to do ANYWAY after I graduate), but seriously, some of the things I "learn" are absolutely pointless. In the entertainment industry, to create a film with a personal meaning is impossible unless you've acheived commercial success beforehand. If you build your "truth" films on lies, where you were a hard-luck nobody that overcame the odds to become something (see: 50 Cent's film Get Rich or Die Trying), you're bound to find some kind of success, cult or mass. If you rant about political issues, but make it seem like you're talking about something else (see: Capote, which was actually about gay issues, not the "In Cold Blood" book.. not saying it wasn't a good movie), you're in. Or my favourite - doing a movie you've done already, but nobody saw the first one because you weren't popular then. (see: Brokeback Mountain, which was done by Ang Lee after he became popular from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but if you watch his 1993 film The Wedding Banquet it's actually Brokeback's inspiration.. and pretty much the same topic in a different context. It's also better). What it all really comes down to is money, money, money, money, and more money. You could be the most talented person in the world with the most important movie idea ever, but if some douche in a suit thinks they can't make more money off it, you're fucked.) Anyway, these are the things I have to write about - over and over.
It's far easier to just be retarded and not be good enough to go to University. Consider it saving money, not "missing out on an education".
How coincidental this rant comes in the middle of my exams that I haven't studied for (and don't need to, for all the reasons above).
-Mark
(Last song was The Brunettes - Best Friend Envy)
2 comments:
I remember when I first saw Potemkin and realized that it was actually 7000 hours long. At least, it felt as much. Commie bastards...
Move to Milwaukee and we'll start a production company. It can be called AntiBody, which sounds fruity and medical at first, but just wait, I'll explain it, and hopefully I'll sound even more fruity. Body, which refers to embodiment, or the business term, corporate, deriving from the latin term corpus(body,) so in other words we don't like to conform to anything anyone tells us to, unless of course it's really cool, then you might as well conform. It's an underhand way of saying we're anti everything, especially uppity corporations.
I actually went to see a movie by Crispin Glover(Williard, Bartleby or if you really need it McFly from Back to the Future,) and the movie was fairly interesting in that it sucked dick for the most part, but it was the most extreme thing I've seen in a theater. Mainly because ninety percent of the actors had some sort of mental retardation(literally.) He talked after the movie, and said he hates Hollywood and especially the corporate environment because they act as censors before the product is even fully bloomed. He said the main censor in America isn't the government, but the corporations, but who am I fucking kidding, the government is the corporations.
I say you move to Milwaukee next summer and we take a stand and start bashing everything through satire and wit, which are two areas fully lacking in most mainstream movies, and still will be if we join hands, toes or whatever the hell can inspire anyone. I'm already amassing an harem(after all we're about the lovin' not the war) of musicians, cinematographers, writers and one budhist guy named Joe, but I don't think he's actually budhist, probably gay, I'll get back to you on that one.
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