The Death of Film Criticism

Believe it or not, there used to be a time when sequels were not announced before the first installment of the series even came out. Those were the days when making a movie in and of itself was a daunting financial loss for studios, let alone the making of a whole string of them. As a matter of fact, one of the main reasons why Lionsgate rejected Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was the fact that it entailed a commitment of more than one movie.

Nowadays, films have more of a “universe” approach. If you check nearly all the developments happening on Rotten Tomatoes’ “Weekly Ketchup” section, you discover that there is a nary a film being developed that does not have the potential to be juiced for more story and, as a direct result, cash. One film is no longer enough to tell a story. That is why,  even though I haven’t watched Mockingjay: Part 1, I know it would be impossible to review it on its own merits. There is a bigger story to be told, one that is only complete in the face of the whole four-part trilogy.

This is what has been happening in the TV world for many years. It is impossible to judge a standalone TV episode simply for its own merits. Each episode is part of a wider, overarching story, and a part can’t serve as an accurate measurement of the whole thing. Rather, it serves as a measuring stick to see whether the characters are developing properly or the plot is not poking holes in itself.

We have to wait for the very end, however, for our investment to be justified. It’s what kept many viewers of Lost glued to the screen for six often-frustrating years—the expectation that the resolution would make sense of it all. And, when the resolution proved to be frustrating, it left many fans dissatisfied.

Granted, most films and TV shows do not tie themselves up in complicated plot machinations like Lost does. But, due to the pursuit of these ultimate answers, many viewers lost sight of how the characters were growing right in front of their eyes. The relationships on which the show was built were lost in the wider macrocosm of the overarching story.

It is difficult to say whether this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, more story is not a bad thing. It is a chance to engage with a world on a deeper level. On the other hand, we become unable to view the wonder of personal developments in a story. Oftentimes, stories serve bigger purposes when all you can get out of them comes from one source. For instance, even though I have watched the original Star Wars trilogy, I always feel like I am missing out on something because there is a wide literature behind these characters that threatens to deepen the story beyond what I am currently experiencing.

This is too often what happens in our society. We get so caught up at looking at the bigger widespread significance of things that we overlook the emotions of the moment. We believe that our moment in history is important because of the way that it interacts with the wider narrative of history.

In the end, the tragedy of Michael Brown is not that it speaks to some greater problem about racism in America or the failure to train police officers or any other countless societal ills. These are all valid points to make, of course. But, for those who might believe that none of those issues are a valid point, there is tendency overlook the fact that a teenage boy with a future is now dead—all to prove a political point.

And for those who rightly get outraged at the tragedy, the tendency is to exploit one family’s suffering and pain and make part of a bigger narrative, regardless of the specificity of the situation.

Our society is obsessed with the sweep of history. It might be because, now more than ever, we have more of it at our disposal. It might be because, thanks to social media, we can see visible change happen quickly. It might be because, as our storytelling tendencies demonstrate, we are obsessed with stories that are epic and grandiose, that can transcend multiple forms of media and immerse viewers in more ways than one.

But we forget the personal. We forget the epic tragedy of small events. It’s not simply there to either entertain us or assure us of our place in history. It’s there to move us on a gut level, not to be shoehorned into a bigger narrative..

We can’t be assured of sequels. As a matter of fact, we might wish that they were never made. But we can make sure that what we witness and experience moves us on a personal level. That it makes us weep and cry and even be outraged in the face of tragedy.

Al Fernandez ’17 is a philosophy concentrator in Eliot House.