Reorientation

When I started this blog, I intended for it to be solely about movies. At that point in my life, film meant more to me than just about anything else. I was a nascent leftist then, so several of the films I wrote about involved left issues. To date I remain very proud of my BATTLE OF CHILE posts.

After a while I began to lose the enthusiasm I had for writing long analyses of the films I watched. Real life had begun to reassert itself in various ways. I got a job after graduating and had to restructure my life around that. But I was also confronting several other personal matters, including crises that concerned people I care about deeply. I didn't have much time or desire to write anymore, even though I'd sometimes feel the urge after watching a movie.

Another part of what happened was that I'd set my standards too high. I didn't want to post anything here that couldn't bear substantial critical analysis. I've always had an inferiority complex about film writing, so I wanted to differentiate myself from what I'd considered mindless consumers of media. Maybe I also felt insecure about devoting so much energy to film writing when it might have been spent more productively elsewhere. 

I don't know that I've resolved those doubts for myself yet, but what happened in 2016 was that I began to be enticed by the website Letterboxd. At first I wrote cautiously and laboriously on Letterboxd, again hoping to earn the respect of others through high-quality work. Lately I have been more carefree, dashing off little reactions to films I watch in between the monolithic critiques. What Letterboxd has taught me is that there's room for both kinds of writing, casual and concentrated.

Which brings me full circle back to this blog I started years ago. I was never able to confine my energy entirely to film writing, despite that being my stated aim. I diverged into different topics and made exceptions as I saw fit. In hindsight I can see that I was pushing back against the constraints I'd set for myself, but as long as the structure held, I felt value in maintaining it. Now, ironically, I'm finding that not everything I want to write about really fits on Letterboxd. I write frequently and copiously on movies, but I also want to write about books, music videos, real life and myself. It makes more sense to explore those other possibilities with this utilitarian blog than to cram my various whims into Letterboxd film reviews. 

So I'd like to start writing more experimentally here than I have before, whether or not the focus is films. These many years have helped bring me back to writing again after a long absence. I wrote profusely and obsessively as a kid and as a teenager, but somehow adulthood had dimmed that passion for me. I don't know why, nor do I really even know why I've been so compelled to write all my life. But writing is more motivating to me now than just about any other activity. In fact it's almost as if writing about films was just a pretext for writing at all, like films were just the stimulant that made me able to write again. That seems likely, looking back now.

I was very troubled when I began this blog. Some of those issues have abated, yet there are always new and challenging difficulties to fight against. It never really ends. But maybe writing can help. I must have some reason for doing it. Anyhow, this is all to say that I am now going to focus more attention on my blog. Taking some time away from it was just what I needed to figure out where I should take this next. I expect it to be a livelier and more full-bodied entity than I ever let it be when I was monomaniacally fixated on films. I look forward to writing more than ever in 2018 now that I'm surer of my approach. And though I hope this all has value to anyone reading, the most important thing is that it has value to me. Still, I'll try to make it worthwhile to outsiders as well.

Footnote: I will also begin cross-posting reviews from Letterboxd here, and vice versa. There are some things I can do with a blog that I can't with Letterboxd (funny how limitations always energize me to find a workaround). I'll be compiling those writings here in different formats than they appeared on Letterboxd. Maybe by director, or theme. I'll have to see what seems best.