Maybe I should do this every morning, while I have the time? Sit here with my morning coffee, pour out all the things still in my head from last night. Hmmm.
Well, here's how my day went yesterday: I sat in front of the computer from 8am to about 11:30. In the background were the ever-present court shows, which, truth be told, keep me sane. They're what I watch instead of soap operas, because they're just as dramatic but without all the fuss of "investing in characters." You get a new story every 15 minutes or so. And you learn a bit about American law. I remember in Austria they had court shows as well, but the shows were fake. They were actually scripted, with actors and all that. FAKE court shows. It was strange. But they had just as many fake, badly-acted, badly-written court shows as we have "reality-based" ones. Anyways.
Then I decided I didn't want to go to film class if I didn't have to. See, here's the problem with being a film studies minor. Film classes are always 3 hours long, which means a 1-hour lecture followed by a 2-hour film. I have no problem with the lecture portion of the class. That's where the valuable info is, you know? But I hate sitting in a stuffy, darkened classroom, surrounded by people's breathing and sniffling and texting and (lately) Cantonese whispers... nothing against the guys I sit next to, but whispering on it's own is distracting, and it's even more distracting when it's in another language, because then the brain listens closer because it's trying to translate. I can't do it. I can't sit in that classroom for 3 hours a day.
And on top of that, my prof doesn't lecture about the films at all. He pretty much just talks about himself for an hour, then hits "play." He doesn't take attendance, and our marks are based solely on our written work and our "original perceptions" of the films we watch in class. In other words, there's no reason to GO to class. As long as the films are watched and the writing is done, there's no need to be there.
So I went to the video store, rented all the films I could find on the course list, and came home. Found out the rest of the films are in the school library, so really, I only have to go to class on the last day to hand in my work. One could almost say I'm ahead of the class right now. So why do I still feel guilty for not going? Because I'm not going today, either. Blah.
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Cut to 11:51 pm, the next day
I didn't go to class yesterday, but I did watch the film: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring. Very good film, I must say. Very Buddhist film, with the circular narrative, the focus on nature and impermanence and man's ability to be distracted by desire. Very good film.
Today was The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, another amazing film. Like seriously, this film is now in my Top 20, along with Wings of Desire (another film we watched in class!).
So here's my problem. Obviously, prof. and I have similar tastes in film. I've always felt that he and I could be friends if circumstances were different, not to mention his tendency to stare at me in class coupled with my tendency to say random things (like when he asked for a show of hands as to how many people had seen Wings of Desire, I was the only one to raise a hand, and said (loudly) "am I REALLY the ONLY ONE?". He then went on to say the film was one of his favourites, and he could teach an entire course on that one film alone...) I would say we were kindred spirits, and if the power dynamic were different (IE if he wasn't charged with grading my papers) we could be friends, eating expensive Italian meals with our spouses, then watching foriegn films and drinking red wine late into the evening. Especially in the summer. But alas, things don't work out that way, and I still have a term paper due on Wednesday.
My topic, I think, is going to be based on a quote from an essay by Tom Wolfe along the lines of "movies are the new books". I don't have the proper quote in front of me. Considering the class (a film class offered through the writing department) and the prof (a film enthusiast who mostly works in print), I think the topic is fitting. Now I just have to decide what stance to take. I don't know if I agree or disagree with Wolfe's statement. Is the print medium completely outdated, or is there still a place for books in our computer-dominated culture?
That's all for today (and yesterday....)