"I... like to elicit responses, put questions on the table that can be approached by the community, instead of thinking about something for a while on my own, writing up a steel-tight thesis and posting it to have two comments saying 'Hmmm, interesting.'" Ed Hardy, jr.
That's from a recent e-mail exchange between myself and Ed Hardy, jr of Shoot the Projectionist. It came to mind after my last post on "The Kelly Astaire Paradigm" in which I put forth the idea of two schools of acting. Among the many comments received was this well written and well thought out comment by Camorrista:
I understand that you meant this as a sort of on-line parlor game, but I find it too reductionist even for that.You've erected two schools which--except in your playful imagination--nobody attends. As you know better than most, there's truthful acting and untruthful acting, and it can arrive in all sorts of guises, sweatless and understated, sweaty and bravura. (for the full comment please visit the comment section of the previous post).
I can't disagree with a single word written but it got me to thinking about the nature of blogging and reductivism with blog posts. One of the reasons I blog is to engage in conversation. I have a number of blogs that I comment on and usually what keeps me coming back is the give and take. It's not for everyone, I understand, but for me the joy of being a part of the online film blogging community is the conversation. So when I go to a blog, read an interesting post, make a comment and then receive no response I usually don't comment much more after that. I'll still visit and read the posts but I don't want to force conversation on someone who doesn't want it. That's just rude. If they are blogging simply to write about film and have people read it then I respect that choice and have no problem with it. But...
For me, it's all about the conversation and often times that means reductivism is the name of the game. Setting up two schools of acting is an impossible task and thus becomes ripe for conversation and argumentation. Within the comment section of that post it became quickly evident that many actors fit into both "schools." Actors began to be divided up according to periods of their careers and then according to certain roles within those periods. And I enjoyed reading and responding to all those comments. And in many ways, a comment like Camorrista's is exactly the type of comment I was hoping for. Many times commenters like Bill, Kimberly, Ed, Cinephile, Sheila, Marilyn, Rick, Andrew and so on will disagree with something I've written and (as long as no one is mean-spirited - so far they never are) it's completely welcome. Just look at my inclusion of Laura Linney in the Astaire school for an example of what I mean.
I enjoy writing movie reviews and posting pictures from my plethora of movie books but it's the posts that elicit discussion that I enjoy the most. When I read A Clockwork Orange and decide I like the way the book ends better than the way the film ends I write about it because I know my preference will not be everyones and I want to know what they have to say. It more often than not helps me understand my own preferences and sometimes even changes them. And I consider myself very lucky that I get as many comments as I do and have so many intelligent readers well versed in the language of film. It allows me to do the posts I want to do at a consistent rate.
Currently Jim Emerson has been putting up deceptively simple posts at Scanners. Two of them have concerned the best and worst Best Actor Oscars and the best and worst BIG performances, which discusses ham acting, so clearly something's in the air (and I think that something is the upcoming Oscars). I say "deceptively simple" because Jim does not write lengthy volumes on acting in either but sets it up for the readers to take over. And once that happens you'd be surprised at how many different modes of thought there are on the subject. In many ways, bloggers like Jim Emerson at Scanners and Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Uhlich at The House Next Door have been an inspiration to me in doing this kind of post.
When I started this blog I had an idea that I would write reviews and post lists. I still enjoy doing that but what I didn't foresee was that engaging with others on film subjects would be far more satisfying to me than slapping a recommendation on a film and moving on to the next post. So thanks to everyone for engaging in the conversation with me and thanks to Camorrista (who I hope becomes a regular commenter) for helping me understand better why I do it in the first place.
