continual steps

Yesterday I finished Carney's book on film director Carl Dreyer, and throughout my reading, I continually felt as if I might as well have watched his films with my eyes shut and my hands pressed over my ears. Carney's analysis articulated depths which seemed so obvious and luminary upon reading but remained so confused and elusive not only when I watched the discussed films, but also in the weeks spent mulling them over on my own with great difficulty. I know that it's asinine to expect that I could grasp after a single set of viewings all that Carney ascertained during his extensive research on Dreyer's work (not to mention his far exceeding studies in general) but I can't help but stutter in dismay at my own lack of absorption. In fact it only brings to surface the looming concern that I am only getting the most superficial (and perhaps completely wrong) insights, bastardizing otherwise profound works. My surface-level studies, a frantic effort in quantity, are not exercising nor enhancing my perceptive skills but rather formulating a permanent dilettante.

Okay, that's not completely true as I have developed significantly, but rather I'm expressing my concern for the ways in which I find myself cheating, namely, relying too heavily on critical analysis for insight than on the works themselves and my own ability to interpret them. Why am I not writing more about the films I watch, on my reflections and confusions? Why am I only watching certain films once, swiftly letting go of them the moment they end, when I am missing depths of which I know are there? I'm attracted to challenges but always shy from those grandiose, marking them lower priority to the smaller, more attainable feats.

And so my time with Dreyer is not over, but instead I'm going to make an attempt to spend time these next weeks watching his last three films repetitively, honing my perceptive abilities: listening to the tonal patterns in characters' voices and not deafly relying on the subtitles for dialogue; paying attention to lighting, framing, blocking, and camera movements not just in terms of pure technique but in terms of the film's spirit and tone; meditating on faces and relationships between characters including parallels and possible representations of ideals. [Am I punctuating correctly here? I don't think so. I've been taking notice of more complex grammar structures recently in other texts and I am trying incorporate them into my own rhetoric. (I should put myself in grammar lessons.)] Carney's insights have graced me with a profound foundation that I need to test out and practice on my own while his ideas are still fresh in mind; now that I am better prepared with how to look at Dreyer's work, can I see what I've been told is there? It's another start.