Full Disclosure: 

I Know Nothing About Film

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman! I am your host David and today it’s time for me to finally admit that I know nothing about film. 

I always knew I’d need to confess this at one point or another. I tend to be a walking, talking imposter syndrome at times.

As I’ve always said, I don’t know anything about movies other than what I like and don’t like. I never claimed to know more than anyone else about film.

I just spend a lot of my time watching them.

I have a history of hating movies that everyone loves, and I’ve been honest about admitting that I didn’t understand movies that real film people marvel over.

But earlier this month I watched a movie that had me questioning everything from my majoring in film (which I question just about every day) to this little show I produce basically for my friends and family. 

I saw a movie earlier this month that went farther over my head than any film I have ever seen and left me with so many more questions than answers.

It also had me thinking about other films that I could bundle together for this confession episode, and I didn’t have to think too long on that question.

So here, in chronological order of my screening, are the three films that have combined over the years to make me question my devotion to something I may know less about than I always thought.

Full Disclosure: I Know Nothing About Film

Eraserhead (1977)

NR/89 min/IMDb: 7.3/directed by David Lynch

IMDb: “Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.”

I first saw Eraserhead when I was in high school. I had been accepted to Boston University as a film major so I felt the need to watch as many “important” films I could get my VHS hands on before heading to Commonwealth Avenue.

After watching this, I thought I may have made a major mistake.

That synopsis by IMDb doesn’t even begin to describe the nightmare fuel this entire film is.

Maybe I should add incoherent nightmare fuel. 

There is no dialogue in the first 10 minutes of the film. There is no dialogue in the last 25-30 minutes of the film. 

The entire script was 22 pages long.

John Waters and Stanley Kubrick loved Eraserhead, but that doesn’t surprise me a bit. Mel Brooks loved it so much he had Lynch direct The Elephant Man. That surprised me a bit.

It took over five years to complete the movie and in one scene in which the main character, played by Jack Nance, approaches a door and goes through it - 18 months had passed between those two shots.

Nance once said, “You guys get way too deep over this business. I don’t take it all that seriously. It’s only a movie.”

Yes!  Thank you!

Even the star didn’t understand it.

David Lynch refuses to say anything about it since he wants to let viewers decide for themselves what it means.

That means that HE doesn’t even understand it!

Eraserhead made Premiere Magazine’s list of “25 Most Dangerous Movies,” and Entertainment Weekly had it at #14 on its “Top 50 Cult Films” list. 

Not only didn’t I understand it, I also thought it was total horseshit.

Sorry.

I just didn’t get it. 

Let’s move on to a movie I saw in film class at BU that had me wanting to sneak out before the lights came back up because I was afraid the professor was going to ask me a question about it. 

L’Avventura (1960)

NR/144 min/IMDb: 7.7

directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

IMDb: “A woman disappears during a Mediterranean boating trip. During the search, her lover and her best friend become attracted to each other.” 

This was one of my first screenings at film school in a class that I really enjoyed. The professor was great, and his catch phrase when the lights came up after a film was, “Let’s begin where we always do. Show of hands, how many of us liked ______”

You’d then look around the room to see which classmates agreed with you, and you’d sometimes change your decision when you notice that “pretentious film guy who really knows film” didn’t have the same answer as you.

Since I didn’t chicken out and scamper before the lights came up, I took part in the post-screening vote.

My hand was down, and I was one of the only ones.

I was a fraud.

I was a movie poser.

I didn’t adore Antonioni’s masterpiece of a film where people spend 144 minutes looking for someone they never find, and the director later admits didn’t matter to the movie at all since it was about the other characters all along. 

I got a bit of vindication when I later read that it was roundly booed at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, and the crowd was also yelling “Cut!” during some of the lengthy scenes. 

At least someone agreed with me.

And yet, L’Avventura is #45 on the BBC’s list of best non-English speaking films and it was once #2 on Sight and Sound’s list of the greatest films of all time. 

To me it was kind of like an Italian “Where’s Waldo?” where Waldo isn’t even in the drawing. 

Next up is the movie that put me over the edge and led to today’s confessional.

And if you think the title of the movie is just a name and address, you are correct!

That may be the only thing I understood about it. 

Jeanne Dielman, 23,

quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

NR/202 min/IMDb: 7.5/

directed by Chantal Akerman

IMDb: “A lonely, widowed housewife does her daily chores, takes care of her apartment where she lives with her teenage son, and turns the occasional trick to make ends meet. However, something happens that changes her safe routine.”

Let’s begin with the accolades:

#14 on the BBC’s Best non-English speaking films of all time. 

Premiered at Cannes and was later a selection for eight other major festivals.

Ranked #1 in Sight and Sound’s poll of the Best Films of All-Time.

Needless to say, if we here at Cinema Wellman see a list of films and we haven’t seen #1, well…we see it.

Let me begin with what I liked about this movie. I liked the use of diegetic sound, which I’ve mentioned in previous episodes.

The easiest way to describe it is that diegetic sound is sound heard by both the audience and the film’s characters, non-diegetic sound is only heard by the viewers.

Another way to think of it is “natural sound” that doesn’t involve soundtracks, or musical scores added in post-production. 

So, I liked that!

The other thing I want to reinforce before I continue is that this is a THREE HOUR and TWENTY-TWO-minute film.

Let that marinate for a second before I continue.

All further commentary is based on short videos I sent to Larry while I watched. 

I needed to share the experience with someone, and Larry tends to get the brunt of my film venting, and that’s one of the things I appreciate about him. 

Fifteen minutes into this film I had already watched Jeanne make tea twice. To fruition! She’s by herself, so zero dialogue.

She turns a trick, we see nothing since we’re not allowed in the room, the man leaves, money exchanges hands, there is no dialogue.

She then takes a bath. The bath takes about six minutes of screen time. The camera doesn’t move, Jeanne doesn’t say a word.

She then makes a meatloaf. Have you ever watched anyone make a meatloaf? Without speaking? In a silent kitchen? For five straight uninterrupted minutes?

I have.

At this point I texted Larry and said I’d change my mind about the entire movie if the last 45 minutes were Jeanne sitting silently in her kitchen waiting for the meatloaf to be done. 

THAT you should see!

She then makes coffee, doesn’t like it, and decides to make tea again. 

And you see it ALL!

Then, and I’m not spoiling this because none of you will ever want to dedicate 3:22 minutes of your lives to this, she stabs one of her tricks to death in a totally uncharacteristic move, and the final seven minutes of the film are her sitting at her kitchen table with bloody hands in silence thinking about what she had just done. 

FIN!

Well. That is a wrap from here in the Cinema Wellman confessional. 

Thank you for listening and we certainly hope you’ll be back next week as we climb aboard Wellman Airlines for a look at Airplane Movies!

Until then, take care.