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Andy Dunn
Dr. Jones
ENG 485
Literacy Narrative – Final
I. Responsibility
For me watching films is not a hobby any more. It’s a job. Though it is so important to
me I came to it late, like a lot of things in life. I crammed twenty years of music listening into
six. I never socialized with anyone until college. Sex, drugs and alcohol came later than it did for
most of my peers. The truth is my addiction started on indie films like Juno (2007) and Sunshine
(2007). Most of what I have watched is independent and less widely seen filmmaking.
As I continued experiencing more films, I began to question what it might mean to be
literate in regards to film. There is more to it than being “well viewed” just as there is more to
literacy than just being well read. Is it even possible to be film literate? Perhaps books have it
easier than films in that the primary literary component, the script, must work in tandem with the
secondary component, the visuals. Conversely most books have to evoke a scene without the aid
of any image besides what is on the cover to give the viewer context. Perhaps then it is one, the
process of absorbing the film, and two, how one interprets a film after it has been absorbed, that
make a person “film literate.”
How does one absorb films? There is an endless debate inside me as to whether it is
better to watch a film for the first time by myself or with others. Most of the time I prefer to
watch films alone for the first viewing because it lets me either sink into the film or sit there and
think about why its tide isn’t carrying me away to an exciting place full of wonder. When I am
watching a film with others for the first time I often spend more time wondering if the film is
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sweeping them away. Along with first viewings of films I believe the complete absorption
process may also take multiple viewings, as was the case for me with such films as The Matrix,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and most recently 2014’s Gone Girl. I had to watch them
multiple times in order to catch things that I might have not understood the first time. Some films
I “got” after two viewings like The Master or Michael Clayton and some I don’t entirely
understand after many more viewings than two, like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or
(shudder) Fargo. Which is not to say these are bad films. On the contrary, I just don’t understand
them but I am willing to keep trying to.
After viewing the film comes interpretation, which can take on different forms. The first
aspect that occurs for me is critiquing the film based on other films I have seen, books I have
read, things I have heard and things I have absorbed. This is how I have come to define the word
art, by basing things against everything else that I know. I ask myself how does what I just
viewed stack up against every other film I’ve seen? The other aspect is communicating about the
film with others. I have had so many lengthy discussions about specific films with my peers and
so many “debates” about one film versus another that I believe the discussion of film amongst
peers is key, like the big twist in Fight Club or the bloody climax of The Departed.
Another aspect of being well-viewed is watching a little bit of everything. Being “wellviewed” doesn’t just mean watching as many of the classics as you can but watching good films
as well as bad ones. For every great film that Siskel and Ebert saw, there was an equally bad one
to make them crave a better kind of film: more entertaining, more thought provoking and more
worth the time invested in watching it. What is bad is relative. It’s only by watching a few films
that we think are bad- films that don’t carry us away, that leave us where we are sitting and make
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us wish we were watching something else- that we can parse out the films, and art in general,
that mean the most to us as people.
I believe it is my responsibility as a literate individual to show love and respect to the
best and worst that film has to offer. Why is it my responsibility though? I say it is because I am
not a casual viewer. When the casual viewer sits down to watch something they are only looking
to be entertained for a few hours, contrary to a literate person like myself who is hoping to be
taken on a journey. For a literate viewer there is always hope that after watching something their
perspective will be changed because of what they watched. Another reason for which I am
doubly responsible is that any achievement, grand or tiny, in any field is worthy of celebration. A
child drawing with crayon on a white sheet of paper for the first time may mean nothing to a
critically and commercially successful artist but the fact that one more person in our world has
taken the very first step in creating something is a beautiful, joyous thing. Similarly the very fact
that a film was made at all, however boring or unoriginal or predictable it may be, is a beautiful
thing. It means people are still willing to try and make their dreams a reality. So when I write
that watching films is no longer a hobby of mine, but a job, it is because I have made it my
responsibility as a film literate individual to give every film I watch, both good and bad, the love
and respect that all works of art are due.
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II. Believing
It is my responsibility as a film literate individual to show the respect that is due every
film both good and bad, and it is also my responsibility to show respect to the filmmaker. During
my endeavor to understand film literacy I found some thought provoking passages in Annie
Dillard’s The Writing Life, in addition to a literacy narrative by Alex Scott, an English major,
which I found in the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. In analyzing these pieces I am
hoping to gain a better understanding of what must transpire in order for a film to become more
than a film, for a filmmaker to become more than a filmmaker and for art to become more than
art.
Many people have favorite films. There is a scene in what is probably my favorite film,
2008’s The Dark Knight, which still brings goose bumps to my flesh and sets my excitement
ablaze with every viewing. Gotham City’s district attorney Harvey Dent has turned himself in as
“The Batman” so that when the criminal mastermind the Joker ambushes the police convoy
escorting Dent to jail, the real Batman can capture the Joker. En route, the Joker attacks the
convoy with an RPG. The scene in which he fires at Dent’s armored truck and Batman blasts the
Batmobile in front of the shell, causing a cacophonous explosion, will never leave me.
The Dark Knight was the first film that I couldn’t speak after seeing because I didn’t
believe that I possessed the words to describe what I had witnessed. Looking back at that nerveshattering July night, I realize that for me The Dark Knight is no longer a film but a moment in
my life that I will never forget. I will always remember the thrilling opening bank heist scene,
how nerve-jagging the plot twists were, the immortal greatness of Heath Ledger’s performance
as The Joker, and how happy and excited I was when Batman somehow saved the day... It is a
happy memory. But unlike my other memories, this is one that I can come back to again and
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again and the images in my mind will be refreshed with every viewing. Utterly unforgettable and
life-changing. This is the point at which a film becomes more than a film.
Filmmakers make those pieces of art, but what makes them more than a filmmaker?
Dillard writes “It is not my experience that society hates and fears the writer… instead my
experience is… that society places the writer so far beyond the pale that society does not regard
the writer at all” (Dillard, p. 52). Those who keep up with happenings in the world of literature
know who is currently writing what but the majority of readers don’t keep tabs on authors. The
same goes for filmmakers. Very few people are aware of who is filming what and very often they
only learn this information through promotional trailers or during the film’s credits. In a world
where Twitter feuds make headlines I wish there was higher profiling of filmmakers and what
they are working on, because the casual viewer doesn’t understand how much energy and time
goes into what they are casually viewing.
Filmmakers are not as highly regarded as they should be and it’s a shame. A film is a
celluloid labyrinth of design choices, often very tough ones that are all the work of a single
person. It takes hundreds of people to make a film- people who fund, write, cast, act in,
choreograph, construct scenery, light, score, mix the sound for, edit and above all shoot the
picture- but they are all puppets being strung along by two hands with very powerful fingers.
“The body of [work], with its limits and edges, exists outside some people and inside others.
Only after the writer lets [the work] shape [them] can [they] perhaps shape [the work]” (Dillard,
p. 69). Just as Dillard says this for writers, the best filmmakers have carried a lifetime of
watching films with them. The entirety of cinema is within them, both the films they watched
and the voices of the visionaries who inspire them. The best films are created by those who
understand how to focus these influences and the best filmmakers are those who find a way to
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imprint themselves- the films they love, the films they hate, the films they will never forget- onto
the screen. This is what makes a filmmaker more than a filmmaker.
A film becomes more than a film when it becomes unforgettable, and art becomes more
than art when it changes a person’s life. “The only truly spiritual experiences of my life have
come during the reading of an exquisite piece” (Scott, p. 2). For me, experiencing something for
the first time is my spiritual connection to something more than art. That experience is lifechanging. The first book I read. The first song I heard. The first painting I saw. The first film I
watched. When I read Scott’s words I think of all of the films that truly took me to another place
and redefined my opinions about what a film can be, like Casablanca or Saving Private Ryan or,
of course, The Dark Knight. I understand now that the reason these experiences are otherworldly,
are spiritual, is because watching a film is a spiritual exercise for me. It envelopes me and carries
me away to a comfortable place that fills me with wonder. As Christians marvel at God’s work
all around them I am in bright-eyed awe of everything I see on the big screen. The screen is my
god and films are my religion. They are what I have always believed in the most.
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Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. New York: Harper & Row, 1989. Print.
Scott, Alex. "My Literacy Narrative." Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. The Ohio State
University Libraries, 11 July 2011. Web. 18 Feb. 2015.
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