That film is so pretentious...
By Joe Boden
28th January 2010

Pretentious
- adjective
1. Full of pretense or pretension.
2. Characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.
3. Making an exaggerated outward show; ostentatious.
source; dictionary.com

The word ‘pretentious’ is one that is thrown around a hell of a lot in film discussions. It’s thrown around and applied to pretty much any film that goes under the guise of ‘art’. Eight and a half? Pretentious. La Chinoise? Pretentious. Antichrist? Pretentious. It’s something that annoys me quite a lot, because most people (not all, but most) tend to use it as a negative for films which are alienating or difficult or challenging, and barely anybody goes on to describe why said film is pretentious. I mean, it’s obviously fine for somebody to feel that way, but without backing up the criticism just seems lazy and incomplete. It’s like condemning a film because it is ‘bad’ but never really going on to discuss why it is bad.

As I said, the word is one that is used to label most art films. Cinema as a medium for art is one that has, as we all know, unfairly been downtrodden over the years, and nowadays the spectacle certainly overwhelms the art. Most members of the public, not to mention critics and artists themselves, fail to recognize it alongside literature, painting, and the like. That’s a sore shame, because last year alone we had films like “35 Shots of Rum” and “Sleep Furiously”, films which are able to say things about their time and place, and capture a lyrical and quiet poetry in their tone, pace, and atmosphere. However, go to the IMDB page for “Sleep Furiously” and you will find eight user comments, two of them harshly negative. Both of these negative reviews use the word ‘pretentious’ with no real arguments against the film. This is the problem with most film criticism today.

That the word has become a catch-all device for any film which has ideas apparently above its station is a real shame, because it kind of implies that film as a medium should not ‘assume dignity or importance’, and that it should remain firmly in its place as a source of entertainment and nothing more. Of course, there are odd occasions when the word is fully justified in its use. Take Michael Winterbottom’s “Nine Songs” (2004), which cuts pretty much from gig performances to hardcore sex, and then back again. It has no real artistic meaning, and simply wants to push boundaries for the sake of it, with no gain – artistic or otherwise – at the end of it. It is a film that presumes that it is important because it pushes explicit images to the next level, actual penetrative sex, but it is unable to convey anything. It is nothing but an outward show of ostentatious trickery, a cheap show to get people to watch the film, and it works. “Nine Songs” is a pretentious film.

There are, of course, many other examples of films which could be called pretentious for the correct reasons, but then there are even more films that could be called pretentious. We’ve gone over art films, but what about the films that fill the multiplexes on a weekly basis? What about the blockbusters of the filmic world?

Obviously, I would not count films like “Twilight” or “Avatar” as pretentious films, but I would rather do so than count “Antichrist” as one. Those two films easily fall under the third definition of pretentious; “making an exaggerative outwards show; ostentatious”. Avatar in particular is a film that lives on showy gimmickry, and the price tag that came with making it is a testament to that. It partly seems like James Cameron turning around and saying “ooh, look how much money I’ve spent on my film, come and see it!” It is an ostentatious trick, a pack of lies being fed to us by a one-alright director with ideas above his station. “Avatar” is a film that lives on vibrant colours and computer generated imagery, a movie that lives on reputation, a spectacle with no artistic merit.

And that is what really gets me. It’s a film that has nothing to say about the world or the people in it past some obvious and half-baked musings on war and the environment (which never go past an elementary stage), and yet it is one that is considered important, nay, paramount, to the medium and to the world as a whole. James Cameron himself declared the film to be a “game-changer”, the next stage in film, and his high self-important and downright sanctimonious opinion of himself it grating to say the least. He is a man who believes he is making a difference in the world, but is not. He is assuming dignity or importance – a higher plane amongst lesser blockbusters – and he is not achieving it.

Surely, a film which actually has well examined ideas about this or that – like “35 Shots of Rum”, “Sleep Furiously”, and “Antichrist” – are worthy, and films which think they do but don’t – like “Avatar” or “Watchemn” – are pretentious? Surely, a film like “Angels and Demons”, which has a smug sense of ostentatious superiority because it is slower than most blockbusters and has literary (if you can call it that) source material is more deserved or reprimand than a film that does the same but, you know, actually has something to say about the world? And then there are comedies, like “Sex and the City” or “The Hangover”, which assume that they are being edgy and hilarious, when it’s not for them to decide. Maybe these films aren’t pretentious at all, but surely more so than the films that count?

Films aren’t a pretentious medium, for me, particularly the arty films that get labelled as such so very, very often. A film has the power to insight, to challenge, to disturb, to question, and to raise valuable points about the world around us. Filmmakers like Tarkovsky, Bresson, and Godard have handed on the torch to Von Trier, Kiarostami, and Sokurov, and now it’s their job to buck these accusations of pretentiousness and to continue making such challenging films. A director doesn’t have the inclination to assume that what he is doing is ‘worthy’ or ‘dignified’ or ‘important’, he has the god given right to assume that. If a director did not have the belief that he had the ability, the tools, and the material to make an important film that raises important questions, directors like Lynch or Herzog or Kaurismaki would cease to exist, and James Cameron would inherit the world.

And that’s not a world that I particularly want to watch films in.