FilmStack Monthly Challenge #5 Round Up

“Wait… really?”

Photo by Tormius on Unsplash

For FilmStack Monthly Challenge #5 Swabreen Bakr tossed the curator baton to Dario Llinares.

Dario’s posts and podcasts are always full of insight, layered analysis, and thoughtful perspectives that really make you think. His writing carries an intellectual depth that rewards slow, attentive reading (with a dictionary nearby perhaps) as you take in the full nuance of his ideas. With his background as a film academic in higher education, it makes complete sense that his prompt centers on the idea of “teachable moments.”

FilmStack Monthly Challenge #5

So, for this challenge, I would like you to share a conversation, an article, a podcast, an interview, or any experience that gave you a redefined insight - and therefore a renewed appreciation of a film.

This could be as fundamental as completely changing your mind about a film you didn’t like on first watch (as I alluded to in the title), or it could be a subtler moment: reading, watching, or discussing something that allowed you to access a different way of thinking about a film, or even about cinema as a whole. It might even be a fleeting spark of perception that made you absolutely have to see a film you were previously indifferent about.

When was the last time someone changed your mind about a film? - FilmStack Challenge #5

This prompt was one that many people found incredibly challenging. It not only asks us to dig deep into our own experiences, but also to remember the specific moments or films that shaped how we think. Trying to pinpoint exactly where or when something changed us can feel overwhelming.

Some people struggled so much that they felt they had “failed”… though of course, there’s no such thing as failing with these challenges. Even Ted Hope of Hope For Film felt uncertain about his response, yet what he offered were several wonderful examples of people whose insights and wisdom helped him expand his thinking, as he puts it:

But what about changing my mind? Is expanding my mind really the same thing? I think my life of joy has come from that expansion and learning to forever delight in the rapid expansion of possibility it brings. Forever stretching outwards.

Alas, though… I am failing this challenge I am afraid.

I think it absolutely counts, just read his post and you’ll see.

Have I changed how I think about cinema -- or is it that cinema has changed how I think?

Dane Benko of Indulging A Second Look, approached the prompt by narrowing the scope of what he chose to include:

Sadly, though I have had my opinions shift on various films over time, I had a hard time thinking of precise people-changing-minds moments, particularly my self-imposed listicle set-of-5 moments.

But what Dario’s challenge did make me think about is how my relationship to horror film has changed over time, usually incited by someone close to me. In reading this story you’ll begin to see why horror movies are important to me.

My Personal History of Horror | FilmStack Challenge #5

David Thomson of Between Cuts also narrows the field to a single topic: his ever-evolving opinion of Stanley Kubrick.

And it certainly evolves, as you can see it in these quotes woven throughout:

I always thought Kubrick was a bit overrated.

Then…

I had never got round to watching Barry Lyndon for much the same reason I suspect a lot of people haven’t. Three hours of slow Thackery costume drama doesn’t sound very appealing. Still. When the red envelope is opened, that’s what your watching.

Then even later:

By the time I got to the intermission I was completely blown away. This was absolutely among the best movies I’d seen. It’s a genuine masterpiece.

Fear and Desire made me reassess everything again. It’s terrible. Absolutely awful. Kubrick was right when he called it an amateur effort and thought it was embarrassing. It breaks the genius myth. It is not on brand.

FilmStack Challenge #5: The Genius Is In The Hustle, Not The Art.

Many FilmStackers did have specific people they credit with changing their minds on certain things.

Alan McIntyre of WTF-Stop Camera Club is one of them, sharing a lovely post about his former teacher, now film friend, Jill.

But the best thing was when Jill would get a break from teaching and return to her magnificent former factory TriBeCa loft, purchased for $16K in the early 70s. We would meet up for coffee and even made a film about animal rights, but my favorite activity was attending screenings with her.

It might have been a wide release or a film festival screening, but every one expanded my understanding of what was cinematically possible, just like I was returning to school for an evening.

Screenings With Jill

jake S. weisman of Filmjourn, and if you don’t know his Substack, you should, as he’s actively developing an exhibition and distribution model for micro-budget and NonDē feature films, credits both his mother and Spike Lee for opening his mind to the importance of diversity and broadening his understanding of what film can be.

“I want to watch something diverse,” Mom answered plainly. “Write something filled with diversity.”

Diversity is not an accordion. Diversity is not a plotline or character arc. Diversity isn’t a reference or an actor or a style. Diversity is.

What I took Mom to mean was she wanted to see literally anyone else’s point of view. She wanted to see color. She wanted to see how others lived their lives. She did not want to see traditional gender and racial roles. She did not want to see more violence or stupid men or honeypots or stereotypes. She wanted to see something that genuinely reflected the world, and if she gets her way, something that highlights the good, the love, the progressive, the positive, and the honest.

Diversity is.

FilmStack Challenge #5: "Filled With Diversity."

I, Amanda Sweikow, was also able to think of one person who has had an immense impact of the way I watch and write films, my ‘Cinematic Muse’, as I call him, Thomas Ethan Harris:

Thomas taught me how to read films. How to understand visual language, cinematic design, and the emotional context beneath the surface. He introduced me to films I might never have discovered on my own. Ambitious works that weren’t always perfect, but that dared to try something new, to communicate in ways that expanded my understanding of what cinema could be. Much of my taste in film and my sensibility as a filmmaker, has been shaped by his influence.

FilmStack Challenge #5

I also reflected on a particular film review that changed my mind about a movie, and the reviewer was Charlotte Simmons of The Treatment. Charlotte’s reviews match Dario’s in their level of depth and thoughtfulness, so it’s no surprise that she was one FilmStacker who didn’t struggle with the prompt at all. In fact, her response was the opposite:

I only mildly exaggerate when I say this challenge made me salivate. Reason being that it gave me an excuse to talk about an element of the new film criticism that I had yet to properly touch on — the necessity of plurality.

The post then goes on to say:

So, if we want to grow as filmmakers, artists, thinkers, and humans, we need to centre cinema’s value around grappling with the ideas and perspectives and forms and functions that the film presents, often in a way that only the medium can.

The question, then: What happens if a film critic finds nothing to grapple with?

She goes on to describe her experience with a film that initially left her with nothing to grapple with, until she read a review that approached it not as a verdict of good or bad but as a way of exploring the film’s meaning, transforming the way she was able to watch it.

Shaking Hands with 'Drive-Away Dolls' (Filmstack Challenge #5)

Swabreen Bakr of Anti-Brain Rot shares another example of how after listening to the podcast Critics At Large and hearing critic Richard Brody discuss a concept in film theory allowed her to re-examine a film she had previously dismissed and discover a new appreciation for it from that perspective.

At the 31 min mark Brody talks about synecdoche and his theory about how A Great Film Reveals Itself in Five Minutes:

…reading a few pages of any really good book should astound and delight, and send a reader to the beginning to devour the book whole… Synecdoche is the fundamental experience of art, the sense that a random fragment contains a lifetime of experience and suggests the depth of a soul. That’s because this is the fundamental experience of life—no one knows anyone completely, and no one comes in at the start. But the person you see for an instant and can no longer live without, and whom you can imagine spending a lifetime getting to know, is pretty much what makes life worth living.

I found his five-minute theory to be fascinating.

She then explains how revisiting the film through this critical lens, allowed her to appreciate its individual elements rather than the whole, leaving her with a more nuanced understanding of it.

Reconsidering Jordan Peele's 'Nope'—Filmstack Challenge #5

Sean King O’Grady of On Death Ground had a unique take on this one. He discusses how no one can make him change his mind on a film, not ever, but he remembers the time someone made him change his mind about the kind of films he wanted to make.

You can’t simply change my mind on things I love, for instance DEMOLITION MAN (I’m calling you out jen harrington for slighting my favorite feature length Taco Bell ad) or things I hate, like THE SANDLOT (you guys seriously like this???).

But once. Someone changed my mind on what kind of movies I should make.

FILMSTACK CHALLENGE #5

Hopefully, reading these posts has reminded you of times when something, or someone, changed your mind, or helped you see things in a new way. Sometimes it just takes a fresh perspective to notice something you’d overlooked, and these posts show how powerful that can be. Whether it’s a thoughtful review, a personal insight, or a small comment that resonates with you, these moments can quietly shape the way we watch, think about, and understand films.

Thanks for reading and hope to see your response to future FilmStack Monthly Challenges!