(narrator) Anyone interested in films enough to watch this video probably knows what it’s like
to be asked for movie recommendations.
On the one hand, you don’t want to betray cinematic tradition with an unworthy film,
but on the other, know your audience.
You shouldn’t recommend art house pictures to someone whose favorite film is Transformers.
So what do you do?
You side with something between accessible and challenging, hoping that the right suggestion
broadens the viewer’s appreciation of movies and opens the door for more outside-the-comfort-zone films
I have tried to refine this practice over the years, and although I usually have a handful
of cinematic suggestions at the ready, there’s one film I almost always recommend.
And it almost always bombs.
That movie is Alfonso Cuaron’s masterpiece.
Children of Men.
(sounds of children playing, laughing)
Children of Men is no stranger to disregard.
When released in 2006, critics praised the film and it garnered a few prestigious technical
award nominations.
But instead of shaking up the industry as a groundbreaking film should, it instead only
caused small tremors.
It was as if a magnitude 9 earthquake only rippled the water in a drinking cup.
I’ve done my best to spread the word about this film whenever
the opportunity arises.
Because, for me, Children of Men has served as a critical source of artistic appreciation
during the last decade, revealing itself in the world at random times.
Steven Spielberg once said that Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a film that reveals
something more after each viewing.
It teaches you something new about the world, and when you view it again after learning
that something new, you in return learn more about the film.
Children of Men operates the same way.
After watching the seemingly impossible one-shots by the film’s director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki,
I made it a priority to check out the cinematographer’s other films.
Exploring Lubezki and his collaborations with some of the greatest living directors, such
as Terrence Mallick, opened up an entire movie universe to me.
(music playing, underwater sounds)
Likewise, when I saw Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek for the first time on
Children of Men’s extra features, I began to read his work.
(Zizek) "It's between the novel and film"
(narrator) Now I can’t watch a movie without it becoming a mini-Pervert’s Guide to Ideology — which,
by the way, is another film recommendation that commonly bombs.
At the same time, experiences outside of the movie theater kept bringing me back to
Children of Men.
In college, I randomly selected a vinyl record of King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson
King because I thought the art looked interesting, only to later accidentally discover that my
favorite song on the album soundtracks a scene in Children of Men.
("In the Court of the Crimson King" by King Crimson playing)
Most recently, I was brought back to the movie after I had a eureka moment while listening
to Run the Jewels’ third studio album.
On the disc’s final song, featured artist Zack de la Rocha, the man famous for not doing
what they told him,
("Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine playing)
opens his verse with a direct mention of Children of Men.
(de la Rocha) “Killer children of men on the throne, roving with no atonement / got me feeling
like I’m Clive Owen rowing through a future frozen.”
(narrator) It was a revelation.
Audiences were finally beginning to appreciate the movie.
Before I knew it, a gush of love poured in for Children of Men, as critics and cinephiles
looked back at the film on its 10th anniversary.
Many were chilled by how closely the movie’s dystopian take on a refugee crisis so closely
resembled the present day.
But more than anything, de la Rocha’s verse struck me because of the imagery it chose.
The film’s final shot -- where Theo rows a wimpy boat through an ocean’s tumult with
only a blinking beacon breaking through the murk and fog -- leaves us with so many questions.
Is the red flash an alarm or a sign of hope?
Was Theo’s sacrifice squandered to the profound indifference of the ocean, or was his final
act a testament to the strength of hope?
This is all to say, the imagery in this scene is breathtakingly sublime and transcends the
level on which most films operate.
These images are paintings.
This scene, a poem.
Of course, all this flowery language really is just a bunch of cliches.
An experience with the sublime is so outside our ability to communicate through language,
we often fall back on cliches.
I can wax poetically about how this is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen,
but words fail to breach the divide between perceived beauty and the message communicated.
This is not a new problem.
Philosophers throughout history have debated, rationalized and tried to comprehend what
they called Aesthetics, the study and appreciation of beauty and the sublime.
What makes something beautiful?
Is the concept of beauty universal?
Does everyone perceive the same type of experience when recognizing beauty?
Should we all find the same things beautiful?
And my favorite question of all -- Can the perception of beauty be taught?
Or even more fundamental, can it even be learned?
I like to answer the question optimistically.
Not only can perceiving beauty be learned, it can be taught.
However, it’s not so easy.
For one, as we previously explored, it’s close to impossible to accurately describe
what you’re feeling when you recognize something sublime.
Even worse, most of the time what’s being perceived is outside your own level of understanding.
It’s like seeing a new color, but having nothing to understand it with outside the
normal color spectrum.
That’s pretty lofty stuff, but let’s take an example from Children of Men to futilely
explain something I have already said is outside my ability to understand, much less communicate.
(sounds of water dripping, footsteps)
(clattering sound)
(sounds of deer hooves on pavement)
There is something so ridiculously profound happening here in this scene, and if I were
to try to communicate it, I would sound like a babbling idiot.
This divide between profound experience and communicability brings me back to a Bob Dylan
lyric from "The Ballad of a Thin Man"
(music playing) "Because something happening here, but you don’t know what it is."
"Do you, Mr. Jones?"
(narrator) There’s definitely something happening here, and I definitely have no idea what it is.
Perhaps a crude example, but it’s similar to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who
in 1964 when trying to discern whether certain imagery is pornography, claimed that he couldn’t
describe what made something pornography, he just knew it when he saw it.
Maybe we can’t explain beauty.
We just know it when we see it.
And the more we expose ourselves and others to examples of it, the easier it is for everyone
involved to understand.
At least, that’s my rationale when I recommend Children of Men to people even when their
favorite movie is the latest Marvel film.
(sound of car door closing)
(narrator) If you are looking for some other recommendations, I have two for you.
The first is Tarsem Singh's "The Fall."
It's a really visual picture. It was shot over dozens of different countries and it looks really cool.
The second is quite a bit different.
It's a 50's film called All About Eve.
It's not so much visual, it's very theatrical. So, it's very dialog driven.
But, man, it's really good. I highly recommend it.
And, if you don't like either of those...
Sorry.