Same as always...I would watch the film, try to understand why the film was made, what its trying to say or do to me, and then ascertain how well it does that, whether it be an intellectual experience and/or some sort of emotional experience (evoke excitement, humor, awe, etc.).
Is there absolutely no chance in your view that Sirk's films went over your head, or, more pointedly, you don't even care if they went over your head? That second part of the question, not even caring if you "got" it, I truly don't understand such an approach to the filmgoing experience. |
Again, I'm not so sure that it's I who don't "get" Sirk, as it is you who don't "get" me.
You seem to be arguing that there is some true and knowable thing (X) that a film is trying to do to the viewer. And that the greatness of the film is in how well the film did that thing to the viewer, and that the job of a serious viewer is to know X and evaluate how well X succeeded with them.
Now, if a viewer thinks that the film was trying to accomplish Y instead of X, then that viewer doesn't "get" it. If a viewer agrees with you about X, but disagrees with you that the film succeeded in X, then, again, that viewer doesn't "get" it.
But who decides what X is? How do we know that you get Sirk and I don't. Maybe I'm the one who gets Sirk and you don't. Maybe the critics back in the 50s were right about Sirk, rather than today's critics. And if critical opinion about Sirk can change as it did from the 50s to today, what's to stop it from changing again, and if so, would that make the new critics right?
This is like the theory of relativity. If you and I pass each other, there's no way to know whether you're the one moving, I am, or we both are. We know we disagree about Antonioni and Sirk, but there is absolutely, postivitely, no way in hell that we can, in some objective sense, know who is "correct" or more correct about the film. Hell, I argue we're both right about the film as it pertains to us, but you seem to think that there is some underlying "right" answer about what X is (whereas I reject the whole notion that X matters at all as an intent, only as a result).
Well, if there is an objective aesthetic value of a film (known to God), then there ain't a single critic out there who also knows. All those knowledgable critics disagree with each other, and again, there's no way to know, in any situation where critic A and critic B disagree about film C which one is right.