A Cinematic Education: Remembrance of Films Past, or Mind over Medium

Abstract

Abstract This article examines seven American films (Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show; Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets; John D. Hancock’s Bang the Drum Slowly; Frank Perry’s Last Summer; Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?; Terrence Malick’s Badlands; and George Roy Hill’s Slaughterhouse-Five) from the perspective of the first time the author saw them versus the perspective of today. What I discover is that I do not feel, or think, the same way about the films in question. In the process of making this discovery—of gaining, as it were, a cinematic education—I explore not only the subjectivity of memory but also the subjectivity of (film) criticism; the changes that have occurred in movie viewing over the years, which themselves have affected perception; and the place of the cinema in one’s life—past, present, and beyond.