Spielberg's WEST SIDE STORY claims well-trod turf as its own
Plus we talk about the way spoiler phobia breaks the conversation
It’s Wednesday, December 8, and here’s where we are…
Several people seemed to be upset that I included “spoilers” in my brief mention of The Matrix Resurrections on Monday, and I want to clarify that I don’t know a damn thing about The Matrix Resurrections.
That was the point of the piece. Even the few things I’ve heard, I am not sure they’re even remotely right. I think it’s incredible how Lana Wachowski made this sequel that’s a follow-up to one of the most hotly-debated blockbuster trilogies of the modern era and has somehow kept the entire thing under wraps, even as we close in on the release date. The film starts screening next week, and at that point, I’m sure we’ll hear more details, but I’m hoping I make it into a theater still knowing exactly as much as I do right now.
If you felt like I “ruined” the film for you on Monday, I would suggest that there is a line at which your spoiler phobia begins to impact your ability to engage with the world. I can’t spoil a movie for you that I don’t know anything about. That would be impossible. But even if I had already seen the film, nothing I said went beyond the most basic description of the film’s premise, and if you can’t even tolerate that, it feels like that’s your issue and not something you should burden the rest of the world with. I think the weird emphasis on spoilers as this tangible thing to either be valued or avoided reduces movies to plot points and nothing more. What happens in a film is not the ultimate measure of that film’s worth… it is always how it happens that distinguishes the film.
Movies are so much more than just the things that happen in them, but I think this speaks to the larger culture, where the only real value movies have are as things to be collected. Once you’ve collected it, you’re done. You can move on to the next thing you have to collect. They aren’t experiences people have anymore… they are badges you post on social media to show that you’re part of whatever is happening. Hit movies today… the genuine giant cross-cultural hits… happen because they become unavoidable. If you want to participate in pop culture, you need to know what Black Panther is. Period. So everyone goes. Marketing is all about convincing you that you are left out if you don’t see this thing, and that’s really no way to pitch movies. Movies can be so many different things, so many different shapes and styles and flavors, that when we reduce them to things you have to check off a list as a matter of obligation instead of individual experiences that all work in different ways, we destroy the essence of them.
The best recent example of this is Spider-Man: No Way Home. At this point, either Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are in it, or they aren’t, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It’s Schroedinger’s Movie until people know for sure, and that’s the thing Marvel is counting on, that rabid anticipation. When tickets for the film went on sale, people were snapping up all the earliest possible seats and then scalping them, allegedly for outrageous amounts. That is, bluntly stated, fucking crazy. Spider-Man: No Way Home will be available on roughly 8 billion screens when it opens. There will be ample opportunity for every man, woman, and child on the planet to see the damn film. No one will be turned away. No one will go without. But the will-they-won’t-they nonsense about the Spiders-Man has turned that spoiler into an actual monetary asset as long as it remains an unknown and worthless the moment it is common knowledge. They are selling the idea that you have to be first or you are totally fucked. Marvel screens the film on Monday for press for the first time and it starts rolling out in international markets almost immediately. The split second the first screening ends, somebody will reveal the truth online. That is inevitable. I would argue that the truth has been spilled already, but I can’t guarantee that, and I honestly don’t want to be the one who says for sure, one way or another. I’ve been that person before, and it never ends well. I would suggest that any film that only has value based on how much it surprises the first-time viewer, and that rewards you for seeing it faster than social media can spoil it, is probably not a film worth your fury. We need to surrender this mindset that has us all beholden to marketing if we’re ever going to build a stronger film culture again.
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