A few weeks ago, my friend and Daily Film colleague Jacob Rich wrote an impassioned plea for us all to listen to The Canon, a movie of the week podcast in which two film critics, Devin Faraci and Amy Nicholson, debate whether a given movie belongs in the “canon,” a collection of “the great films to live on forever,” whatever that means. For Jacob, listening to a new episode of The Canon is something of a weekly ritual, and I don’t blame him for it; there’s something magical about having your film agenda defined by “enlightened” film-watchers.
But I’m not as convinced by the strength of The Canon. Jacob is right to note that the podcast’s defining feature is the banter between its two co-hosts. They are certainly far from a myth of public radio personalities that can verge on sleep-inducement, but Jacob clearly doesn’t listen to the right public radio. Folks like Elvis Mitchell and David Edelstein match Faraci and Nicholson in their passion, but it comes out more in their words rather than their tone. Plus, these public radio critics maintain some semblance of decency in their commentary that doesn’t demean their co-workers or, worse, their listeners.
The conversations in The Canon, meanwhile, invariably feature an extremely arrogant and aggressive Faraci constantly speaking over and launching ad hominem attacks at a quiet and always-wrong Nicholson. Nicholson’s research seems to be lifted from IMDb trivia pages and Faraci’s “textual analysis” seems to be less a detailed train of thought and more constantly referring to himself as a New Yorker even though it seems like the last time he lived there was in his childhood. It’s infuriating: I want to root for Nicholson because Faraci is so profoundly an affront to respectable human interaction, but I find her film tastes so poor that I am constantly let down. Ugh.
If Jacob wishes to question long-standing academic notions of film, like the auteur theory, perhaps he should also question the desirability (and, frankly, possibility) of having a “canon.” In The Canon, any time one host questions how to define the qualifications for entry into the canon (Importance? Quality? Impact?), the episode inevitably becomes a referendum on the point of the podcast itself. That both hosts use self-serving arguments surrounding qualifications in each episode to justify a film’s inclusion or exclusion proves the idea of a canon is arbitrary to its core. I’m a proponent of debate, but the act of defining terms, especially defining the central idea of the whole podcast, should precede the podcast.
Plus, the podcast only serves to divide the world of film into “haves and have-nots.” Let’s make the reasonable assumption that the end goal of this podcast is to create a final list of films in the canon, while noting which films did not enter the canon. Wouldn’t that dissuade a budding and curious film audience from watching those movies that didn’t make the cut? All movies offer us something. Even poor films can serve a purpose; we can use all films to trace techniques, moods and themes to construct a meaningful narrative of the human experience since the birth of the art form.
I offer an alternative: it’s another film of the week podcast, with bickering that remains within the realm of respectability. Each pair of episodes (bi-weekly two-parters) contains a current release and a film from the past that can teach us something about the current release. Recent episodes include the first and latest “Star Wars” films; “The Neon Demon” and “Suspiria,” an Italian horror film with similar themes and styles; and “Finding Dory” and “Memento.” Safe to say, the film choices run the gamut from mainstream to arthouse, domestic to foreign, old to new, good to bad.
The podcast is The Next Picture Show and it was started by alumni of The Dissolve, a beloved website that offered some of the greatest film writing I have ever read. To quote the opening mantra repeated in each episode, “No film exists in a vacuum. All culture is more interesting in context.” That’s not debatable. Film is a medium that exists to transport us through time and space. When we talk about film, we talk about what it copies, steals, alludes to and references. The Film School generation and the current postmodern film landscape of directors all abide by this principle. Why shouldn’t our podcast tastes?