What is screen criticism?

A boy sits in his cultural studies class. It is the last period for the day and it is dragging. He discreetly looks at the clock above his teacher's head: fifteen minutes to go. He struggles to contain a groan of boredom. He wonders if he may be too smart for high school; surely he must be a level ahead if he is this bored by the subject matter. He looks at the teacher and manages to fix a flawless interested face as he begins to mentally plan his weekend activities. Big mistake. The teacher has now called on him. 'Is there really such a thing as a correct answer, miss? Isn't it more appropriate at this point in our society to continually question that which we are told is correct?' he bluffs. The teacher, sitting cross-legged on top of her desk, applauds his supposedly sophisticated answer and continues on this path of cultural analysis. Phew.

The boy nervously looks around to see if anyone else paid attention to this shining moment. Several seats away from him he notices a girl he has never seen before. He wonders why there was no announcement at the beginning of class that a new student would be joining them today. Soon he realises that he has, in fact, seen her before. He has seen her everyday for his entire high school career, bar the last month. He remembers that she has spent the winter holidaying in sunny Europe with her family. She must have returned without telling anybody, not wanting to make a big deal. She is painfully shy. Her hair has lightened significantly and her skin is golden brown, quite a change from the fair-skinned brunette girl she once was. He notices that she has a slight air of confidence about her, and every now and then she smiles to herself as if lost in memories of her trip. The boy has not really spoken to her much over the years, but suddenly feels compelled to get to know her.

The bell rings to end the day; he takes his time getting together his things until he sees the girl heading towards the door. He purposefully collides with her, spilling her bottle of Coke all over his shirt. Smooth. She stifles a laugh and offers to help him clean himself up. The boy tries to hide his embarrassment at his failed plan, but the girl is sweet and chatty as they do what they can to remove the Coke stains. The boy brings up todays class topic on the decline in popularity of films over television shows, and works up the courage to ask the girl to the movies the next night. She smiles and says only if they can go the Godard retrospective at the local art-house cinema. It's a date.

The next evening the boy is getting ready in his bedroom. He is nervous. He doesn't really like Godard as a filmmaker, and has in fact written many essays on his views for his film blog, but is willing to feign interest to get to know the girl better. He meets her out the front of the cinema and expresses excitement at the event they're about to attend. She agrees and they smile widely at each other. They get a box of popcorn, walk into the auditorium and take their seats up the back.

The girl looks at the boy and smiles again as the lights go down. In his experience, the boy feels it is customary to wait until an appropriate time in the film, usually romantic or scary, to hold the girl's hand; a gesture of closeness. Throughout the film, he waits and waits for this time to come. An hour and a half passes by and Brigitte Bardot has perished in a car crash, and that time has not come.

The two look around and stretch awkwardly as the lights go up. The boy feels angry that Godard has robbed him of his opportunity for closeness. The girl asks him what he thought. In his anger he lets loose, calling Godard a pretentious hack, whose films are nothing more than cinematic masturbation. He claims that the only thing worse than spending two hours watching a bunch of white, self-absorbed, upper middle class jerks soul search to the detriment of those around them, is spending years listening to cinephile after cinephile praise Godard's techniques because they don't realise that it is okay to think that the French New Wave is actually really dull and outdated.

The girl is stunned. She laughs and thanks him. The boy is confused. The girl says that the only reason she suggested the Godard retrospective is because she has just realised that she is one of the cinephiles that he just described. She suggests that they stay for the next film, so that this time they can hate it together. The girl takes the teenager's hand in hers, and they both smile.

Screen criticism: bringing people together for over a century.

ROMANY