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Film students who can no longer sit through films

theatlantic.com

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Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#201

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

nkrisc wrote: post #110
crazygringo wrote: post #33

Counterpoint from the article: > A handful of professors told me they hadn’t noticed any change. Some students have always found old movies to be slow, Lynn Spigel, a professor of screen cultures at Northwestern University, told me. “But the ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are.” The article doesn't actually give any evidence attention spans are shortened. Many of the…

> But I also make liberal use of 2x speed and +5s during interminably long suspense sequences that are literally just someone walking through a dark environment while spooky music plays. Those are typically the movies where I just end up turning it off and reading a synopsis. Some movies just aren’t that good.

Here's the thing: the overall movie isn't good, but it might contain some really good elements. The point of skimming and controlling your media experience is to appreciate the good parts while discarding the bad.

It's the equivalent of going to a restaurant and being served a nice steak with a side of shit. You can just eat the stake and ignore the shit. The dish would be better if they replaced the shit with something good like mashed potatoes, but you can still enjoy the steak. This is how the contrarians read to me: "Noooo, but the shit side dish is an essential component to the culinary experience that the chef's team prepared, it's their vision."

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#202

Post by mvdtnz »

prhn wrote: post #119

I don't dispute the shortening of attentions spans, which seems to be directly related to new forms of entertainment young people consume. However. Films across the generations are very different in terms of how they lay out a narrative. Watch any film before 1980 and you'll start to see a pattern that the pacing and evolution of the narrative is generally very, very slow. Art is highly contextualized by the period i…

We're not talking about random people pulled off the street and asked to watch Lawrence of Arabia. We're talking about film students. So I don't see how your post is relevant at all. It's like excusing poor literature students because your brother in law struggled with Moby Dick.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#203

Post by mvdtnz »

treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

> is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation?

Movies are getting longer, not shorter. I wish we could go back to the 2 hour feature.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#204

Post by mvdtnz »

AlienRobot wrote: post #42
treelover wrote: post #20

Is it a loss of attention span, or is the 2-hour feature film simply an outdated format for the current generation? The information density of a slow 1970s drama is incredibly low compared to the multi-stream environment they grew up in. They aren't necessarily 'dumber'; their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing, whereas cinema is optimized for immersion.

>their brains are just optimized for high-frequency information processing Wow, is there any evidence of this?

If you don't see the evidence in plain sight that's a you problem. The rest of us see it.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#205

Post by drewda »

philipallstar wrote: post #186
drewda wrote: post #153

From the same magazine that also recently published a piece headlined "The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books" I do have a print subscription to The Atlantic and appreciate some of their coverage, but it's embarrassing how much they're always on the lookout for upper-middle-class panics to milk...

This isn't valid criticism. Treat the article as just its own thing, regardless of who published it.

Here's another recent example:

‘A Recipe for Idiocracy’: What happens when even college students can’t do math anymore?

(The Atlantic, Nov. 2025)

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#206

Post by JKCalhoun »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #172
blindriver wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Character: "I'm flying to Vegas", the 3 minutes of pack, get in car, drive car, get to airport, walk through airport That is classic Vince Gilligan. He does that several times in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It's not filler, it's done with intentionality. You might not like it, but to say that an editor should cut that out is simply wrong. That's his distinct style, just like Wes Anderson has his own sty…

A couple of years ago, I rewatched some episodes of a 70s BBC drama called "Survivors" (the plot etc. is irrelevant in the current context). In the very first episode there's a scene where a woman who is looking for her son but has no idea where he might be walks across a very small wooden bridge over an even small creek. She stops in the middle, holds the rail on the bridge and looks down at the water. The camera sh…

Great series, BTW.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#207

Post by JKCalhoun »

semilin wrote: post #35

If you really care about something, screen addiction does not interfere. A friend of mine has a terrible Instagram addiction, yet has developed for himself a certain degree of cinephilia lately -- we've watched long movies together in theaters and not once has he been on his phone during the screenings. When one has faith that sustained attention might hold more value than that gained by interruption, they tend to pr…

Anyone that wants their own private "film school", can invest 10 years or so and work through the "1001 Movies to See Before You Die" [1]. It's a book compiled by several film critics as I understand it. For each of the films there's a page or two explaining the significance of the film (according to the critic that chose it for the list).

My wife and I have been at it for perhaps 6 years now. We probably have 3 years or so to go to finish it.

You do learn, I think, patience. I found long slow films tedious initially but have come to know why some film are that way and I am more willing now to just go with the flow.

To be sure though, any film over two or so hours we might split across two days to watch.

[1] https://1001films.fandom.com/wiki/The_List

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#208

Post by socalgal2 »

blindriver wrote: post #130
socalgal2 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. There are lots of movies that are hard to watch. A modern one for many people is "The Green Knight". I made it to the end but personally the movie didn't do anything for me and I don't agree with the praise. I generally don't skip forward but I did on several parts of Pluribus. There were several segments that were clearly just filler and after the first episode or so where they stuck out it just got tiring.…

> Character: "I'm flying to Vegas", the 3 minutes of pack, get in car, drive car, get to airport, walk through airport That is classic Vince Gilligan. He does that several times in both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. It's not filler, it's done with intentionality. You might not like it, but to say that an editor should cut that out is simply wrong. That's his distinct style, just like Wes Anderson has his own sty…

I disagree. It's only there because he has to fill the time of a TV show. I strongly believe he'd pull those out in a movie. In other words, they aren't there to help the story, they are there to pad the production to the contract's content length requirements.

He's not the only one. Almost all current long form TV series do this. There are a few exceptions but it's now the norm.

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#209

Post by NedF »

prhn wrote: post #119

I don't dispute the shortening of attentions spans, which seems to be directly related to new forms of entertainment young people consume. However. Films across the generations are very different in terms of how they lay out a narrative. Watch any film before 1980 and you'll start to see a pattern that the pacing and evolution of the narrative is generally very, very slow. Art is highly contextualized by the period i…

[dead]

Re: Film students who can no longer sit through films

#210

Post by pier25 »

_m_p wrote: post #178
pier25 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. But if film is not for you maybe don't study film?

Technically they aren't studying film! The article notes that the professors won't outright fail them, so these students just getting a degree without doing any work. Which in turn makes the degree credential a useless signal.

I mean...

> Professors are now finding that they can’t even get film students—film students—to sit through movies.

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