Is lack of attention span ruining cinema?

However big headed this sounds I would call myself an avid movie enthusiast. I love a film, I like to think that I have [in my twenty years] seen a fair few films and I am always watching new ones. I suppose a lot of people watch movies but I do try to watch some of the more classic movies or rather ones that are raved about a lot. It doesn’t matter what year the film is from, I’m not too fussed, I will watch almost anything [within reason]. Something I have noticed though is that a lot of people are reluctant to dedicate the time to watch a film which has always surprised me.

A lot of these people are people I know, so this is not quite a broad range to be gathering data from, but I do see a lot of people also discussing it on social media. Of course there will always be film fans, I am not claiming to be from a small majority but there does seem to be a growth of people reluctant to spend their time watching older films. Plenty of people will go to the cinema still to see new films – otherwise they wouldn’t still exist – but more and more I am noticing that people are much less willing to spend their free time watching a film; particularly if there is a chance of the film being unenjoyable.

This stance is somewhat understandable. I recently watched ‘Once Upon a Time in America’ – the four hour version I might add – which was quite a task. It took me two days to complete. It does appear that the daunting length of films is what puts people off and films do seem to be getting longer and longer. That’s why I am a firm believer in Wes Anderson films, they are never too long, never longer than two hours, which ultimately makes them easily enjoyed. It is of course the more dramatic films that are often of greater length, think of ‘Lord of the Rings’ or ‘The Godfather’ films. These are all of significant length and in my opinion rightly so. I will note on the length on ‘The Irishman’ which I had been anticipating and was disappointed in, the length of it not helping at all. My opinion is obviously not very informed in any way though. I am not a professional film critic but I do think that there is some truth to ideas about film length.

Films have been getting longer and longer and for a lot of people it makes watching them a task. Think back to the blog I wrote about binge-watching. People will happily watch hours and hours of television but that is because every episode feels like something new and some may be flicking between shows so their attention is captured differently. A film on the other hand focuses on one thing, on one main storyline and so people are more reluctant to dedicate their attention for two plus hours. I don’t quite know what this means; perhaps that a lot of young people are not watching films that are classics. I am not quite sure how important this is. For arguments sake these films aren’t particularly important to anything, they aren’t a necessary part of people’s education of life experiences. I can see a lot of people arguing that it doesn’t matter if they haven’t seen ‘Heat’ or not. People watch what they like and they don’t NEED to watch any of these critically acclaimed films.

Films are a significant part of our culture, they reflect our society and what is prevalent at the time. This is why I believe it is important to watch films from the past, it helps us to understand what people viewed as important and the popular mindset. It is an important part of social history, particularly when films do go out of their way to highlight particular social issues or historical periods. They can demonstrate the way that our perception and interpretation of history has developed and evolved over time. This is of course not the case for a film like ‘Caddyshack’ which is a wild comedy and has no clear message or storyline for that matter. However, this is why films are important and why it is good to go out of your way to look at movies from the past.

Like I have mentioned before, art is what makes life worth living and movies are an artform. They are often an expression of feelings and might reflect something you are going through or have been through. Films can also be very profound and shed light on many social issues, look at ‘Precious’ or ‘Schindler’s List’; these films have been able to capture sensitive issues in a respectful manner whilst also bringing them more into the public sphere. Films will always be important, at the same time there will always be films that are there to simply entertain but that doesn’t make them any less significant. It is good to have light-hearted moments in life.

These ideas clearly demonstrate why films will always be important and a significant aspect of our everyday lives. What is clear as well is that a lot of people – as a result of You Tube and Tiktok – have lost their ability to focus attention on films or for them to care about other films as much. Perhaps though this is just the experience I have had with the people I hang around with. Not that they don’t watch films at all but there is clearly a lot of films that people don’t go out of their way to watch. This mainly seems to be made up of younger people. Essentially I am trying to demonstrate why it is important to make the effort to watch these films, to culture yourself.