2020s Film Resolutions

[liquidnature]

As we enter into a new decade, what are some 'resolutions' you might have with how you experience film, literature, music, performance, and any other artistic mediums? At the end of the 2020s, what would you like to have accomplished, studied, or experienced with art?

made-up examples: "focus more on Russian silent cinema and b-westerns, read more modernist poetry, study the compositions of Haydn, listen to more prog-rock, attend more ballet, start practicing watercolor painting, etc"

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I love resolutions so I want to contribute, but I don't think I can think in terms of decade-long goals, eep, that far ahead stresses me out. But I can definitely speak to resolutions for 2020 and for the next couple years...

... Outside of health goals, my biggest goal is to read more. Read more, and write more too. I'm hoping to read about 2 books a week, on average, we'll see if that's possible. I recently drew up a plan of study for 2020, perhaps into 2021, of a bunch of selected books about Marxism that I hope to read and take notes on. Will see how well I do on that. Also would like to start writing more - definitely more in notebooks and diaries, and, hopefully, some longer form polished stuff too.

In film I want to watch fewer movies this year, because I watched too many this year. Try to stick to about 1 film a day and be sure to pay it due consideration. In terms of specific viewing interests, I'm hoping to watch a lot more Italian film. Hoping to get a good grounding in Italian westerns this wild west summer, and to introduce myself to peplum and poliziotteschi as well.

[Roscoe]

I want to see more movies -- I got into a bit of a hermit phase for a while there. I want to check out more of the new stuff. And more of the obscure stuff. And I want to finish some of the stuff I've started but never gotten all the way through -- KHRUSTALYOV MY CAR for example, stuff like that.

[wba]

no film resolutions here. As for reading, I hope I can keep up with my current 2 books per week (or at least 100 books per year) reading rule during all upcoming years of the next decade.

[greennui]

Watch fewer films, read more books.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I haven't made a film of my own since 2017... so I'd liked to seriously begin work on that practice again.
Right now, I feel lucky if I can watch 4 films a month, and negotiating viewing with my wife (who has good taste, but less adventurous) has limited the scope of what I watch regularly. So I'd like to commit to watching a couple more films per month just for myself.

[liquidnature]

Yeah, now I'm not sure I can see a decade-out either, it sounds so daunting. But at least for 2020:

- Read, read, read more books (like... more than the 2 per year I've been averaging)
- Maybe get back into writing again in some form - or learning to write much better than I do now
- Return to the more obscure and non-Hollywood viewings, much like I used to watch, but overall watch less films or spend less time organizing film lists, less time browsing letterboxd, etc - keep total viewings around 365 or less for the year. Only watch films once all work has been accomplished for the day. Over the course of the decade I would love to have seen everything on TSPDT and Rosenbaum's lists.
- Much like M. Arkadin, start making films/practicing photography again. Rough goal of making my first feature by 2023-2026.
- No current plans to change any music listening
- Actively improve my piano and guitar playing again after stalling out at my current level for the last few years (finally start taking on Chopin, and eventually Bach's harder keyboard works - yolo). An extremely optimistic goal would be being able to decently play Chopin's Nocturnes/Ballades and Bach's Goldberg Variations by the end of the decade on piano, and some of Tommy Emmanuel's works like Lewis & Clark on guitar. Again, extremely optimistic.
- Attend some choral, orchestral, or ballet performances if possible - it's been years

[jww342]

This is a good thread idea!

Like others, I have a hard time thinking about the whole decade so my resolutions are more for the next few years than for the whole decade:
- For some reason I've always struggled with reading fiction, so I want to start reading at least one work of fiction for every two non-fiction books I read.
- While I see myself as a "completist," I rarely actually complete any directors' filmographies because I spread myself with many directors I'm interested in. At least by the end of the decade I want to finish watching all of Naruse's films (I have about 20 to go) and Ozu's films as well.
- Over the past few years I've spent a lot of time watching obscure movies which has been rewarding, but I hope to really catch up on the 'canon' within the next year or two so I can be introduced to national cinemas I still haven't explored deeply yet (Italy, France, Germany, etc.)
- Like others, I want to start making films again. For now I'm just thinking about shorts, but I do hope to make a feature by the end of the decade.
- I want to start listening to music regularly again. Stupidly enough, not having a Letterboxd or Goodreads type site for music has made it more difficult for me to follow through on this.

[Curtis, baby]

In the next few years:

- finish my "silent period" project in which I chronologically watch early cinema, experiencing some degree of breadth. I'm at 1907
- explore the 80s, and to a lesser extent the 90s and 00s
- more classic and contemporary cinema from developing countries
- more classic cinema from smaller European countries
- rewatch films I saw as a teenager and young adult

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

- I want to start listening to music regularly again. Stupidly enough, not having a Letterboxd or Goodreads type site for music has made it more difficult for me to follow through on this.

I've experienced a similar issue, only with radio and television rather than music. I'm hoping to resolve this by starting an old-fashioned paper diary in 2020 that's just for logging my old time radio listenings and vintage television viewings and my thoughts on 'em. Hopefully this will help me have a broader understanding of midcentury media history.

[jww342]

I've experienced a similar issue, only with radio and television rather than music. I'm hoping to resolve this by starting an old-fashioned paper diary in 2020 that's just for logging my old time radio listenings and vintage television viewings and my thoughts on 'em. Hopefully this will help me have a broader understanding of midcentury media history.

That's a good idea! I'll probably do that as well!

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Adding a couple goals for 2020.

(1) Film-wise, I now hope to watch not just more Italian film but more non-American broadly. Generally, my Letterboxd Year in Review, which gives you the top ten countries you watched the most in a year, features USA severely outpacing all other countries. I'm fine with USA being #1 still, but I hope that its lead is not too high. I want to make sure I regularly sample the following countries and have a healthily high viewing percentage for them all in my year end stats: Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Soviet Union, and Iran. My hope is that these, together USA, shall be my top 9 viewed this year. Obviously, I don't mean to entirely restrict myself to these countries in my viewing, but actually picking specific national cinemas rather than a generalized call to non-American films will, I think, improve my odds of success and the depth of my understanding and engagement.

(2) A renewed commitment to French language learning! I'm going to try to do Duolingo heaviily every day. The hope is that by the summer I'll be at the level that I can start reading Tintin en français or something else fun and relatively easy, alongside some French grammar study books. And then, the hope is, by this time next year I'll be able to start reading and self-translating French film criticism. At that point, I'll probably be satisfied and move on to Italian or another language I hope to learn, but we'll see.

[serri]

i'm going to try to participate in this forum, and pitch in on one of the regional cinema threads. i'll start a new video project, but i'm not sure how much time i want to spend going through the partial projects from the last two years. i'm fairly mad that the pretentious, chaotic and frequently moronic political project i'd been involved in rapidly switched to being a dull and prospectless cult, so ill try to get some prose sketches written on the topic that i can come back to later. unfortunately, i don't think i'm cut out for clear and serious political writing.

[thoxans]

that's my boy serri. making resolutions in feb, when most peeps historically start abandoning the resolutions they made back at the new year. smart man right there

[serri]

i always play to win.

[liquidnature]

serri ♥

glad to see you around. Hope all is well.