Tybout says ‘goodbye’ to movie column

During my tenure at The Pitt News I’ve written just about every type of arts story imaginable,… During my tenure at The Pitt News I’ve written just about every type of arts story imaginable, but there’s one kind of story that has, until now, eluded me: a brief farewell.

The end of spring semester means different things for different people: internships, partying, unemployment. For me it means, among other things, the end of my approximately one-and-a-half year run as The Pitt News’ movie columnist. I’ll still remain on staff, but as the Opinions Editor, I will no longer be writing a regular column. For all intents and purposes, this is the end.

This newspaper has a long and storied tradition of columnists ending grandly, summoning some final, poignant words of wisdom on their designated area of expertise. For the time being, however, I’ve altogether exhausted my capacity for championing, critiquing and criticizing films. Instead, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to all the artists I couldn’t, for whatever reason, focus my attentions on. Perhaps you’ll take the time to check out something I’ve listed.

I’ll begin with authors. I am, for better or for worse, an English writing major, so it’s little surprise that literature frequently wormed its way into my columns, whether it made for an appropriate context or not. Accordingly, I’d like to formally acknowledge my enduring admiration for certain writers: Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Cormac McCarthy, Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, George Saunders, G.K. Chesterton — job well done.

Music, as well, has as much of a presence in my life as literature and film. In fact, I don’t think I could have endured college without a few impeccable musicians and lyricists to score my exploits: Paul Simon, The Clash, Kanye West, The Pogues, The Flaming Lips, The Fugees, My Morning Jacket, Radiohead, Okkervil River and, perhaps most importantly, The Notorious B.I.G., whom I always listen to when I shave.

Last but not least, there are innumerable movies that, for whatever reason, never found their way into my columns, but which nonetheless merit mention: Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing,” Alfonso Cuarón’s “Children of Men,” Akira Kurosawa’s “Throne of Blood,” Chris Marker’s “Sans Soleil” Paul Schrader’s “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” and Kar Wai Wong’s “Fallen Angels,” which has a soundtrack to rival that of “Pulp Fiction.”

I could go on for pages, but this sort of indulgence is, I imagine, more entertaining for the writer than the reader. In any case, everyone has their own list of essential books, music and films, and will take or leave my suggestions at their discretion.

Which reminds me of another thing: movie lists are stupid. Readers enjoy them, we’re told, but they can be singularly tedious to manufacture. General categories — “the best films of all time;” “the best soundtracks of time” — must be avoided at all costs, while specifics — the best French New Wave films of the 1960s — might seem, to readers, little more than self-congratulatory exercises in erudition.

More importantly, lists do little more than reveal one person’s tastes. The act of ranking one film above another, even within highly specialized confines, is fundamentally fallacious. Everyone will acknowledge that “There Will Be Blood” is a better movie than “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” perhaps, but when comparing two similarly lauded works — “There Will Be Blood” and “8 1/2,” to summon a random example — objectivity breaks down and people fragment into different camps.

Discounting inane lists, however, perhaps there’s an upside to this subjectivity: The sheer impossibility of getting things right ensures criticism that will remain vital. Science, at least, has some measure of conclusiveness — we’re sure, for instance, that the sun does not revolve around the Earth, as we once believed, and thus geocentrism is all but extinct. Conversely, we’re not sure what the ending of Abbas Kiarostami’s “Taste of Cherry” is supposed to signify. Criticism is an unwinnable war. I’ve just decided, temporarily, to retreat from the battlefield.