I do have the book by Philip Ward called A Lifetime's Reading: 500 books to be enjoyed over 50 years (here's the list), but don't propose to make a project out of it! In 2007 and 2008, I kept lists of all the films I saw and linked the names to their imdb sites, but decided not to try to review them. I'm too busy, or too lazy, or both. I decided not to keep a film log this year, although it is early enough that I could reconsider....it would include Koroshi no rakuin (1967) and Paul Blart, Mall Cop.
The sense of "completist project" that interests me now is when a person, such as Matthew Dessem on whose blog I found this term, sets out to blog about an entire set of things, sometimes as an educational project. His blog,The Criterion Contraption, is a series of essays/discussions about his viewing of all the films in the Criterion Collection. He also links to a few others blogs he has labeled "completist projects" such as The Whole Five Feet, in which Christopher Beha reads all 52 volumes of the Harvard Classics.
The first example I encountered, before I had heard the term, was the Julie/Julia project (originally this blog) , in which blogger Julie Powell set out to prepare every recipe from Julia Child's
book Mastering the Art of French Cooking is a great example.It was subsequently published in book form, one of the first wave of blog-to-book publications. A movie has been made, with Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as the author. Wow! I have to be careful, though. I can get obsessive about finishing a series if I like it, which is why starting to watch The Wire was dangerous, and trying to watch the entire X-files has bogged down my Netflix queue in an entirely unsatisfying way.Shooting Down Films is Kevin Lee's project, based on blogging movies from the list of 1000 films They Shoot Pictures Don't They? The list is here. He has written a very important post on his experience of having, losing and regaining his YouTube account. Read it and the posts he links to; the importance of fair use of content online is only going to become more pressing as more of us use online material for teaching. His "video essays" on films are amazing. I really enjoyed his pairing of an interview with director Paul Schrader and cinematographer Ed Lachmann with scenes from the movie Light Sleeper, a movie I've been meaning to watch again for some time now. Maybe I should have a Paul Schrader fest?
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4 comments:
Completism can often threaten your enjoyment of your object of completion, as you note with The Wire, usually in the form of a time-sink and all its attendant opportunity costs. But immersing yourself so deeply into something can also drain the joy out of something you hold dear, i.e. the unsuspecting scholar's curse. I thought I'd put this completist impulse to rest, but now that I'm trying to blog every episode of The Wire, I realize what a bad idea this project is, mostly because the show isn't really built to be watched one episode at a time (even though that's how it was originally experienced), and I really feel that I'm shortchanging myself by keeping at this 1 ep/1 week pace. Long story short -- it's much better to be a spectator of a completist project than to be the person behind such a project.
Especially if one is prone, as I am, to self-flagellation over pooping out!
I do like what you're writing about The Wire, but if it's not fun, it's not worth doing.
In some areas of my life,I have learned that I am more of a big ideas person and less of a patient, chip-away, obsessive completist. Unless I am totally caught up in the pleasure and enthusiasm of such a project, I lose momentum. I had thought I might like blogging about America's Best Dance Crew, for example, because the SYTYCD experience was so much fun, but I discovered (thankfully, after the first time) that the experience is not at all comparable. I either want to engage in some in-the-moment sharing of responses with fun people, or analyze it in relation to larger phenomena, which does not require episode summary.
I know what you're talking about, as visible evidence of online enthusiasm really helps to motivate. (Some ego involved, too, certainly, if the commentary is positive.) I do wonder, though, having seen two episodes of ABDC, if its fan communities aren't as fervent because the judges are so much more supportive, which obviates fan desire to cry out against perceived inequity. Clearly, a lot of SYTYCD fans find fault with the opinions of Nigel and his cohorts, and the fans feel they ought to band together and defend their favorites and/or point out injustices. (I don't watch DTWS -- does that show follow the same dynamic? Or do the celebs themselves inspire a different source of viewer interest?) Anyway, I might just be comparing apples and oranges (broadcast network with Idol muscle behind it, versus quasi-vanity project on cable).
Actually, if anything the fans of ABDC are more fervent and more absolutist. What I have found for both SYTYCD and DWTS is that TWOP is a gathering point, Idolforums is another, and then you can find smaller gatherings at more specialized dance sites, like ballroom sites. Last year was the first time we got the dance review community blogging regularly in a fannish way, and that was fun. I could find a mix of viewers who were crushing on contestants, hating the judges and trying to figure out how it was rigged, people who just wanted to talk about the dance technicalities, etc. So far I have not landed in the site where I can find that mix of ABDC. It seems to be more partisan, and less interested in dialogue (my crew). But I haven't looked very hard either.
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