Ethan Hawke - "Young people need to watch more movies"

[brinstar]

It's a depressing time for artists, man. It really feels like the corporations won. People just want to consume "content" and companies have them right where they want them. It's so hard to get new stuff off the ground, every time I take meetings you hear that they want to use their stable of proven IPs. And they can use those to keep mass audiences subscribed to their mega services forever now.

 

[Kyuuji]

No one has to love movies of course but you have an opportunity to witness the opening years of an art form that will persist hereafter. It's legitimately cool that we're a century out from that, when you think of how long ago books, paintings, music, poetry all came into the world. A new way to tell stories and translate the human experience for those we share this slice of time with and those far beyond it. It's a beautiful art form and we're around for the genesis of it, is a cool point in time to have got.

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

Naw, it's the time investment. With everything we have to go through, it's so much easier to find yourself infinite scrolling to a series of really stupid 20-60 second videos then planning for, then executing, sitting still for 90 minutes to 3 hours on one thing, hoping you like it (not even that it's good).

I still haven't watched Dune because it's 2 and a half hours. I need to want to spend that time in front of something that is passive entertainment and meanwhile, I could be playing something, doing something, talking to someone.

I'm often surprised when I end up binging something because it means what they've put in front of me has GRABBED me, but also if it doesn't, I'm only out 24 minutes, maybe 42.

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Yes, it's this 👏👏👏

I'm a 38 year old anime grandpa with 2 kids, a wife, a dog, a lifting schedule, a managemwnt job and an old house and tropical yard that need a lot of attention. It's just hard for me to commit 2-3 hours to a movie. My spare time for that is literally the hour or two between when my family goes to sleep and when I do. It's a lot easier to commit to watching a 'sode or play an hour of a game. It's not just a young people thing.

Hell even for the Dune movies, something I was super excited for and desperate to see, it was an ordeal. For the first one I had to take a day off work. For the second one I went to the last showing on a Friday night once the kids were asleep.

As much as I love Ethan Hawke, capitalism is literally squeezing the very last ounce of joy and spare time out of our lives and it feels kind of shitty to be blamed for not having the time, energy or motivation to enjoy art that we love anymore.

 

[shaneo632]

I do find it kind of baffling how people don't have the attention span for a 2-3 hour movie, but are able to binge watch an entire season of a show in a weekend. Is it really just the episode breaks? Like, you know you can pause a movie, right?


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I do think there is a fundamental psychology to the breaks. Like knowing that a 3-hour Netflix series has built-in breaks for me to do grab food or walk away and do something else for a few hours/days is more appealing than stopping a 3-hour movie mid-flow and potentially losing the thread a little. It makes sense to me at least. Knowing you can chunk up a TV story in a way that was designed to be watched that way is different to a film.

I don't have TikTok or anything like that so it does surprise me how many folk I know will just spend 2-3 hours a night scrolling rather than playing video games or watching stuff.

 

[thecouncil]

I mostly agree with him, although I find it tough watching movies older than 30-40 years old.

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Well,... that's a shame. The 30s and 40s had a lot of good movies worth watching, I've found. Thanks, TCM.

 

[No Depth]

I've been meaning to watch Gattaca and the Before Trilogy myself…

…saying that since the 90's.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Social media is making people's attention spans dog shit. No real mystery to it. Also the landscape is filled with so much trash. There were always bad movies and shows but now they're being fed to you non stop everywhere. The quality requires wading and research. I love it though, always loved movies as a kid, my parents were never big movie buffs but just fell naturally in love and hope my kids one day when I have em do the same. But the odds are not in their favour!

 

[AgentOtaku]

I do find it kind of baffling how people don't have the attention span for a 2-3 hour movie, but are able to binge watch an entire season of a show in a weekend. Is it really just the episode breaks? Like, you know you can pause a movie, right?

Sidebar, but he was also in the Criterion Closet talking about how he used to bring Sergei Bondarchuk's War and Peace on family vacations hoping to convince everybody to watch it, so you gotta imagine his viewpoint is a little skewed lol.


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Yeah, still gotta watch his Criterion visit (his second time I believe).

The argument about binge shows across a weekend is so true tho. Icky and doesn't appeal to me, especially when you know platforms like Netflix skew their content to go long and keep eyes on it.

RuPaul said it best:

"If you can't tell your story in 90 minutes.... "

Lol

 

[Tobor]

He's right about the Criterion Channel, it's great.

I watched On the Waterfront and Sunset Boulevard last weekend. I'm trying to close the loop on my list of shame and see the classics I've never seen.

 

[GamerJM]

I think a missing piece of the puzzle is that people often watch stuff to not watch stuff. Like, often if you're not watching a movie at a theater then it's not the center of attention. Whenever I "watch a movie" at home with my parents they spend half the film looking at their phones and playing with our dog and then complain at the end if it was at all weird or inaccessible. Meanwhile a lot of bingeable shows don't require your full attention.

 

[LumberPanda]

I don't have the time to mindlessly consume that stuff, sorry

 

[mreddie]

But Ethan, do you know how much it is a pain in the ass to get CC on tvs? IT'S SOMEHOW NOT A PS5 APP!

 

[Kelsdesu]

Is 'watch more movies' the new 'read more books'?

 

[Lord Fanny]

I don't have the time to mindlessly consume that stuff, sorry

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Then consume it mindfully

 

[AgentOtaku]

I don't have TikTok or anything like that so it does surprise me how many folk I know will just spend 2-3 hours a night scrolling rather than playing video games or watching stuff.

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I didn't believe myself, but I've been the service for going on 21 years now and when I started meeting younger folks every day coming into the service (zoomers) and they shared with me they do EXACTLY this. :(

Yes, it's worrying....

 

[Tobor]

But Ethan, do you know how much it is a pain in the ass to get CC on tvs? IT'S SOMEHOW NOT A PS5 APP!

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Get an Apple TV, that's how I watch it.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I'm 39 and I can definitely feel myself doing what he describes here, watching trash that I know will be OK on netflix just to entertain myself and pass the time because watching something of substance requires giving too much of myself to the experience.

It's kind of a real concern that our society is moving towards these kinds of fire and forget bytesized experiences, everything we do on our phones and even when sitting down to specifically watch something on the TV. I am 100% including myself in that.

Letting some braindead thing wash over me that I'll forget in a day or two feels a little bit too easy for me.

Some friends took me to see Perfect Days recently and it has been affixed to my mind, taking my attention and making me think about life and happiness, it's kind of exhausting when a movie properly connects and makes you engage. I love that film and I'm glad I watched it but if I'd known going in that it would take this much energy then maybe I'd have stayed home and watched a korean dating show or something.

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Yeah. Like if I want to watch something substantial I have to MAKE TIME for it, and prepare myself emotionally to take it in. And I'm just so fucking tired these days. I don't have the energy.

I made it 45 seconds into the first episode of Andor before I went "I can't do this right now" and turned it off. And that's Star Wars stuff. Fluff. If I can't make room in my day for Star Wars, what chance does anything deeper have?

 

[Alexandros]

I understand and respect the sentiment but, well, older people telling younger people what to do and what to like rarely goes well.

 

[Hark]

I'm guilty of this. I'm breaking into the industry but don't watch nearly enough films. Need to trim my hobbies to make time.

 

[Freddy=Legend]

Maybe if there weren't like 20 different streaming services and companies weren't just straight killing off movies from being shown for tax write-offs, we'd have more movies to watch.

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As much as I hate streaming & what it's done to physical media; this take makes no sense. If anything, 20 different streaming services would make it easier to find movies without having to go out & find the Bluray or DVD. Unless there's some weird sarcasm here that went over my head.

 

[Tobor]

Watching classics doesn't require you watch something deep or challenging.

You can learn a lot or just have fun watching old comedies or lighter movies/shows.

 

[Indelible]

Most young people just don't have the attention span to get invested in movies, it is the reason TikTok and short videos are so popular.

 

[AwesomeSauce]

It is pretty wild with having friends that work in the industry, how many who want to make films don't watch much at all.

 

[Ciao]

you know with AI we'll be able to do things like speed up old movies and insert new dialogue using the original voice actors. Obviously put everything into color with HDR and also rotoscope it so you can rotate in 3D VR and walk around the actors as they talk too.

Casablanca
Big L no cap her sliding into my DMs in my own joint. So cheugy. Why is she so extra.

Citizen Kane
"no cap FR rosemary got me edging, i had so much rizz back then. Now i'm just shook and got no tea."

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[Zach]

Criterion Channel 4 Life.

Go ahead and subscribe to the likes of Netflix and Disney+ instead. I don't give a good god dang if you deprive yourself of worthwhile movies, Jack!

(Actually I do plz subscribe to CC they need some monies. xoxo)

 

[SuperHans]

Chicken farmer " Young people need to eat more chickens".

 

[grang]

Ethan Hawke seems pretty thoughtful and passionate about this stuff


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Nice, I love that!

 

[RockAction]

it does come off as crotchety but he's totally right, i think there's a genuine lack of seriousness in all fields and life generally tbh but that seems to be changing somewhat with younger ones now which is good, i think it's just the millennials he's preaching too who've been through several unprecedented events so i give us a pass on watching brain rotting TV

anecdotally my partner who's a few years younger makes short films and is making a feature length film now, we watch films all the time and he knows a great deal about the process and has a great eye for light and composition etc

he thinks I'm a Hollywood whore because i know who actors and directors are and read about the films once we've watched them, even shite Netflix fair, just to see who was involved etc

he'd never watch the classics unless i absolutely made him, I've loved film for years and i haven't seen a tenth of the must watches, I'd love to watch more but he's just not interested, it's strange but i guess you just have to be into them so i try to watch then I'm my own time, but it is hard if you're strung out after work etc there's not as much time to sit down without the phone to watch them, plus cinemas are a fortune these days and don't put the classics on, like artistic classics not just blockbuster classics

 

[Rosebud]

Why would I want to watch movies when Youtube is free and on all my devices with internet

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Because they are completely different things lol

I understand and respect the sentiment but, well, older people telling younger people what to do and what to like rarely goes well.

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In this case he's talking to film students. If they don't listen to older people there's no hope for them in the field lol

Watching classics doesn't require you watch something deep or challenging.

You can learn a lot or just have fun watching old comedies or lighter movies/shows.

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People have this wrong notion that anything older than them must be challenging and inaccessible without even trying, it's the same with books

 

[AaronD]

I rarely have an unbroken stretch of 2+ hours to properly watch a movie. Even when I'm watching Youtube I'm in the midst of other things. It's really hard to find the time for something that I need to give my full attention to.

 

[darz1]

Yeah my kids don't watch near as many movies as I did as a kid. It's fine. They like different stuff, but I do feel I learned alot from movies strangely enough. I feel like film is such a great medium for storytelling and creativity, aside from just being entertainment.

My kids mostly see it just as entertainment.

 

[Mcfrank]

A film like Badlands would definitely struggle to hold their attention.

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I struggle with people who would lose attention with a 95 minute movie.

 

[AuthenticM]

Ethan Hawke seems pretty thoughtful and passionate about this stuff


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he's right.

 

[Sesha]

He's certainly entitled to his opinion. There are accomplished actors and filmmakers that would both agree and disagree with him on this.

 

[jman1954goat]

Maybe if there weren't like 20 different streaming services and companies weren't just straight killing off movies from being shown for tax write-offs, we'd have more movies to watch.

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WTH do you think streaming services are?

 

[New002]

While the title of the article makes it seems like he's talking about young people in general he's specifically talking about young people that aspire to make movies themselves one day.

 

[TableManners]

 

[wingkongex]

Hey you can binge watch on the Criterion Channel too! I watched the 5 hour Fanny & Alexander cut a few months ago.

 

[jman1954goat]

I do find it kind of baffling how people don't have the attention span for a 2-3 hour movie, but are able to binge watch an entire season of a show in a weekend

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As someone who doesn't watch many movies
T.V. and books are just a more Compelling form of Fiction than moves.

It's almost impossible for movies to make me feel the type of emotions Television and books can.

Longform Storytelling has so much more potential than movies can capture while also having the tool of breaking things into chapters/ episodes and Arcs / Seasons etc.

 

[Bizkit Krueger]

Maybe if there weren't like 20 different streaming services and companies weren't just straight killing off movies from being shown for tax write-offs, we'd have more movies to watch.

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there are so many great movies out there that they could stop making them entirely and you'd never run out of options as long as you live

 

[WrenchNinja]

He's right

 

[Eamon]

He's not wrong.

The habits of Gen Z and Gen Alpha seem to contrast heavily with the traditional theater-going film industry we have grown accustomed to, not to mentioned the types of enthusiast-oriented gaming we all partake in.

 

[Darkmaigle]

Everyone should def watch first reformed

 

[Jeffolation]

I really do wish the CC app on xbox wasn't a disaster but that's no excuse to have not watched The Human Condition by now. The shame of it all.

 

[Naijaboy]

Speaking of TikTok, it's been the source of a good number of classic movies and some of them are pretty good on their own.

 

[Vinc]

Is 33 young? Because as a 33 year old, I really completely understand what he's saying. Paying attention to things and apending time to think about things like movies often prompt you to do is... healing in many ways. I don't want to prescribe the way I see things onto others but I really connect with what he's saying here.

 

[Gedi]

My eldest is 18 and he watches the occasional film with us, mainly if it's a cinema outing but I don't think he's ever watched a film on his own or even with friends. He's really loved some too, like Oppenheimer and Interstellar but has virtually no interest in exploring the medium. He doesn't seem to value it as the best use of his time..

My youngest is 14 and he will watch pretty much anything with us, be it film or tv series. I've not known him to watch anything on his own unless it was animated but at least he'll watch a lot with us. Recently we watched The Truman Show together and he said he enjoyed it, though he had already watched a 60 minute analysis about it on YouTube that came up as a recommendation a year or so ago!!

 

[Messofanego]

I think we are in the best era for film watching because thanks to film preservation and archiving, you now have streaming services, libraries, and other resources that have been able to present films all the way back to when the form started. You can watch early arthouse films like Un Chien Andalou, The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Battleship Potemkin, Italian neorealist, French New Wave, and many other movements right now. Rather than needing to go to a cinema to see a one time presentation of a lost film. If you're a film student or wanting to make films, you have all this library to go through. Also I really want Criterion Channel to be available internationally. MUBI is doing all the heavy lifting currently.

 

[Vulcano's Assistant]

You will be amazed how much watching movies helps you in making them. How it takes you out of writers block when you see someone else already solved in their movie the problems you are facing in your screenplay, how it helps light a scene, how to act a scene, what lens to use, etc

Maybe not everything has been solved in film yet, but a lot of it has already been tried so the source of inspiration virtually covers most of your needs.

It is like Lego pieces with millions of combinations and trying to make something new without watching films is like building Lego and only using the most basic square pieces.

Chances are you will have a hard time making anything original if you don't.

 

[birdinsky]

I don't see why not watching old movies is disqualifying people from making movies?

If someone has the ability to make a great movie why do they have to know who fassbinder or kurosawa is?

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This is a bizarre take in any genre. Anybody who is trying to work in a field should know the history and classics of their field, because that is a shared culture and "grammar." Writers should recognize Shakespeare references. People who want to work in game dev probably should have played seminal games. Etc.