Films and Feelings

  Film has this weird thing called “emotionality” that sees itself at the center of a lot of haranguing in the critical discourse. There is a sort of classism in dialogue that privileges film as a purely cerebral space, detached from all things base and emotional, and if your concerns in film tend to err on the side of sentiment or emotions, you have probably been on the receiving end of patronizing glances from those who consider themselves more discerning because their favorite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey . Tyler Sage, another freelance film critic I follow, said it best when he described emotionality’s close cousin, “sentimentality " and the way it is generally discussed in the public sphere : The Godfather (1972) “These days, if you are one of these types who likes to opine knowingly in the public sphere – say, a highfalutin film critic – it's one of the most powerful aspersions there is. ‘I just found it so sentimental ,’ … [and] you can be certain no one will contrad