The following is part three of a multi-part series chronicling the trials of an aspiring (and not yet there) film snob. For the full story see parts one and two.

Flash back a few years. About 12 or so. I’m sitting in a pot-filled apartment waiting for my next beer, when the potheads around me begin to build themselves up into a frenzy. Why? It seems The Godfather is going to be on TV that evening, in its extended “Saga” form. They gush excitedly, “The Godfather is coming on!”

“Yeah, and?” I ask. (No, at the time I did not realize it was a ludicrous question.)

I get looks that (I now realize) say, “But it’s The Godfather,” yet at the time I was entirely oblivious. All I knew was, ‘Yeah, people like that movie about gangsters, don’t they? I think I saw parts. I don’t know what the fuss is all about.’

I am astonished to think I was ever that person.

But as discussed earlier, somewhere along the line I realized I wanted to know film. I adopted DVD. And I leapt headlong into the world of cinema without looking back.

Pinpointing the first classic I dove into once I discovered the world of DVD is difficult, despite it being but a handful of years ago. There have been so many since then (and yet still it’s but a fraction of the wide world of film). The order is sketchy at best, though each stood out for its own reasons. A landmark for me was Lawrence of Arabia. I have a weakness for epics – when I can find the time to watch them, of course – and from all I had heard, few films do epic like Lawrence of Arabia.

I had prepared a Saturday afternoon for this. Closed all the blinds. Had a freshly-bought 16x9 HDTV I was ready to put to use. Hooked up the stereo to the TV (this was before I went surround). And made sure the family would be busy for four hours.

Amazingly, it didn’t disappoint.

The sweeping desert vistas and tortured work of Peter O’Toole captivated me. Some people complain the film is too long, but in those four hours I found myself immersed in another world, watching as a massive story unfolded, as sights and sounds larger than life – and done without CGI – revealed themselves to me.

Lawrence of Arabia taught me that impressive sights and sounds are not an end, an excuse for a journey, but are rather a means to an end, a backdrop before which a journey of another sort takes place. Yes, astounding sights and an heroic journey are worthy and desirable – I have always been and will always be taken by such things – but without rich and layered characters, without a journey within as well as without, it’s all just meaningless eye candy. To recognize this (maybe not for the first time, but certainly in the biggest way to date) was refreshing.

Later it was Casablanca, another classic I had not yet seen and suddenly realized I should. After all, it was mentioned time and again on Best Of lists and hailed as a landmark, a cultural icon as timeless as the best bits of Americana. It would be a piss-poor exploration of classic films that did not include Casablanca.

Did black and white films always look this good? I never knew. But by then I had already learned to recognize why certain cinematic techniques worked, and suddenly the softly-lit face of Ingrid Bergman made all the sense in the world. But the beauty that is black and white wasn’t Casablanca’s lesson. Rather, it was the joy of words. You’d figure a guy who writes would know this joy already, but this was different. This whole little community of interesting characters was built with dialogue. Lived and breathed with dialogue. The plot moved forward with dialogue. All the conflict. With dialogue.

So the lesson is Casablanca is talking.

Around this time I bought the Stanley Kubrick boxed set because Kubrick is a god among the Internet film-lover types. I’m pretty sure it’s an Internet rule, probably written into those End User Agreements that nobody ever reads, that you must love at least one Stanley Kubrick film, so that seemed like a logical place to venture in my exploration of film. I wasn’t a total Kubrick virgin, of course. I had seen 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange, some of his most recognizable films. But I had seen all before… whatever this thing was that had taken me took root, and I’m finding even now that rediscovering classics I had already seen is eye-opening, because I’m seeing film in a way I never had before. So I went with Kubrick.

There is no one lesson of Kubrick. Which is Kubrick’s lesson, maybe. There are themes and approaches that remain somewhat consistent with his films. There is a distance between film and viewer. An almost clinical beat to his work. But each of his films (as of this writing I have seen everything between Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket except for Spartacus, which I own) has a unique flavor that makes it stand out as an important work. There is a focus of vision that impresses with each. A technical perfection when judged by the rules set forth with each work. It’s an eclectic and impressive body of work, too.

I dipped into films I had already seen, hoping to better know why This was good and That was not. Among the Good was The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, of course. Now that pot-filled room from over a decade ago made a lot of sense. A lot of fawning I once dismissed makes a lot of sense now. After watching The Godfather saga multiple times on DVD, growing to appreciate not simply the memorable murder scenes, but the oppressive atmosphere, the powerful acting, the webbed plotting, the ghostly imagery and the operatic world Francis Ford Coppola created, word of another gangster epic reached my ears. A little number called Once Upon A Time In America. All of a sudden, something once anathema – slow – worked. When done well, slow pacing didn’t mean bad. Who knew? It began a love affair with Sergio Leone that continues to grow.

But one of the two most important love affairs from this period was not with David Lean or Stanley Kubrick or Sergio Leone – though I love their work a great deal – but rather with a fat, slightly-twisted British man who dealt largely in suspense.

In fact, some say he is the Master of Suspense.

Watch next week for Volume 4 of Diary of an Aspiring Film Snob.