The following is the final weekly installment of this multi-part series. To see the story from the beginning, be sure to read parts one, two, three, four, five and six.

If I haven’t watched more movies in just the last few years than I did in the entire decade preceding, it’s got to at least be close. But even if the raw numbers don’t total up, a much more important thing went on in the last few years: I grew to understand and appreciate film in a way I never before thought possible, gifting myself with another love. And one I never expected to have.

My quest to become a film snob, undertaken for no discernable reason beyond “I want to,” led me to the wonderful world that is DVD, an eye-opening experience because it got me away from those clunky, awkward VHS tapes I had been messing with. Technology made cinema easier to appreciate in my home – simply vital for a guy who dislikes movie theater crowds and prices – and that meant I was more likely to throw myself headlong into seeing what this whole world was about.

If you want to know how rock music got to where it is today, you go back and listen to Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and the others who paved the way for rock as we know it. You listen to the best of the best. If you want to know the hows and whys of film, you do the same. You go back and you watch the classic films; the films that influence all we see today. Seeing the best of the best helps you sort the wheat from the chaff and better enables you to recognize true quality from hack imitator. (Boy does Hollywood have a lot of hack imitators).

Then you need to immerse yourself in the world of the auteur. In plain English, that means studying the work of a specific director, getting to know his language, his style, what sets him apart, his tricks of the trade, and recognizing how he influences what you see on screen. You might even pick a favorite. I certainly did. As silly as playing the “this is my favorite” game might seem, it helps offer some perspective when it comes to differing directing styles, bringing front and center how much a director’s vision impacts what is on screen. It offers you a reference point from which to compare and contrast. I recommend favorites. Make a list. They’re fun.

But becoming a film snob isn’t just about watching a lot of great movies and picking a Favorite Director to drop into every film conversation. You have to be open-minded and willing to experience new things. You have to be committed to throwing yourself into new experiences, not just in word, but in deed. That will probably mean watchingthings you’ve never seen before, things that you just may be uncomfortable with at first. Things such as foreign film. Have no fear. It’s a road all film snobs must walk, and the rewards are many.

Sometimes the journey down the road towards film snobdom means not simply opening your eyes, but closing your ears. And that means silent film. Silent film is at the root of all we watch today. If you want to know your film history – and you can’t be a film snob if you don’t – you have to at least dip your feet into these (surprisingly warm) waters.

I did all these things. I, who thought movies began and ended with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. I did them. And it was (and continues to be) a fantastic experience. Over the course of this journey I have gone through many phases, periods that could each make a worthy installment of this Diary. I explored the cinema of Stanley Kubrick in a whirlwind of watching, taking in Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket in a short and breathless stretch. I sank into some of the best the western genre has to offer, from Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in America to films like High Noon, The Searchers, The Magnificent Seven, Unforgiven and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. I poked my head briefly into Japanese animation with a small handful of the notables and rewatched the career of modern marvels like Martin Scorsese with new eyes. All in all, it was a lot of watching hours for a guy who tries to juggle a dozen too many hobbies.

I’ve never been able to identify what it was that made me undertake my quest to become a film snob. I don’t know what possessed me or what I hoped to accomplish. Probably I just wanted more mind fodder for pointless internet discussion, ammunition with which I could throw myself into time-wasting debates. In that regard, my quest succeeded. But as far as my quest to become a film snob … ?

My quest failed.

Oh, I’ve developed a pretty low tolerance for unwatchable rubbish, and I’ve developed a great appreciation for aspects of the film art I never before noticed. Excellent developments, both. But snobbishness never quite materialized. Just enthusiasm. Thus far, I have been transformed into little more than a Film Enthusiast.

I’m pretty satisfied with that title.

You see, as wonderful as it has been to open these doors, revealing the intricate layers of the art of cinema, in the end, like a great book or song, film exists to entertain, inform, enthrall and enlighten. It’s not there to act as an intelligence test or as a barometer with which to judge a person’s worth. Better knowing where film came from, how it developed, what makes it great and about films made outside of Hollywood can greatly enhance one’s appreciation of the movies we watch, but it can’t change that simple, fundamental thing. Film is there to drop us into another world for a few hours, or to comment on some aspect of humanity in an engaging way, or simply to provide a few hours of mindless entertainment.

All of this is a Very Good Thing.

What will come at the end of this road, I do not know. I don’t even know that there is an end to the road. I just know that I will never, ever look at film in the same way again. And for that, I am glad.

Thanks for reading.

FIN

Diary Of An Aspiring Film Snob ends here as a weekly feature, but it doesn’t necessarily end here for good. From time to time, Eric San Juan will tackle other parts of his quest to become a film snob, exploring new genres, animated films, specific foreign markets, new directors, and more. So if you’d like to see more of Diary of An Aspiring Film Snob in the future, be sure to give the author a shout out in the Holla Thread (linked below).