IT SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A FILM JOURNALIST
Editor-at-Large JAMIE GRAHAM lifts the lid on film journalism.
Our own Jamie G bids 2020 a fond good riddance.
Back in early March, I stood before 400 grinning faces at the Glasgow Film Festival, introducing Total Film’s screening of K-zombie epic Train To Busan. “Zombies have always been the perfect monster to project societal fears onto,” I said, “and all of you sitting here tonight will no doubt see the Coronavirus in each drooling mouth and ragged breath.” There was laughter, and more still when I noted that the biggest scare anyone will experience is if the person sitting next to you coughs.
Three weeks later, cinemas, like so many businesses, shuttered, and Britain was in lockdown. No-one was laughing anymore.
Cut to eight months later. As I write this column, a second lockdown is under way, though hopefully it’ll be over by the time you’re reading. Or not. What the future has to bring, I do not know, but I do know it’s been a strange old year in the world of film journalism. I’ve been doing this for 24 years and thought I’d seen it all. But as that cop behind the desk says to The Dude (a character my colleagues sometimes compare me to because of my relaxed, likeable manner… or maybe it’s the unkempt beard and slobby attire): “You don’t know shit, Lebowski.”
NEW ORDER
First off, let me say that I count myself fortunate in just how unaffected I’ve been, relatively speaking. Where many have lost their jobs and worse, my biggest hardship has been having to forgo press screenings in London to instead watch movies at home, or trips abroad to interview directors and actors face-to-face. Such ‘sacrifices’ are first-world problems and then some, and I’m not about to bleat that I had to settle for Zoom chats with Sally Hawkins, Viggo Mortensen and Aaron Sorkin. Boo-hoo.
Likewise, film festivals. Sure, it’s not been the same watching movies on a laptop rather than in grand picture palaces with buzzing audiences… but just try telling that to my sister-in-law, a hospital nurse working long, taxing hours.
I have, in fact, only been inside a cinema once since March, to see Tenet; I’m high-risk so I’ve hunkered down, only tempted out by Christopher Nolan’s set-pieces on an IMAX screen. Buy hey, there’s worse things than viewing many built-for-the-big-screen movies on a TV; I discovered most of the classics on video in my teens and twenties, and the greatness of, say, Apocalypse Now, Seven Samurai and The Wild Bunch still shone through.
ALONE TIME
That the film industry has found a way at all has been inspiring, and I doff my cap to the movie crews working on sets within social-distancing guidelines, to distributors sending out links of their new movies for journalists to review, to PRs for organising smooth Zoom junkets, and to cinema employees for working so hard to make people feel safe.
The biggest loss this year has been the sense of community, be it chatting at press screenings or huddling at festivals or, yes, shooting the shit in the Total Film office. Again, I’ve been luckier than some – I’ve got less sociable as I’ve got older, and being stuck at home, writing and watching films, is pretty much what I do anyway. But there have been times when it’s all got a bit much, and my mental health has wobbled. It’s been the same, I’m sure, for all of us. In these times, social media has helped, and the film community is always there, ready to engage with passion.
Hopefully, next year it will be safe to congregate. As Edgar Wright wrote on Instagram, watching movies in cinemas can be a “religious experience… I’ll be back whenever the doors of my church are open once more.”
Jamie will return next issue… For more misadventures, follow: @jamie_graham9 on Twitter.
‘BEING STUCK AT HOME WATCHING FILMS IS PRETTY MUCH WHAT I DO ANYWAY’