Paris Bute: Why I Watch
“Watch what inspires you”
(Written in August, 2021)
I have been a picky person all of my life; when it came to food, clothes, people, and of course, what was on the tv.
I was pretty sheltered as a child; my parents would not let me watch anything they deemed as traumatizing or distasteful. The very first films I remember watching, going all the way back to when I was two, were classic Disney or Pixar films such as Snow White, The Jungle Book, the first two Toy Story films, and some distinct non-Disney classics such as the old Peanuts films, Frosty the Snowman, and Charlotte's Web.
Obviously, I grew up spoon-fed on animation. When I was seven, I told my teacher that I wanted to create stories and draw pictures just like the ones I saw in books and movies. I wanted to be a writer or artist.
My tastes in film are complicated. When it comes to watching new movies, I usually pick ones with unique plots, and appealing, quality covers. I would say that animation is my favorite genre since it is listed as one on many sites, but the thing is, animation itself isn’t even a genre. It's a medium. It’s an artform.
My guilty pleasure is anything created by Rankin-Bass. I absolutely love their stop-motion "animagic" specials, despite how awfully dated some of them are. They have had a huge impact on my aesthetic. Their history and filmmaking techniques are so fascinating to me, although many sources about them are unfortunately either lost or hard-to-find. I think about Rankin/Bass everyday of the year, and have been collecting rare Miser Brothers memorabilia for some time now.
One of the many pieces of “Miserbilia” I have been collecting since 2019
Over the last few months, I have been rewatching many films from my childhood I had once repressed from my memory. I also watched dozens of short films from the National Film Board of Canada. They have a long collection of shorts from creators of different generations from around the world, particularly non-English speakers, women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community. My favorite shorts from them are When the Day Breaks, I Like Girls, and Manivald.
I have also been watching films on a more critical level. I have developed a special 1-10 rating system I use whenever I watch a film, which inspired me to start a Letterboxd account I used heavily this year.
A sneak peek at my Letterboxd page (Paris Bute/PBAntifearn32). These are films (long and short) I have given a 10/10 (perfect) rating
My least favorite kinds of films are big Hollywood action/thriller flicks. I never liked big franchises because of how obnoxious their fans can be and what their films represent. I would rather watch a boring film with a fine story than a film with three hours of CGI explosions and violence. When I began watching films independently in high school, I would always avoid what my classmates were discussing. I wanted to watch movies that had their own unique plots and aesthetics. Movies that would confuse my cliquey, toxic high school environment. Movies that would somewhat transform me.
The reason why I watch what I watch is because it fuels me: as an artist, as a storyteller, and as a human. If you want to create art, you can look at the stuff you don't like so you know what you don't want to make, or find something you really admire and begin digging deeper into it. I watch films that comfort me, teach me, enrich my mind, and inspire me. It awes me how what I love as an adult goes all the way back to what I first watched when I was two.
External Links:
-My LetterBoxd account, which lists all of my recent film ratings as well as some of my favorite films. https://letterboxd.com/PbAntifearn32
-The Nation Film Board of Canada's Youtube page. It is one of my favorite Youtube channels because of how much variety it has. Their work is a great introduction to fans of Canadian film, as well as animation. https://www.youtube.com/c/nfb (Links to an external site.)