I learned patience by watching silent films. I took an introductory film course, and my delightful elitist professor –wanting to make sure that students didn’t take the course lightly or ever entertain the possibility that movies could be enjoyable — showed us silent films for four months. There was none of that amusing Charlie Chaplin stuff either. I’m talking hours and hours of tedium and screechy violins. All I really remember from that desperate time is D.W. Griffith and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (which I quite enjoyed, actually), but I can recall  the exact moment when I learned how to be a blank slate in order to take in whatever the film had to offer. Finally, the elitist professor rewarded me by showing me F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. And that movie might just be better than cinnamon. When Elitist Professor finally got around to showing us foreign films, I was more than prepared.  Good dialogue is worth a thousand pictures. I made my way through the Italians (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, De Sica, Rosselini, Bertolucci, etcci.), and finally branched off on my own: a little Fritz Lang here, a little Andrei Tarkovsky there, some Truffaut, and even [...]

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