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When I first took up birding about 15 years ago, what surprised me most was how, well, interesting so many of the common birds suddenly became, the ones I’d always taken for granted—robins, house sparrows, even, every once in a while, pigeons (or “rock doves,” as one of the state’s top birders insisted they be called … no snickering over “flying rats” for this guy). Rather than contempt, what familiarity evidently bred was a kind of general affection that indiscriminately rubbed off on everything feathered (as well as nonfeathered—but let’s stick to avian life for now). Which makes me wonder why it’s apparently so different with films, where typically the more you see and think you know, the less generous your critical responses are.
So now there’s no going back, and I take “discriminating” shortcuts like everyone else—history, context, “the ladder”—which I can’t blame anyone for doing. But the all-inclusive way of the birder never seemed more inviting.
