Student Guide: Movie Tribes at University

The nerd

Here we have the easiest to spot of the movie tribes; they wear their hearts on their sleeves – or, to be more accurate, they wear the insignia of the movies they love on their t-shirts. They’re also the most powerful. Movie executives cower at their feet, creating movie worlds so dense with in-jokes that they become incomprehensible to anyone who's not been schooled on comic book lore. But pity the poor critic who points this out. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the comments left at the bottom of a comic book movie review are more brutal than Thor’s hammer.

Where you’ll find them: Midnight screenings of the latest Marvel or DC movie; debating on Twitter which member of the Avengers would win in a head to head; in film review comments sections explaining to critics why they don’t understand the latest comic book movie

Leading man: Any guy named Chris (Pine, Hemsworth, Evans, Pratt)
Leading woman: N/A
Favourite director: Joss Whedon
Favourite film: Whatever is next in Marvel’s ‘Phase 3’ assault on our cinema screens

The auteurists

Auteurists are the trainspotters of movie aficionados. They like to make lists and then meticulously check them off. They don’t just want to watch key works by the likes of Fassbinder or Altman, they want to see them all: the student films, the 8mm doodles, the box-office bombs and the critical disasters. The auteurist's favourite word is oeuvre. Peculiarly, they don’t refer to upcoming movies by their title like any sane person. Instead they quote the name of their übermensch creator – the film's director. Warning: this can be confusing. “Have you seen the new Anderson?” they might ask. “Do you mean Wes? PT? Oh, God, not PWS?”

Where you’ll find them: On letterboxd.com ranking Hitchcock’s career; organising their DVD collection by director; studying the latest Sight & Sound film poll.

Leading man: Cary Grant
Leading woman: Katharine Hepburn
Favourite director: Orson Welles
Favourite film: See Sight & Sound Greatest Film Poll

The cinephile

Cinephilia is the dark realm in which movie love spills over into something more ecstatic. It’s closer to a fetish than a pastime. The whirl of a projector or the crackle of a scratchy 35mm print on screen elicits a kind of erotic revery. Like auteurists, the cinephile eats, breathes and sleeps, cinema, but their movie love extends well beyond the auteurist’s canon. Their disposable income is poured into snap eBay purchases of out of print film books, faded first run movie posters and most importantly of all, cinema stubs. They're on first name terms with their local cinema’s ushers and spend more time there during university than they will do in lecture halls.

Where you’ll find them: At the cinema; seeking out rare one-off screenings; searching through online forums looking for torrents of out-of-print gems.

Leading man: All of them
Leading woman: All of them
Favourite director: All of them
Favourite film: All of them

The eclectic

The cinephile’s taste is catholic, but the eclectic's is non-sequitur. A screening of, say, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension will spill over into a double bill with Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet without missing a beat. And after that they’ll watch Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Highbrow and lowbrow become mutable. Genres collide. It’s movie watching as schizophrenia.

Where you’ll find them: Hard to say – Cineworld on Fridays for the opening of the latest blockbuster and at their local arthouse cinema the following afternoon for a matinee screening of a classic.

Leading man: Daniel Day-Lewis and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michael Cera
Leading woman: Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep and Melissa McCarthy
Favourite director: Béla Tarr and Zack Snyder and John Ford
Favourite films: L'Avventura and Die Hard and Mary Poppins

The contrarian

The contrarian is under some sick illusion that to be individual is to reject the mainstream. Ignoring critical consensus is a good thing: going against it in all instances feels perverse. The contrarian reckons Francis Ford Coppola didn’t really hit his stride til the late 80s, and is the only movie fan outside those signed up to the L. Ron Hubbard club to think Battlefield Earth is any cop. Most twisted of all: the contrarian's favourite part of every trilogy is always number three.

Where you’ll find them: In the kitchens at house parties explaining to people why Batman and Robin is superior to The Dark Knight; trolling critics with their unorthodox take on Danny Dyer's career.

Leading man: Adam Sandler
Leading woman: Madonna
Favourite director: Brett Ratner
Favourite film: Showgirls

The hipster

For the hipster, movies, like their facial hair and their on-trend boat shoes, are extensions of their personality. They tend to be drawn to filmmakers who, like them, show off via an elaborate aesthetic, be that down to ostentatious camerawork or eye-popping mis-en-scene. The soundtracks should be retro – electronic pop that sounds like a Eurythmics B-side work well, as do little-heard British new wave tracks. Diegetic music should be played on vinyl or the most recent iPod.

Where you’ll find them: Coen Brother retrospectives; attending fancy dress parties in Wes Anderson movie cosplay; deciding whether to watch Lost in Translation for the eighth time or Garden State for the twelfth.

Leading man: Bill Murray
Leading woman: Greta Gerwig
Favourite director: Richard Linklater
Favourite film: Donnie Darko

The ironists

For the ironist, movies can’t be enjoyed on their own merit. Their appeal comes from the ironist's superiority over the material. The ironist demonstrates their superiority by openly mocking the text. For some reason, this only applies to older movies. The ironist would never think of loudly taking the piss out of Fantastic Four, say, or the latest Zack Snyder film. The anachronistic acting in silent films, the heartbreaking emotionality of 50s melodramas or dated effects in seminal 70s sci-fi movies, however, are fair game.

Where you’ll find them: At any retrospective screening, manically laughing like Robert De Niro in Cape Fear, ruining it for the rest of us; deciding on whether to watch The Room for the 8th time or Troll 2 for the 12th time.

Leading man: Nicolas Cage
Leading woman: Divine
Favourite director: M. Night Shyamalan
Favourite film: Plan 9 From Outer Space

---

Find film reviews, features, events, filmmaker interviews and more at theskinny.co.uk/film