| La rabbia di Pasolini (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1963/2008) |
[Nov. 19th, 2009|11:26 pm] |
I was really only attending these films to see Gorin speak. These films were presented as part of the Cinematheque’s series on the so-called “Essay Film” (works which hardly resemble the essay form at all apart from having no protagonist and often dealing with non-fiction). I think movies like Sans Soliel and Letter to Jane would be better termed as meditation films, since they tend to meditate on a theme but put forth no thesis to defend. Though why call them anything at all?
Gorin had some interesting thoughts on narration, especially where found or reappropriated footage is concerned. He said, “narration must always hit an image from an angle, but never straight on and never parallel.” He made frequent references to “the ghost behind the image” and how the filmmaker goes about bringing it out. He said that today you could not construct a meaningful film out of news images as Pasolini did in 1963. It was possible in the 60s because back then even news photographers had a keen sense of framing, distance, and proportion. That news images today suffer from the tyranny of centrality of the subject and digital rather than chemical properties which make them look crappy.
He also sais some mean things about Herzog, who, according to the Eye Weekly has a film out now starring Nicholas Cage?? Am I on crack or is this true? |
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| Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
Weary with no (inhabitable) apartment of my own to go to and after a rather alarming talk with the Super, I decided to go to the movies. I picked up my freshly dry cleaned coat, hopped on my bike, and made out into the night. Approaching Koreatown the cold wind blowing across Christie Pits Park froze me to the bone. As I pressed on through the Annex I passed a "bomb diffusing" truck. Was that a joke?
I got to the Cumberland Cinema and to my dismay read a note on the wall about their "new Tuesday night pricing". What this means is that movies are still $10+ but they give you a concession voucher for a drink and a snack. Ok, I thought. "So" I said nervously anticipating the inevitable, "I don't suppose I can get a coffee with this?"
"No only these fountain drinks." Sugary cola drinks. Not my cup of tea. So as I made my way to the escalator I see all these Yorkville types going through the same spiel:
"Coffee?"
"No, just these drinks."
"Coffee's a drink!"
"I'm sorry, sir."
They were still going on about it as I took my seat.
How nice it was to be out, I thought, even if I was at the movies alone. I took out my phone and texted Amy about the bomb diffusing truck I saw before I shut off the ringer.
"You know" one of the other patrons said to the woman beside him, "I bet that the coffee costs the theatre LESS than the cola."
"I know, dear."
I tasted the coffee that cost me $2.50 cents. Worth every penny. This is some precious Chris escape time. Can't put a price on that.
Then I noticed my phone ring. Not by the sound but by the glowing screen and the words, "Incoming call."
"Hello?"
"Hello? is this Chris?"
"Yes."
"This is David calling, I wanted to speak with you about something."
Strange. Why was my landlord calling at 7pm on a Tuesday night? "Oh, well you'll have to call me back in the morning. I'm in the cinema right now."
"Humph, and why is it that you can't speak with me right now?"
I didn't like his insinuating tone, and inability to listen. It seems that often landlords only ever comprehend 40% of what you say to them. "Because, as I said, I'm AT THE MOVIES. a FILM is about to START. Can we talk later?"
"Well," he said in a huff, "What I have to say won't take long. I have a letter with your signature that states the reason you are moving out. This letter is dated three months ago. So I don't very much appreciate you going around to the other tenants and spreading falsehoods. I think we've been very good to you."
"I'm sorry," I said, breaking in, "Could you repeat the bit about other tenants?"
"Hanoke [the Super) explained to me today that you're going around to the tenants and saying that you're leaving because of an infestation."
"Really?" I said, "Because that's the first I've heard of it. If you want to know what happened I'll tell you. I asked him if he's told the other people on our floor about the infestation, he said that he won't. I asked him what he's going to do about it, and he said nothing, that there's no use in trying to resolve the problem.I don't know what your problem is, but I don't have time to talk about it right now-"
"WE HAVE BEEN VERY GOOD TO YOU" he said, interrupting, "So you better be careful who you talk to-"
"I beg your pardon!!" I said, not realizing that people in the theatre were starting to take notice.
"No!" he answered back, in his shitty, illiterate Canadian accent, "There is no pardon to beg, I'm a lawyer, you better be careful!"
And with that, my creepy landlord, who makes threatening phone calls in the evening hours, hung up on me.
I was so upset that I couldn't follow the details of how the US economy was set up to fail. And yet, I did hope that this would be the best Michael Moore film yet. SiCKO, was really promising, I thought this would be the coup de grace. But it wasn't quite. |
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| Reel Injun (Neil Diamond & Catherine Bainbridge, 2009) |
[Oct. 21st, 2009|09:45 pm] |
I got there twently minutes before the inaugural film of the ImagiNative Film Festival. I got in line which wrapped around the block down Albany Avenue. I love that feeling of not know if I'm gonna get into the film or not. That feeling of not knowing if people I know will meet me in time and the feeling of being caught in the energy of strangers' expectations. We got in and sat on the second balcony.
The movie was a documentary with a tame, made-for-TV feel which I imagine has a lot to do with its backing. Still, it's a good topic of discussion. I also thought it was funny and enjoyable that Nick Drake was on the soundtrack. |
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| Baadasssss Cinema (Isaac Julien, 2002) |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|01:03 pm] |
I have never seen bell hooks before. I've only ever read her. Her contribution was that academics and nostalgic film buffs project a lot of revolutionary meaning onto Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) after the fact, but that it was really just about money plain and simple. Someone once told me that what was brilliant and revolutionary about blaxploitation movies was the way they used stereotypes. That they were a put on. That Foxy Brown getting into a brawl in a lesbian bar is such a perfect image that ideologically deconstructing it would be useless. That some shitty, stereotypical images are just so great that to argue against them is a great constraint on oneself that should be avoided at all costs.
And what's with Tarantino? Can he calm the hell down? He gestures so frantically when he talks it's like he's flagging down a helicopter. Makes me nervous. Is it the coke? |
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| Pumping Iron (George Butler & Robert Fiore, 1977) |
[Sep. 29th, 2009|11:18 am] |
16mm film documentaries have a certain something that hasn't been recreated since the 50s when they were introduced. There's something sneaky and magical about the format that I can't quite put my finger on. It may be visual cues that I pick up from the vérité movement's *style* but there's also something in the constant focusing, lens flares, and movement. There's a warmth present in films like Les Raquetteurs (1958) or Don’t Look Back (1967) that I do not feel is present in something like An Inconvenient Truth (2006) or Up the Yangtze (2007). I think that warmth is a part of the format.
Pumping Iron points to a subdued kind of childhoood trauma, highlighting how phsychologically damaged many of them must be. Consider the eerie and troubling relationship between Lou Ferrigno and his overbearing, mono-maniacal father; or the fact that a lot of their fathers come from figures of authority - both Lou and Arnold's Dad's were police chiefs, one from Brooklyn (yike!) and one from fascist Austria (double yike!!).
I couldn't help but read the bodybuilding as a form of male rebellion. They highlight that many of them were indeed wimps as children and subject to teasing. This bodybuilding could be an outward way to combat the despair they feel living in a world that they cannot excert authority over otherwise. This rebellion makes me think of a not-so-obvious, but perhaps all-too obvious comparison: the punx!
Think about it: Pumping Iron is to bodybuilding what a film like The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) is to the punks. Butler and Fiore's masterpiece behooves us to compare them.
Here we go:
(1) Bodybuilders undergo intensive body modification such as muscular weight gain, tanning, and use of drugs to build body mass.
Punks also practice body modification in the form of piercing, tattooing, and use drugs - in their case to get fucked up.
(2) Body builders take pride in the ritual self-inflicting of pain, such as the multiple reps of heavy weights to build muscles.
Punks also romanticize pain and suffering. Take Henry Rollins who would brag about getting kicked in the head at shows, getting beat up by cops, or the fact that Black Flag even have a song called "Life of Pain".
(3) Both bodybuilders and punks experienced a golden age in California. |
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| Brüno (Larry Charles, 2009) |
[Jul. 26th, 2009|12:00 pm] |
I can't stand all this rain. It's neverending. I mean it's nice to have a day inside and just listen to music, but when you start to feel the seasonal blues set in at the end of July it's not a good sign. Between the garbage strike, the neverending cloud and rain, and the fact that I havn't had any time off yet I am basically ready to hulk out at the slightest mishap: late for the zine collective meeting, losing my metropass, getting rained out of brunch. And now this.
Melissa came by with her weekend pass (which two people can ride on the subway on weekends) and we got off at Bay Station and went to the Manulife centre where I didn't even know there was a cinema. It's sort of like The World Exchange in Ottawa.
At the end of the movie we walked all the way from 55 Bloor to the Annex. Stopped by the Transac but didn't see any live music. Stopped in the Greenroom, and then, after an hour or so, vanished into the night (i.e.: Bathurst Station).
In other news, this coming week is going to be my last full week of work before I am off for...forever! My contract is ending and I'm looking for work. But It'll be nice to have a tiny week or two off where I can start actually doing summery things. Maybe they'll be just one sunny day where I'm free and I can walk by the water in High Park, or go to the spit on my bike, or - if dog willing the strike ends with a fair contract for city workers and David Miller lets go of his perpetual hard-on for winning the hearts of suburban, right wing voters - go to the island and hang out on the beach. And I hate the beach. This is how summer deprived I feel. Gack! |
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| Between Resistance and Community...(Joe Carroll & Ben Holtzman, 2002) |
[Jul. 24th, 2009|11:53 pm] |
Probably the first film I've written about with a title so long it didn't fit in the Subject line: Between Resistance and Community: The Long Island Do It Yourself Punk Scene. It's remarkable how much raw enthusiasm and earnest idealism their video cameras captured. There were some really well spoken sequences. Was it a visionary choice or circumstance that caused it to end on a down-note? It's unclear. But in the end there was the unmistakable choking hand of adulthood that snuffs out all the bold pronouncements of the beginning.
I was uncomfortable with the notion of playing punk rock as a revolutionary act, or an act of resistance. But at the same time I was very amused when the band plugged their equipment into a strip mall parking lot power outlet in the middle of the night and filmed themselves getting shut down by the cops. I wanted to hug them all.
It would be great if every town and every scene had to make one of these. No one would live anything down. |
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| Godard in America (Ralph Thanhauser, 1970) |
[Jun. 19th, 2009|09:23 pm] |
I hope it's not a sign of aging that I find the frenetic, cinephile Godard more of a revolutionary than the revolutionary Godard. It bothered me when he dissed Antonioni. But as he walked the group through the notebook that would one day become Ici et ailleurs I was pretty stoked. His drawings and handwriting I recognise from Pierrot le fou. Very enjoyable.
I grew up in a bourgeois family and in order to escape it I went into show business which turned our to be an even bigger bourgeois family.
Although I liked the look of Thanhauser's 16mm photography I found that I didn't get a very useful picture of either Godard or the radical student movement in the states of that time. Just a glimpse. |
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| Untittled Who's Emma? Documentary (Lyndall Musselman, 2009) |
[Mar. 7th, 2009|09:13 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | documentary | ] |
| [ | music |
| | bonnie "prince" billy - for every field there's a mole | ] |
Lyndall came over and showed us an early cut of her upcoming doc about Toronto's legendary old collectively run space, Who's Emma?, that served as a book & record store, an all-ages venue, an activist space, and, perhaps unintentionally, a social experiment.
This was a great opportunity to learn a lot about the ambitions and though processes that went into the creation of this place and also the shifts and attitudes that lead to its demise. To describe the structure quickly and loosely it went down like this: Trent professor with Anarchist leanings and an appreciation for 90s hardcore a la Los Crudos and Born Against started up this idea for a space that would function collectively on anarcho punk principles. From initial meetings they decided on how the space would function with a non-oppressive structure including a day of the week in which the space would be a women's space only, a policy against carrying music by major labels, and (according to the doc, though I never saw any indication of this when I was there) a bartering system for trading music. Once with people and the ideas were I motion, according to the doc, Alan then stepped back and the space began to be recognized globally as a DIY anarcho punk destination in the pages of zines like Profane Existence (and a destination for a teenage Tops and myself who were loading up on sweet sweet punk rock vinyl).
So for a good chunk of the 90s there were years of rockin' shows, lively debates and dissemination of radical material. Lyndall draws on the history and geography of the Kensington Market as a significant home to the space. For one, it's close to where Emma Goldman lived in Toronto while in exile from the US. It's also has a long history of not only being home to various ethnic groups since the dawning of the 20th century, but also an eclectic place with a strong pedestrian vibe and a deep infestation of hippies and crusty punks. Here Alan's own 16mm footage of the market, taken during the 90s, is a wonderful contribution to the film.
With a thriving scene comes drama. It begins with a Drop Dead show in which someone brought their dog down with them to the show space. The band, hardcore vegans that they are, started shouting down the guy for being cruel to his dog. This is an example of the way in which the 90s anarcho punk scene, awesome and thriving as it was, could sometimes be so full of assholes. I mean the guy who brought his dog to the venue was clearly a jerk, no argument, but that the band took it upon themselves to humiliate and make an example of this guy in front of his friends was such a classic example of this overbearing and shitty nature of political hardcore punk of that era. I saw shit like that at Submission Hold shows where teenage punks would be too loud while they describe their songs and rather than deal with the situation diplomatically they decided to make a public example of the people and then, in a sick way, brought their politics into it saying that it was misogyny (not the booze apparently) that made them talk over Jen and Andy. "Some people" Jen said, "get really uncomfortable when they hear a woman speaking their mind." Never mind that it was a guy and a woman making all that noise. That made me sad. Not just because I really like Submission Hold (or Drop Dead to take the Lyndall's example) but because what would have made constructive exchanges really just came off like someone with a microphone making themselves feel good by tearing someone apart in front of their friends. That's kind of fucked up and oppressive in it's own way isn't it?
Back to the Doc. The following happened: people started ripping off the store. As it turned out, people stealing from the store were individuals who had keys to the space. A lot of the volunteers interviewed were pinpointing this as the beginning of the end. What is great in the doc is the debate and diverging of opinions surrounding Who's Emma? being robbed and the staff there calling the police. A former member of the collective recalls biking by and seeing the police outside of the store and being like, "oh my god, why are the police outside of Who's Emma? we have to get them out of there!!" and discovering to her surprise that they had actually been called by members of the collective. That was a great part.
In the end you get a sense that Who's Emma? was a utopian social experiment that eventually failed - betrayed by it's own community. Without being a total downer the doc points out that the culture fostered by the space grew into mass events like Active Resistance and groups like OCAP. Good stuff!!
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| The International Documentary Challenge (Various Filmmakers, 2008) |
[Feb. 13th, 2009|08:05 am] |
It was a free screening of short docs made mostly in Toronto last march. In particular I was there to see a documentary called Ghost Bike. Ghost Bikes are public monuments, basically in which members of the community strip down a bike, paint it completely white, and then lock it up at the site of a fatal bike accident in the city. The film is short, smart, and tasteful. It ends with a ghost bike being locked under an underpass which looked to me like Queen and Gladstone but I later found out was Dupont and Dovercourt - 30 seconds from my old apartment. |
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| Helvetica (Gary Hustwit, 2007) |
[Feb. 7th, 2009|09:10 pm] |
A straightforward doc that nonetheless has changed the way I look at my environment. Now the Helvetica jumps out at me wherever I go: in the TTC, on Bloor Street, on menus - everywhere! Helvetica pretty good at presenting strong, varying opinions about the font without ever ruling in favor of one or the other. |
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| Examined Life (Astra Taylor, 2008) |
[Jan. 29th, 2009|11:54 am] |
If I had to reduce this smart and simple film I would say that it's a collection of philosiphers giving different versions to the same question: is philosophy a search for meaning. They all resoundingly answer no and most are hostile to the very notion of "meaning" and "truth". And while it's novel to see Judith Butler just chillin' in San Francisco it was Cornel West who stole the show. When he said that someone at home reading Herman Melville is more alive than the people outside their car window who are walking around I thought 'yes! i'm not wasting my life completely. sweet validation!' "You just want to throw the copy of Moby Dick against the wall you're so damn alive!" |
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| My Winnipeg (Guy Maddin, 2007) |
[Jan. 9th, 2009|03:56 pm] |
City symphonies were popular in the silent era. They were a way for those who couldn’t afford to travel to distant places to experience places like London and Berlin in film. I think My Winnipeg should spawn a new type of city symphony: films about towns that tourists don’t go to. I want to see dozens of diaristic documentaries about places like Tallahassee, Florida; Cincinnati, Ohio; or – what the hell – Ottawa Canada!! Wouldn’t it be great it there was all these semi-fictional mythologies on film about dreary, medium sized towns where the people go neurotic with isolation. Then we’d all learn more about each other and about places far away that I can sort of relate to.
I was still getting over the flu while watching this so during that dreamy and intense silent sequence taking place in the Provincial assembly I was having trouble following what I was looking at or what it meant. I couldn’t tell if it was my spinning head or the rhythmic camera movements. But it looked pretty inspired. |
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| A.K. (Chris Marker, 1985) |
[Dec. 16th, 2008|11:18 am] |
This is remarkably similar to Wim Wender’s film about Ozu, Tokyo GA, a documentary in which a great filmmaker is making a film about another great filmmaker. Shot on the set of Kurosawa’s great Ran, it was illusion-shattering to watch hundreds of samurai getting suited up in their consumes, taking off their 80s, Nike sneakers, and putting on those two-toed ninja socks. As they cover their mullets with Darth-Vadar looking helmets we get to watch them walk on set against a backdrop of Hondas. So weird. I had seen a portion of this before. Mitsuyo-Wada, a professor of mine, played it in one of our classes. It was the segment about the earthquake in the 20s in which scores of Japanese were killed. Because there was rampant racism against Koreans in Japan at the time, they were blamed for causing the earthquake (!!!), and they were killed and thrown into the river by vigilante mobs. So amongst the death and destruction of the post-disaster city a young Akira Kurosawa – only 11 years old or something – is brought downtown by his older brother. Upset by the images of death he covers his eyes. But his brother forces him to look at the bodies. He says you have to look at it or else your life will be ruled by fear of it.
As this is being explained we watch Kurosawa – his crew call him sensei (master) - staging a scene that shows the aftermath of a large battle. Extras play dead on the fields of Mount Fugi, Mannequins hang from a castle tower. Kurasawa confesses that he hates blood.
My favorite part is when they spray painted an entire field gold in order to get a certain visual effect. Unbelievable.
It made me think about Ran which I think is one of Kurosawa’s most beautiful but pessimistic films. Like Thrown of Blood there’s this certainty that humans can only hurt one another. That war is like the weather, coming and going at its own will, apart from human concerns. And the people are ruined by circumstances plotted out for them by fate or something.
Yet Ran - An adaptation of King Lear, which I watched over and over again in one night as I tried to finish a paper due the next morning - has this one remarkable moment that really stuck with me. When the King Lear type character realizes his folly by banishing his most honest son (the Cordilia character) there is one tender moment when he is on the back of his son’s horse, reunited and able to have that moment of recapturing what he had lost. Of course it ends badly - in death and loss - but it's rare in all out tragedy to be allowed that instant of wellbeing, even if its temporary. And I can’t figure out of that makes it more or less sad. |
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| Don't Need You (Kerri Koch, 2005) |
[Nov. 3rd, 2008|09:53 pm] |
Baritone guitars exist! I had no idea until Amy alerted me to the fact that Corin Tucker of Heavens to Betsy / SK plays one. A week later I was in Long and Mcquade or whatever buying strings and they had a Danelectro.
Why wasn't I informed??
Also, how are they tuned? Is it C? is it B?
They are neat! |
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| Patti Smith: Dream of Life (Steven Sebring, 2008) |
[Sep. 30th, 2008|10:25 am] |
This was not bad. Apparently they made the film over a ten year span. I like that it isn't a nostalgia flick about CBGBs or the New York No Wave scene. It was werid how the film was intimate, but not. It begins intensly personal, with her voice over, and then later, you basically see what her influences are. In other moments she's very candid and un-icon like. For example the back stage scene where she is gushing about Don't Look Back and how she used to practice trying to hail a cab like Bob Dylan.
I learned that she was super close friends with Robert Mapplethorpe. In once scene she takes out some of his remains that she keeps in a small old container.
"A lot of people think remains are like ashes but it's not true. They're more like shells. They're beautiful actually. I like having him with me like this. I feel like can take him places and be with him."
In another scene she is doing her spoken word on stage and the images cut to her crouching at a grave site (Gregory Corso? Arthur Rimboud? William Burroughs?) and feeding a little cat from her pocket.
That was nice. Beyond nice, actually. |
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| No End in Sight (Charles Ferguson, 2007) |
[Sep. 6th, 2008|02:32 pm] |
I had to rewrite this. The original entry was too dark and bile-filled to post. I had just been watching the Republican National Convention and that sent me to a pretty dark place. I was basically despairing at the air of inevitability of a McCain/Palin victory even though by all rational considerations and all common sense (and probably in any other country in the world) Obama would be at least 20 points ahead of McCain. I hated listening to Palin's speech and realizing that more of us are like that than not like that. That more people see themselves in that rhetoric than not. Further The Globe did a poll last week showing that, in this country, if an election were held then Harper's conservatives are within arm's reach of a majority. To which I could only say, are you freaking kidding me???
It's exciting to have two national elections this fall but it's sad that we live in a hopelessly conservative environment. So basically, in my despair, I was advocating a nuclear holocaust to wipe all of humanity. As long as right wingers force the world to endure never ending war, torture and racism while attacking social security, healthcare and reproductive rights at least the world would be rid of the burden of humans.
But you can't say things like that and you can't think that. I was losing my mind. Yike!
No End in Sight is solid. It doesn't dwell on the oil motive except to say that after the invasion none of the Iraqi institutions were protected except the oil fields. But what was really affecting to me, on top of all the death and violence, was the way in which Iraq's national library and national museum were not protected after the fall of Baghdad. Looters were allowed into the national library and museum, stealing, trashing and setting things on fire. Ancient manuscripts, archaeological discoveries all gone forever. Tariq Ali suggests that it was deliberate. That it was the US's way of deeply demoralizing and humiliating Iraqi society: by destroying its national memory. But that's insane. What makes the US think that that's even remotely acceptable? The things in those institutions don't belong to the US or Iraq. They belong to the entire world. Could you imagine if Library and Archives Canada was left undefended and people from the streets could run in and steal everything in sight? Could you imagine someone attacking the Art Gallery of Ontario, the ROM or the Canadian Museum of Civilization just being attacked while curators stood by with no police or army to defend the artefacts? It's crazy. As someone who worked in national archives it made me sick. |
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| Sketches of Frank Gehry (Sydney Pollack, 2005) |
[Jul. 14th, 2008|01:35 am] |
I wanted to learn more about Gehry because he’s doing the renovation of the Art Gallery of Ontario and I’m not sure how I feel about his work. The film`s a really flattering portrait that only takes a cursory glance at the criticisms that his work attracts. Which is fair, I suppose, when you get a long time friend to make a documentary about you. Still, that’s the stuff that I wanted to know. If Gehry’s buildings don’t use local materials (as I’ve read) I wanted to know why or what he even thinks of that.
Gehry once said in an interview (not in ths film) that although he’s from Canada, he would not be the same person if he had stayed there, that it’s far too conservative architecturally. I don’t disagree with that statement, but if he’s so starved for architectural greatness then why does he live in LA?
This was more about his process, his development as an artist and his ego. And that was neat to see. But I`m still just as undecided about his work. |
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| Tokyo-Ga (Wim Wenders, 1985) |
[Jul. 3rd, 2008|12:26 pm] |
In 1980s Tokyo, there was this American-themed public park where teenagers would go decked out in 1950s and 60s rock outfits: mods and rockabilly. They go to great lengths to learn the dances and have dance offs. They walk around with combs and boom boxes blaring Bo Diddley and Link Wray. They are deadly serious about it.
Wenders wanders about Tokyo, finding little oddities and rituals. He’s looking to discover if anything of the Tokyo represented in Ozu’s films still exists. Through an almost melancholy documenting of streets, trains and pachinko parlours he only seems to uncover a sort of ritualized automation in Japanese society. He also has some standard, emotionally charged interviews with members of Ozu’s cast and crew.
I thought it was curious that there seemed to be no attempt to connect with Setsuko Hara who, to me, is the ultimate Ozu actor.
While wandering about Tokyo he runs into Werner Herzog and Chris Marker. The latter refused to show his face but had rudimentary computer printouts of images from his film, Sans Soleil which he had made two years earlier, and which is strikingly similar in tone and subject matter to Wenders’ film. |
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| Chambre 666 (Wim Wenders, 1982) |
[Jun. 3rd, 2008|11:18 am] |
Interviews with various directors, who of whom are asked the same single question regarding the future of cinema. The Directors range from Godard to Spielberg (I think that's the widest range that can be described in two last names). Godard is the most lucid and reflective seemingly reading prepared talking points. He mentions that in film the television aesthetic is taking over the cinema aesthetic. More and more today's directors all come from tv and music videos. A Judd Apatow film resembles a tv show with stronger language. I liked what he said about the language of advertising being similar to an Eisenstein film - as good as an Eisenstein film - but commercials use the language of Potemkin in less than a minute instead of 90 minutes, "otherwise they might have to tell the truth about the tennis racket, the truth about the car or the tennis racket."
Spielberg didn't exactly rush to Hollywood's defence, but he didn't accept the premise that the cinema is in danger. He did acknowledge the way that, since harder economic times, producers have made demands on films that have led to a decline in quality.
It was neat to see. Herzog and Antonioni were also interviewed. But it's really only interesting if you're really interested in the directors. The question is out-of-date. As McSorely said once, "does anyone call themselves filmmakers anymore?"
None of the directors mention the role of the spectator which I thought was interesting. This dimension of the question is nicely addressed in this article by Susan Sontag:
The Decay of Cinema (thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) murdermystery for posting earlier)
At any rate, it's all good. With like 100 years of cinema, there's so much to see from the past who cares that only a handful of exceptional films come out each year? It's all about the retrospective. |
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