---- "Hrvoje Turkovic" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There are three things hard to swallow in Bill Flavell's
> post. First,
> limiting cinephilia to 35mm film and "art film".
Good point, Hrvoje! But my particular pwerspective is
of a person who wants to be a director in 35mm feature length
cinema, so I'm not concerned about the problems of the other
formats and media, particularly considering the sorry state
of film theory in the US, as I perceive it.
The specific films that pushed me "over the edge" in
terms of wanting to be a film director were The Discreet
Charm of the Bourgeoise (Luis Bunuel, 1972) and Pat Garrett
and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973), and one was an
"art film".
As far as difficulty in "swallowing" goes, I have difficulty
swallowing academic pseudo-intellectuals who claim to be
so inspired by the cinema, but haven't got the balls to
try and make a film.
And if one wants to become a durector, the focus shifts
to what stylistic areas you're going to explore, and you
can't afford to be so "egalitarian", particularly in the
US, where you have Hollywood to deal with.
> Second,
> limiting purist
> concept of "cinema specificity" to 35mm film and its
> postulated
> technical/perceptual characteristics.
35mm photographic narrative cinema has historical priority
and is the main focus of mainstream film theory, so it's
technical/perceptual characteristics are of primary importance,
in my opinion.
> Third, presenting
> cinephilia and
> cinema specificity as overlapping concepts.
Well, if cinematic specificity isn't an issue, then you
can read the screenplays or books and skip the films!
> As commonly understood, cinephilia mean love for film
> in all of its
> manifestations: in all of its formats (9mm, 8mm, S8, 16mm,
> 35mm, 75mm...),
> all of it's kinds (feature, documentary, animation, commercial...),
> in all
> of its historical styles (both for early primitve and
> late silents, for
> classical Hollywood movies, for European artistic movements,
> for avant-garde
> cinema...), and in all of it status varieties (both for
> mainstream cinema
> and marginal forms: independent, amateur; both for it's
> dilletante varieties
> and it's high art varieties...).
Well, I haven't got access to an Oxford English Dictionary
right now, so I can't check it. But I understand where you're
coming from. But, again, when you decide to actually make
films, you have to make concrete choices and come down from
the cinephilia la-la land.
> E.g. Nouvelle Vague critics
> and filmmakers
> were mostly of anti-purist orientation (cf. Andre Bazin),
> they started
> shooting in 16mm film (Godard), they loved primitive cinema,
> Hollywood
> commercial cinema, but put forward the ideal of personal
> art film...
> Cinephilia is typically not conceptually (nor in historical
> actuallity)
> connected with purism, though a cultist bent of cinephilia
> may resume weird
> forms.
Well, I'm not familiar with the history of the term,
and I don't read French, but it's my understanding that
"cineaste" was historically before "cinephile", wasn't it?
And I believe the term cineaste included those who wished
to actually make films.
> The question of "cinema specificity" has been mostly aesthetic
> (theoretical,
> programatic) postulat. It sprang out in asthetic contraversies
> during the
> days of silent film as a contra-argument against understanding
> of cinema as
> a minor, "derivative", "synthetic" sort of art (derivative
> on other arts:
> theater, fine arts...). The purist task was to point out
> those "specific"
> features of film (e.g. editing; viewpoint movements) that
> were considered
> "purely cinematic", not found in any other kind of art.
> Though purist were
> concentrated on the basic characteristics of "medium",
> they mostly dealt
> with reception (perceptual) effects (what and how we see
> what movie offers),
> and only secondary they dealt with the technical side
> (how particular
> perceptual effects were accomplished within the given
> technical conditions).
Well, I think the issue is even more important now with
the proliferation of "moving image" technologies.
> For surviving contemporary purist arguments cf. articles
> on film analysis by
> Vlada Petric. I do not know any purist discussion that
> counts 35mm format
> into "specific cinematic" features of film.
Well, as far as I know, the definition of cinema as it
first appeared is that of a 35mm film projected onto a screen
6to a group audience who paid admission to see the films.
Those are the criteria of the first Lumiere public screenings
that are heralded as the beginning of the cinema.
> (For an elaboration
> of the
> "specificity argument" cf. Noel Carroll article "The Specificity
> of Media in
> the Arts" in _Theorizing the Moving Image_, Cambridge
> U.P., 1996).
Yes, I'm aware of that moron's views, and one of my motivations
in writing the article in the first place was as a preamble
to an attack on those pseudo-theorists who deny the specificity
of the cinema altogether. That somebody that theoretically
clueless could be the most frequently published pseudo film
theorist in the US is beyond belief for me, and indicitive
of the sorry state of film theory in the US.
Yes, I'll eventually get around to Carroll, but he's
so far out in left field and insignificant, and there are
a lot more pressing problems to deal with, in my opinion.
Thank you very much for the response!
Bill Flavell
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