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FILM-PHILOSOPHY  2000

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Subject:

RE: Cinephilia and/or Cinematic Specificity

From:

"Bill Flavell" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

[log in to unmask]

Date:

Mon, 15 May 2000 09:22:27 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

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---- "Michael Chanan" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> While I agree entirely with the spirit of the criticisms
> of Bill Flavell's posting on cinephilia, there are one
or > two further points which could be made.

   Hi, Michael! :) Thanks for the response!

> To be sure, Bill's argument is thoroughly technicist,
> and lacking in any philosophical subtlety.

   That's an understatement! :)

> One of the problems with this is that it ignores the
> context of viewing, so my own reaction, for example, was
> that he is simply fetishising 35mm,

   That may be true, but I think that "fetishizing" is justly
deserved on historical grounds. The cinema at it's birth
was 35mm film, and the other formats appeared later. Also,
the most cinematically specific film theory concepts like
the politique de auteurs and mise en scene would not have
appeared if those involved were looking at 16mm prints of
the films that they saw.

   Plus, my cinematic "peak experiences" ocurred during
the screening of 35mm prints of filmd, not 16mm ones.

> and I say this because my own introduction to cinephilia,
after many years of cinema-going, was the school film >society,
which of course used 16mm.

   In the sense that you only saw the more interesting international
films in the school film society as opposed to commercial
35mm theatres?

> Nevertheless, I don't think Sean Delgado is quite right
> when he says 'My favorite film, `Day for Night' I have
seen projected (I assume 35mm), I have studied in school
(definitely 16mm) and I own on video. And it's always the
> same movie.'

> Yes, on one level this is correct. But on another, there
are indeed critical differences, and not just in the size
> and luminosity of the image. The soundtrack also counts.

   Very good point!

> 35mm ensures best sound (other things being equal). 16mm
sound is necessarily inferior. Video sound is different
> again: the technical quality of the recording is doubtless
equal to 35mm but not the sound reproduction system, because
it comes from a tinny little speaker with no 'depth' to
it, which fails to fill the space of viewing as it does
in the cinema. As Michel Chion has observed, this loss of
the plastic quality of sound in the cinema (a > space which
is acoustically adapted for the purpose)

   And is SPECIFICALLY designed for film viewing and film
viewing ONLY!

> when viewing on video is a major difference in the
> viewing context.

   Also the communal viewing experience in a commercial
theatre has very specific psychological dimensions which
do not occur during most 16mm or video screenings.

> Indeed unless you turn the sound up very high, you can't
> hear the soundtrack properly, and turning the sound up
> is not a happy solution because it's a form of distortion.
Nor is this problem overcome by preparing >special mixes
for video release.

   Very perceptive! I wasn't aware of that problem.
 
> Finally, a bigger paradox. The film you see depends, among
other things, on where you see it. Logically speaking, the
film is exactly the same wherever you watch it, but the
truth is that the film you see depends on where >that is.


   VERY true!

>Film scholars have long talked about the way that film
positions the viewer, but this is to talk of the situation
of viewing, the place which is occupied by the viewer positioned
 by the screen in front of their eyes (and
> ears). The projected image is the same, but the space
> between the screen and your eyes is different.

   VERY perceptive!

> I remember an experience I had years ago, when I saw a
> work of underground cinema, Carolee Schneeman's Fuses,
first on a large screen at the ICA in London, and then not
long afterwards, projected on the wall of her home at a
> party. I had not much liked it the first time, but very
> much the second, and it seemed very clear to me that this
was because of the kind of film it was: the neutral dull
space of the cinema deadened something in the image, which
> came alive on the domestic wall.

   Very interesting!

> So where does this fit in to accounts of cinephilia?

   Good question! :) I'm sure you'll get plenty of answers!
Great post! Thank you!

   This is getting good!

   Bill Flavell






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