this is an interesting take JMC, but the point, if there was one, of what i
was saying was aiming at something like a distinction (albeit tenuous and
subject to the possibility of deconstruction) between the acts of writing
and of film. or perhaps the events of the two.
in a strict sense i would be less inclined to ever say 'film is never
writing'. i would argue that there is an asymmetry between the two that
doesn't simply lead us to some form of arche-writing in which everything is
dissolved in ever expanding concepts, something that I'm inclined to think
occasionally when reading Derrida. there is a sense in which we can always
write about film but think of trying to film about writing, not film the
writing, but film _about_ the writing. it would have a tendency to break
away from the writing to a greater extent than film-philosophy breaks away
from the films...its methods of manifestation are radically other than
writing.
in a simplistic sense I would always come at writing about film and
film-making itself as a relation between a major activity and a parasitic
theory/isation. film-philosophy obviously, like all writing around/about
film, is capable of interpenetrating film-making, though not in the way in
which you seem to suggest a script operates (i.e.: a script is never a
'blue-print' or a prior form which is then expressed). but the basic
relation, to use nietzschean categories, is one of an active (film-making)
towards a passive (writing about/around film-making) practice. that said
the writing plainly relates, even when around/about film, to more than
simply film and in that sense the writing may often become an active
practice, forming theoretical practices.
I think the big difference would arise around the statement that you make
that "all any artistic creation concerns is the articulation of an idea and
the bringing of that idea into being as a particular kind of media". if
anything I would suggest it is more useful to think of artistic activity as
centered on inarticulacies and inexpressibles. I think this relation is
more dominant than one of 'writing': think, for example, of the difficulty
of paraphrasing a poem. the inarticulable affect of the artwork may be
mapped across conceptual fields but does that say anything about the
artwork's singularity as an artwork? does it even breach the very fact of
the inarticulable that resides in (many or any?) artworks.
at the end of the day though, you can never write a film. you can of course
write scripts, treatments, synopses and proposals, pitches and press
releases, persuasive rhetoric and fantastic notes, intricate theory and
subtle dialogues. none of that is of any real importance to the fact that
the film itself is what is made, not a filmic writing, in exactly the same
way, perhaps, that iron is smelted from ore, though fire, earth and water.
metal is never fire. earth is never water. writing is never film.
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----- Original Message -----
From: JMC <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2000 12:59 AM
Subject: matt lee says, "writing is never film"
> matt lee says, "writing is never film"
>
> From a creative perspective is this statement true? Yes. It's absolutely
> true. You can always use the creative process as the act of realization.
You
> can always build a house without a blueprint--at least in those parts of
the
> country that don't require blueprint approvals and waivers to changes in
> plans. So, can you have a film without writing--so long as you separate
> writing from idea generation and/or the historical process of film
creation.
> From a legal, historical, political, economic perspective is it true that
> "writing is never film"--no. That is, can you have your film without a
> script--probably not in Hollywood. You're not likely to get funded. The
> script thereby becomes historical and legal evidence--a plan. So, in the
> sense of putting a film together, the film is not about writing at all,
but
> in the historical/cultural sense all any artistic creation concerns is the
> articulation of an idea and the bringing of that idea into being as a
> particular kind of media. In other words, if you can produce a film
without
> a scipt--or in a more fundamental sense, without an idea about (the)
> film--your film may have escaped "writing." After all, the usual questions
> are, "How did you produce this piece without a plan? What were you trying
to
> do?"
>
> For film, the script seems to be considered its primary articulation--take
> the recent endeavors to redo certain Orson Welles movies. Whether or not
the
> script or the shot box resembles the film is another matter. Such
scholarly
> research involves a process whereby a particular idea can be preserved in
> its trace (see Coleridge's "Kubla Khan"). I appreciate the research and
> think it can reveal some interesting history, but I find the philosophy
> behind this research nonsense--why should I ever believe or care that I'm
> seeing the Real film that Orson wanted me to see? I just want to watch a
> good movie--don't I?
>
> After watching films about books, people almost always defer to the
book--I
> think this practice is ridiculous. Derrida, of course, had the insight
into
> our understanding of truth--our truth, in the Platonic sense, is that
which
> came first. Everything else is a misrepresentation--we have a heavy bias
for
> authorial intent So it is that the idea is pure, the scripting of the idea
> may be close, but the film will never live up to the idea. Do matters have
> to be this way? No. Yet the scholarly question is often, "which film?"
> usually followed by "whose film?" or "which version" (cut . . .)--the bias
> behind these questions is sometimes legal, sometimes historical, but more
> often than not Platonic. That is, the modern-day Platonists believe that
> their theory better represents film than film itself can. So film theory
> takes primacy over film making. That's the claim that philosophers and
> scientists have historically made. Why should this idea seem new--because
> it's termed "writing"? You can have film philosophy whether or not you
have
> film, but you won't have film without somebody giving you advice.
>
> JMC
>
>
>
>
>
>
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