>>To assume that some films are better or worse suited
>>to analysis is ludicrous - all films are better or
>>worse, simple or complex, illustrations of certain
>>attitudes, politics, philosophical positions, beliefs,
>>theories, strategies...
i suppose i'm astonished that this still needs to be
hashed out . . . of course all films can be analyzed . . .so
can all objects or events . . . and if you're interested in
what a film [or a shoe or a piece of cake] tells you
about attitudes, values, politics, strategies, customs,
and so on then the difference between a good shoe
-- one that makes walking comfortable or one that fits
well or one that looks nice, etc. -- and a bad shoe is
quite irrelevant except as part of your findings
but for most people -- and even [dare i say it] for most
scholars of cinema a lot of the time -- the thing that makes
any film worth analyzing in the first place is the idea of
it or the sense of it as having value, as being what we
conveniently call a good film . . . and there's no doubt that
some films are better than others, though they may -- like
shoes -- be evaluated on a variety of scales
of course the idea that a film is great is the starting point,
not the there-is-nothing-else-to-say conclusion of so much
popular reviewing . . . but, pray, why spend time examining
crap when there is greatness to be mined?
mike
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