Cineaste/cinephile:
If we are really talking about "everyday senses" of a word, which I take to
mean how a word is actually used in contemporary everyday speech, I deal with
English-speaking film people 365 days a year, from theorists to historians to
students to critics to reviewers (latter distinction intended), and the
overwhelmingly dominant usages of "cinephile" and "cineaste" (among the folks who
know how to write and talk, at least) follow the definitions I find in every
dictionary I check. The "corruption of language in its social use" is of course
something about which I feel some cognitive dissonance--the standard-bearing
side of me believes in upholding the vocabularies, grammatical rules, etc., that
I grew up with while the side of that's actually thoughtful realizes that
language can and must change, even when I don't like it, even when meaningful
distinctions are lost, etc. In any case, to claim that "Saying that a cineaste is
the same as a cinephile is like saying that mise en scene is the same as
montage!!" is an overstatement too preposterous to merit arguing with. (By the way,
mise-en-scene has hypens.) As for the "particularly...in the USA" charge, my
girlfriend is English and has a PhD in English from Oxford, and she thinks the
two words are such near-synonyms that the whole discussion is silly.
*
*
Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon.
After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to.
To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask]
For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon.
**
|