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Diverting from the Zizane thing: The Kermode diatribe in the Guardian does raise some ideas about what is cinematic. Inconvenient Truth is Powerpoint, The Queen is television, Zizane is gallery video, Sin City is comic book (I suspect K might think Sin City was cinematic), Michael Moore is whatever... and so on. Each of these films may deserve or be worthy of criticism but hardly for sinning against the magic category of the cinematic. Kermode seems to dislike documentary cinema and wishes cinema was all Powell and Pressburger and Disney (Mary Poppins) etc (he cites an indiosyncratic and small set of examples of the cinematic). Godard (always a paragon of good sense) said somewhere something like a film can contain anything. I like the idea of film inspired by or quoting Powerpoint. (I wish 99% of Powerpoints were more cinematic). Why shouldn't a film be televisual. (Just what is televisual?) And just what is cinematic? This is a much abused term. Like narrative. Kermode uses it as a kind unspecified touchstone. Bad thinking, bad argument, bad journalism. Still, just as cinema can use the televisual, the Powerpoint, the CCTV, the comic strip, etc, etc etc we can use this peculiar concept of the cinematic. It has some currency, it does sort of refer to something. Ross * * 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. **