I am interested in classical Hollywood cinema because it is bound to
conventions in a specific way - it is making the world visible, it gives
us the possibility to be interested in the world revealed not in the
process of revelation.
Cavell says about post-classical cinema in Hollywood and Europe in the
60s that it is more focused in the presentation of a film style, making
us aware of the modes of representation, than in the representation of
the world.
A cliché is exactly a cliché for the the reason that it, unlike a
convention, turns our attention to the fact that this is a
representation of the world
I have problems with Deleuze because he seems to be ignorant of the fact
that Godard and film parodies like Naked Gun may conincide in their
preference for the telling and not the told (although I know that good
Godard films go far beyond a Brechtian deconstruction of film conventions).
I think it's important to note that films which follow conventions are
interesting because they grant the viewer a specific blending of
idenitification/distance.
Therefore, I disagree with Bordwell and the concept of intensified
continuity. The films just don't feel like they were interested in the
world the way classcical Hollywood cinema was.
I was mentioning Eric Rohmer in this thread as a filmmaker creating
films which are irritating because they are almost provokingly
conventional Eric Rohmer says that a film image should not mean but
present, because in film we have spoken words to mean something,. Of
course this is meant as provocation, because Rohmer is highly conscious
of what he is doign and the films have a very complex film style, but
similar to Hawksian cinema, it is difficult to notice the film style. I
also think, that Alain Resnais has turned out to be experimenting with
conventions of narrative cinema lately in a very interesting way.
Herbert
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