30 septembre 2012

Nuances in "Art Cinema" History


Because there is no such thing as ONE SINGLE MONOLITHIC BLOB called the "Art Cinema Tradition"!

Some of the genres, film movements, film styles, schools in cinema history (1895-2012) :

3D Cinema (USA) 1952- [timeline]
[Norman McLaren, Alfred Hitchcock, André De Toth, Jack Arnold, Paul Morrissey, Richard Fleischer, Stephen Low, Graeme Ferguson, James Cameron, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Ben Stassen, Robert Rodriguez, Bob Peterson, Steven Spielberg]

American Independent Cinema First Wave (USA) 1968?
[Stan Brakhage, John Cassavetes, Roger Corman, Jonas Mekas, Russ Meyer, George Kuchar, George Romero, Andy Warhol, John Waters, Frederick Wiseman]

ANIMATION (World) 1905-
[Segundo de Chomon, John Stuart Blackton, Emile Cohl, Lotte Reiniger, Noburo Ofuji, Robert Lapoujade, Enest & Gisèle Ansorge, Eliott Noyes, Ishu Patel, Norman McLaren, Jan Werkmajer, Ladislas Starevitch, Jean Painlevé, Jiri Trnka]

Anime (Japan) 1960-
[Osamu Tezuka, Yoshiyuki Tomino, Hayao Miyazaki, Toshiro Kawamoto,  Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon, Hideaki Anno]

Australian Film Revival / Australian Film Renaissance / Australian New Wave (Australia) 1971-1989 = 18 years
[Peter Weir, George Miller, Bruce Beresford, Gillian Armstrong, Ken Hannam, Fred Schepisi, Phillip Noyce, Tim Burstall, John Duigan, Brian Trenchard-Smith]

B Picture (USA) 1960-50 = 10 years
[Edgar George Ulmer, Joseph H. Lewis, Ted Tetzlaff, Allan Dwan, Don Weis, Jack Arnold, Jacques Tourneur, Nathan Juran]

BAROQUE 1954-
[Dario Argento, Raul Ruiz, Robert Aldrich, James Cameron] critic : Jean Rousset

Berliner Schule (Germany) 2000-
[Thomas Arslan, Christian Petzold, Angela Schanelec, Valeska Grisebach, Benjamin Heisenberg, Christoph Hochhäusler, Ulrich Köhler, Jan Krüger, Henner Winckler, Maren Ade, Sylke Enders, Maria Speth, Nicolas Wackerbarth, Henrike Goetz, Soeren Voigt, Matthias Luthardt, Ayse Polat, Stefan Krohmer]

Blaxploitation (USA) 1971-79 = 9 years
[Melvin Van Peebles, Gordon Parks, Kyle Onstott, Jack Hill, Jack Arnold, William Girdler, William Crain, Sidney Poitier, Oscar Williams, Michael Schultz, Sam O'Steen, Larry Cohen]

BLOCKBUSTER 1972-
[Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Bay, James Cameron]

Bollywood (India) 1970-
[Ashutosh Gowariker, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Mani Ratnam, Rakesh Mehta, Mira Nair, Chadha, A. Khan, Dutta, Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Rakesh Roshan]

Brighton School (UK) 1898-1904 = 6 years
[George Albert Smith, James A. Williamson]

British Social Realism (UK)
[John Boorman, Ken Loach, Joseph Losey, Nicholas Roeg, Ken Russell, Peter Watkins]

Budapest school / Documentarism (Hungary) 1969-1985 (1972-1984) = 16 years
[Dárday István, Szalai Györgyi, Ember Judit, Schiffer Pál, Tarr Béla, Gazdag Gyula, Elek Judit, Gyöngyössy Imre, Kabai Barna, Schiffer Pal, Darday Istvan, Vitezy Laszlo, Gyarmathy Livia, Gulyas Gyula, Gulyas Janos, Sandor Sara, Almasi Tamas, Istvan Gaal]

Burlesque 1910-29 = 19 years
[Max Linder, Fatty Arbuckle, Harry Langdon, Charles Chaplin, Mack Sennett, Harold Lloyd, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy]

CARTOON (World) 1892-
[Emile Reynaud, John Stuart Blackton, Emile cohl, Winsor McCay, Walt Disney, Max&Dave Fleischer, Berthold Bartosch, Mickhail Tsekhanovski, Hector Hoppin, Anthony Gross, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, William Hannah & Joseph Barbera, Norman McLaren, Paul Grimault, Ivan Ivanov-Vano, Walerian Borowczky, Wan Laiming, Ralph Bakshi, René Laloux, Youri Norstein, Jean-François Laguionie, Frédérick Back, Isho Takahata, Andrei Khrjanovski, Hayao Miyazaki, John Lasseter, Nick Park, Peter Lord, Brad Bird, Marjane Satrapi, Michel Ocelot, Sylvain Chomet]

Caligarism (Germany) 1920-27 = 17 years
[Karl Heinz Martin, Paul Wegener, Carl Boese, R. Wiene, Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, Paul Leni, G. W. Pabst, Karl Grüne, Lupu-Pick] critic : Henri Langlois, Lotte H. Eisner

Chambara / Jidaigeki / Samurai cinema (Japan) 1920s
[Daisuke Itō, Masahiro Makino]

Chanchada (Brazil) 1949-59 = 10 years
[Oscarito, Grande Otelo, Zezé Macedo, Zé Trindade]

Chaos Cinema (USA) 1999-
[Wachowski, Tom Twyker, Tony Scott, Paul Greengrass, Christopher Nolan, Jaume Balagueró, Darren Aronofsky, Marc Forster, Kathryn Bigelow, Michael Bay] Critic : Matthias Stork

Cinema da Boca do Lixo / Mouth of Garbage Cinema (Brazil) 1960-70s
[Carlos Reichenbach, Luiz Castelini, Alfredo Sternheim, Juan Bajon, Cláudio Cunha, Walter Hugo Khouri, Fauzi Mansur, José Mojica Marins] critic : Rogério Sganzerla

Cinema djidid / Algerian New wave (Algeria) 1967-
[Mohamed Bouamari, M. Lakhdar Hamina]

Cinema du look (France) 1981-1991 = 10 years
[Jean-Jacques Benex, Luc Besson, Leos Carax]

Cinéma du Québec libre (Québec/Canada) 1963-1980 = 17 years
[Gilles Groulx, Michel Brault, Arthur Lamothe, Pierre Perrault, Claude Jutra, Gilles Carle, Jean-Pierre Lefebvre, Denys Arcand, Francis Mankiewicz, André Forcier, Jean Beaudin]

Cinema Nôvo (Brazil) 1962-72 = 10 years
[Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Carlos Diegues, Joaquim Pedro de Andrad, Linduarte Noronha, Ruy Guerra, Leon Hirszman]

Cinema of Transgression (USA) 1984-1990 = 6 years
[Nick Zedd, Kembra Pfahler, Casandra Stark, Beth B, Tommy Turner, Richard Kern and Lydia Lunch]

Cinéma Pur / Absolute Film / Integral Cinema (France) 1924-29 = 5 years
[René Clair, Fernand Léger, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Germaine Dulac,  Man Ray] critique : Henri Chomette

Cinéma-vérité (France) / Direct Cinema (UK) 1959-
[Jean Rouch, Edgar Morin, Mario Ruspoli, Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, Michel Brault, Pierre Perrault, Chris Marker]

La Cinematografia Futurista / Italian Futurism (Italy) 1909-
[Arnaldo Ginna, Bruno Corra, Marinetti, Balla Chiti, Setimelli, Anton Bragaglia] critique : Canudo, Anton Bragaglia, Verdone, Dziga Vertov, Alberta

Cinématographe (France) 1950-1983 = 33 years
[Robert Bresson] critique: Robert Bresson

Classic Hollywood (USA)
[Frank Capra, Michael Curtiz, Victor Fleming, John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston, Ernst Lubitsch, Anthony Mann, Nicholas Ray, Preston Sturges, Raoul Walsh, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, William Wyler]

Comédie burlesque (Mexico) 1936-58 = 22 years
[Cantinflas, Tin Tan]

Comédie de mœurs (Mexico) 1936-58 = 22 years
[Pedro Infante]

Dadaïsme (Germany, USA, France) 1916-1925 = 9 years
[René Clair, Tristan Tzara, Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, Hans Richter] critique : Gianni Rondolino, George Sadoul

COMEDY 1913-
[Ernst Lubitsch, Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Sacha Guitry, Alexander Medvekine, Marcel Pagnol, Frank Capra, Luis Garcia Berlanga, Frank Tashlin, Billy Wilder, Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli, Otar Iosselani, Woody Allen, Ettore Scola, Blake Edwards, Roberto Begnini]

dGeneration (China) 2009-
[Huang Weikai, Zhao Dayong, Du Haibing, Xu Tong, Li Ning, Xu Xin]

Digital Cinema (USA) 1999-
[Michael Mann, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, David Lynch, James Cameron, George Lucas, John Lasseter]

DOCUMENTARY (World) 1895-
[Lumière, Flaherty, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Jean Rouch, Agnès Varda, Johan Van der Keuken, Raymond Depardon, Claude Lanzmann, Frederik Wiseman, Errol Morris, Werner Herzog]

Divismo (Italy) 1913-20 = 7 years
[Mario Caserini, Alberto Degli Abbati, Baldassare Negroni, Nino Oxilia, Carmine Gallone, Gustavo Serena, Giovanni Pastrone, Giuseppe DeLiguoro, Roberto Roberti, Amaleto Palmeri]

Dogme 95 (Denmark) 1995-2002 = 7 years
[Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, Jean-Marc Barr]

Ecole Russe de Paris (France) 1920-37 = 17 years
[Viatcheslav Tourjansky, Ivan Mosjoukine, Alexander Volkoff, Jean Epstein, Marcel L'Herbier, René clair, Jacques Feyder, Jean Renoir, Anatole Litvak, Fedor Ozep, Victor Trivas]

Egyptian Golden Age (Egypt) 1940-52 = 12 years

Escuela de Cuzco (Peru) 1961-
[L. Figueroo, E. Nishiyama, C. Villanueva]

ESPIONNAGE (World) 1915-
[Henri Fescourt, Henri Pouctal, Fritz Lang, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, George Wilhelm Pabst, Raymond Bernard, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Anatole Litvak, King Vidor, Raoul Walsh, Billy Wilder, Henry Hathaway, Jacques Tourneur, William A. Wellman, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Samuel Fuller, Carol Reed, Alfred Weidenmann, Ronald Neame, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Robert Aldrich, Terence Young, Guy Hamilton, Phil Karlson, Stanley Donen, Martin Ritt, John Huston, Michel Deville, Roman Polanski, Martin Campbell, Roger Spottiswoode, Paul Greengrass, Sam Mendes]

ESSAI FILM (World) 1922-
[Benjamin Christensen, Jean Vigo, Luis Buñuel, Joris Ivens, Nicole Védrès, Pierre Braunberger, Georges Franju, Marc Allégret, Alain Resnais, Chris Marker, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Federico Fellini, Marcel Ophuls, Orson Welles, Luc Moullet, Agnès Varda, Wim Wenders, Louis Malle, Michael Moore, Robert Kramer, Jean-Luc Godard, Romain Goupil]

Fifth Generation (China) 1983-
[Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Junzhao, Zhang Yimou]

Film Noir (USA) 1941-51 = 10 years
[John Huston, Edward Dmytryk, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Michael Curtiz, Edgar G. Ulmer, Charles Vidor, Howard Hawks, Jacques Tourneur, Orson Welles, Robert Wise, Nicholas Ray, William Wyler, Robert Aldrich]

FILMED THEATRE 1907-
[Marcel Pagnol, Sacha guitry, Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Jean Cocteau, Max Ophüls, Alf Sjöberg, Elia Kazan, Joseph Mankiewicz, Serguei Youtkevitch, Grigori Kozintsev, Ariane Mouchkine, Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, Manoel de Oliveira, Alain Resnais, Kenneth Branagh, Eugene Green]

Filmo Caligraffico (Italy) 1940-44 = 4 years
[Mario Soldati, M. Camerini, Luigi Chiarini, Renato Castellani, Fernandino M. Pogglio, Alberto Lattuda]

Films de Cangaceiro (Brazil) 1953-71 = 14 years

Found Footage Thriller (USA-Spain) 1980-
[Ruggero Deodato, Rémy Belvaux, Dean Alioto, Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Fred Vogel, Jaume Balagueró, Matt Reeves, Oren Peli]

Free Cinema (UK) 1952-1959 = 7 years
[Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson] critique : Alan Cooke, Richard Anderson, Gavin Lambert

Generation 56 (Czechozlovakia) 1956-
[V. Jasny, K. Kachyna, F. Vlacil]

German Expressionism (Germany) 1918-1926 (1920-1931) = 8 years
[Robert Wiene, Paul Wegener, Fritz Lang, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Georg Wilhelm Pabst, Paul Leni, Arthur Robison] Critique : Lotte Eisner, Siegfried Kracauer

Giallo - Gore (USA-Italy) 1963-1992 = 29 years
[Mario Bava, Dario Argento, H.G. Lewis, Andy Milligan, David Graham, J.G. Patterson, Jesse Franco, Ruggero Deodato, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, Joe D’Amato, G.A. Romero, Wes Craven]

Grierson School / Documentary Film Movement (UK) 1926-50 = 24 years
[John Grierson, Robert J. Flaherty, Basil Wright, Stuart Legg, Edgar Anstey, Arthur Elton, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt, David MacDonald, Humphrey Jennings, Stewart McAllister, Pat Jackson, John Eldrige]

Le Groupe des Cinq (Switzerland) 1969-1980 = 11 years
[Alain Tanner, Claude Goretta, Jean-Louis roy, Michel Soutter, Jean-Jacques Lagrange, Yves Yersin] critique : Freddy Buache, Michel Boujut, Christian Dimitriu

Grupo Cine Liberación (Argentina) 1962-1976 = 14 years
[Fernando Solanas, Octavio Getino, Gerardo Vallejo, grupo Realizadores de Mayo, Enrique and Nemesio Juárez, Pablo Szir]

Guerilla Film (World) 1971-?
[Melvin Van Peebles, Spike Lee, Gregg Araki, Darren Aronofsky, Shyam Madhavan Sarada, Albert Serra, Lisandro Alonso, Miguel Gomes, Raya Martin, Denis Côté, Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche, Vincent Gallo, Harmony Korine, Josh & Benny Safdie, Bruce LaBruce, Valérie Massadian, Terutarô Osanaï, Alex Ross Perry, Alessandro Comodin, Djinn Carrénard]

Hammer films (UK) 1955-74 = 19 years
[Michael Carreras, Terence Fisher, Freddie Francis, Tudor Gates, John Gilling, Anthony Hinds, Jimmy Sangster, Peter Sasdy, Harry Robertso]

Hays Code (USA) 1934-66 = 32 years

Hong Kong New Wave (Hong Kong) 1979-
[John Woo, Wong Kar-wai, Tsui Hark, Ann Hui] Jackie Chan, Ching Siu-Tung, Ringo Lam, Johnny To, Tsui Hark, Wong Kar Wai, John Woo, Corey Yuen]

Impressionisme (France) 1919-1929 = 10 years
[Gance, L'Herbier, Dulac, Delluc, Epstein, Vigo]

Indie Film 2nd Wave (USA) 1990-
[Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Joel and Ethan Coen, Todd Haynes, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Michael Moore, Alexander Payne, Steven Soderbergh, Quentin Tarantino, Gus Van Sant, Terry Zwigoff]

Internationale Situationiste (France) 1957-1962 = 5 years
[Guy-Ernest Debord, René Viénet, Gérard Cohen, Ngai Hong]

Iranian New Wave (Iran) 1968-
[Dariush Mehrjui, Abbas Kiarostami, Forough Farrokhzad, Majid Majidi, Mohsen Mahkmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, Samira Mahkmalbaf, Asghar Farhadi, Mohammad Rassoulof, Bahman Ghobadi, Rafi Pitts, Marzieh Meshkini, Reza Mir-Karimi, Hana Mahkmalbaf]

Italian neorealism (Italy) 1942-51-55 = 13 years
[Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Alberto Lattuada, Luigi Zampa, Aldo Vergano, Giuseppe De Santis, Luchino Visconti, Pietro Germi] Critiques: Cesare Zavattini, André Bazin, Freddy Buache

Italian New Wave (Italy) 1960-
[Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gillo Pontecorvo, Francesco Rosi, Valerio Zurlini, Ermanno Olmi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Marco Ferreri, Paolo & Vittorio Taviani, Ettore Scola]

J-Horror (Japan) 1960-
[Kyoshi Kurosawa, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Miike, Masaki Kobayashi, Nobuo Nakagawa, Takashi Shimizu, Kaneto Shindo, Sion Sono, Shinya Tsukamoto]

Kammerspielfilm (Germany) 1921-1929 = 9 years
[Paul Leni, F.W. Murnau, Karl Grune, Lupu-Pick, Paul Czinner, G. W. Pabst, E. A. Dupont, Carl Boese, Bruno Rahn, J. May]

KINO (Canada-World) 1999-
[Christian Laurence]

Kino-Pravda (USSR) 1920ies
[Dziga Vertov, Elizaveta Svilova, Mikhail Kaufman]

Kitchen Sink Realism (UK) 1955-69 = 14 years
[Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Ken Loach, John Schlesinger, Jack Clayton] critique : Lindsay Anderson, Nina Hibbin, Andrew Higson

Kynikós kinimatográfo (Greece) 2005-
[Yorgos Lanthimos, Athina Rachel Tsangari]

Korean Hallyu (South Korea) 1997-
[Kang Je-gyu, Kwak Jae-yong, Kang Woo-suk, Kim Ji-woon, Bong Joon-Ho, Hong Sang-Soo, Kim Ki-Duk, Lee Chang-Dong, Park Chan-Wook]

Lettrisme (France) 1945-
[Isidore Isou (Jean-Isidore Goldstein), Maurice Lemaître, Guy Debord (Hurlements en faveur de Sade), Gil J. Wolman, François Dufrêne, Marc'O]

Louis & Auguste Lumière (France) 1895-1905 = 10 years

MANNERISM 1960-
[Brian De Palma, Jean-Pierre Melville, Sergio Leone]

Georges Méliès (France) 1896-1913 = 17 years

Mélodrame à tangos (Argentina) 1933-42 = 9 years
[Libertad Lamarque, Hugo Del Carnil]

Mockumentary 1933-
[Luis Buñuel, Richard Lester, Orson Welles, Rob Reiner, Woody Allen, Jim McBride, Eric Idle, Peter Jackson, Larry Charles] critique : Jane Roscoe, Craig Hight

Movida (Spain) 1980-
[Pedro Almodovar, Iván Zulueta, Fernando Trueba, Fernando Colomo]

Mumblecore (USA) 2001-
[Andrew Bujalski, Lynn Shelton, Aaron Katz, Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass, Joe Swanberg]

MUSICAL 1929-
[Harry Beaumont, LeRoy, Grigori Alexandrov, Ernst Lubitsch, Busby Berkeley, Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, George Cukor, Rouben Mamoulian, Jacques Demy, William Wyler]

Musical Carnavalesque (Brazil) 1933-37 = 4 years
[Carmen Miranda]

Narcocinema / Videohome (Mexico) 1980s
[Jorge Reynoso, José Luis Urquieta, Alfredo Gurrola, Rubén Galindo]

New Argentinian Cinema wave (Argentina) 1991-
[Fabian Bielinsky, Israel Adrián Caetano, Pablo Trapero, Carlos Sorin, Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso]

New Documentary Movement (China) 1990-
[Wu Wenguang, Wang Bing, Li Hong]

New French Extremity (France) 1998-
[François Ozon, Gaspar Noé, Catherine Breillat, Bruno Dumont, Claire Denis, Patrice Chereau, Bertrand Bonello, Marina de Van, Leos Carax, Philippe Grandrieux, Jean-Claude Brisseau, Jacques Nolot, Virginie Despentes, Coralie Trinh Thi, Alexandre Aja] Critic : James Quandt, Jonathan Romney

New Hollywood / American New Wave (USA) 1967-1982 = 15 years
[Francis Ford Coppola, Arthur Penn, Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Peter Bogdanovich, Mike Nichols, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, John Schlesinger, William Friedkin, Michael Cimino, Woody Allen, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg]

New Queer Cinema (USA) 1991-
[Todd Haynes, Isaac Julien, Derek Jarman, Tom Kalin, Gregg Araki, Ang Lee, Bruce LaBruce, Gus Van Sant, John Cameron Mitchell] critic : B. Ruby Rich

New Sensitivity (Israel) 1971-
[Avraham Heffner. Ephraim Kishon, Moshé Mizrahi]

Nickelodeon (USA) 1905-13 = 8 years

No Wave Cinema / New Cinema (USA) 1976-1985 = 9 years
[Amos Poe, Vivienne Dick, John Lurie] critic : Marc Masters

Nollywood (Nigeria) 1992-
[Chris Obi Rapu, Chico Ejiro, Kingsley Ogoro, Zeb]

Nordestern (Brazil) 1925-96
[Tancredo Seabra, Abrao Benjamin, Fouad Anderas, Carlos Coimbra, Aurelio Teixeira, Paulo Gil Soares, Glauber Rocha, Carlos Mergulhao, Oswald de Oliveira, Eduardo Coutinho, Rosenberg Cariry, Lima Barreto, Paul Caldao, Lirio Ferreiro]


Noul val românesc / Romanian New Wave (Romania) 2004-
[Cristian Mungiu, Cristi Puiu, Cristian Nemescu, Cătălin Mitulescu, Radu Muntean, Corneliu Porumboiu]


La Nouvelle Vague (France) 1958-1963 = 5 years (1956-1965)
[Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette, Jean Rouch, Louis Malle, Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, Pierre Kast] critique : François Truffaut, JLG, Jean Douchet, Antoine de Baecque

Novo Cinema (Portugal) 1963-74 = 11 years
[Paulo Rocha, António de Macedo, Fernando Lopes, António da Cunha Telles, António Campos]

Nuevo Cine / Argentine New Wave (Argentina) 1959-
[F. Birri, L. Murua, M. Antin, D. J. Kohon, R. Magica]

Nuevo Cine Mexicano (Mexico) 1990-
[Arturo Ripstein, Alfonso Arau, Alfonso Cuarón, María Novaro, Guillermo del Toro, Jorge Fons, Antonio Serrano, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Carlos Carrera]

Nuberu Bagu / Japanese New Wave (Japan) 1956-1976 =  20 years
[Susumu Hani, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Yasuzo Masumura, Masahiro Shinoda, Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura]

Oberhausen generation / German New Wave (Germany) 1961-1971 = 10 years
[Volker Schlöndorff, Peter Fleischmann, Alexandre Kluge, Ferdinant, Khittl, Herbert Vesely, Edgar Reitz, Christian Rischert, Franz Josef Spieker, Jean-Marie Straub, Theodor Kotulla, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder]

Painted Film 1935-
[Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Stan Brakhage]

Parallel Cinema / Art Cinema / Indian New Wave (India) 1952-1976 = 24 years
[Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Bimal Roy, V. Shantaram, Chetan Anand, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shyam Benegal, Jahnu Barua, Bhabendra Nath Saikia]

Participatory cinema / Cinema 2.0 (World) 2006-
[Brett Gaylor, Matt Hanson, Nicolás Alcalá, Timo Vuorensola, Kevin Macdonald]

Peplum / Sword and Sandal (Italy) 1953-62 = 9 years
[Sergio Leone, Mario Bava]

Pinku eiga / Eroduction (Japan) 1962-82 = 20 years
Age of Competition / First Wave (Japan) 1962-71 = 9 years
[Satoru Kobayashi, Tetsuji Takechi, Seijun Suzuki, Kōji Wakamatsu, Kan Mukai, Kin'ya Ogawa, Shinya Yamamoto, Kan Mukai, Giichi Nishihara, Kōji Seki, Giichi Nishihara]
Roman Porno / Second Wave (Japan) 1971-82 = 11 years
[Teruo Ishii, Norifumi Suzuki,  Shunya Ito, Masaru Konuma, Tatsumi Kumashiro,  Noboru Tanaka, Yasuharu Hasebe]

Pluginmanifesto 2001-
[Jonathan Brann, Geert Wachtelaer] Critic : Ana Kronschnabl, Anna Notaro, mayoke, Simone Kurtzke

Poliziottesco / Italo-crime / Euro-crime / Italian crime films (Italy) 1968-1980
[Mario Bianchi, Alfonso Brescia, Enzo G. Castellari, Damiano Damiani, Alberto De Martino, Ruggero Deodato, Lucio Fulci, Marino Girolami, Romolo Girolami, Umberto Lenzi, Fernando Di Leo, Carlo Lizzani, Sergio Martino, Stelvio Massi, Giuliano Montaldo, Sergio Sollima, Duccio Tessari]

Polish School (Poland) 1955-1965 = 10 years
[Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Munk, Jerzy Kawalerowicz, Wojciech Has]

Poliziottesco / Italo-crime / Euro-crime / Italian crime films (Italy) 1968-1980
[Mario Bianchi, Alfonso Brescia, Enzo G. Castellari, Damiano Damiani, Alberto De Martino, Ruggero Deodato, Lucio Fulci, Marino Girolami, Romolo Girolami, Umberto Lenzi, Fernando Di Leo, Carlo Lizzani, Sergio Martino, Stelvio Massi, Giuliano Montaldo, Sergio Sollima, Duccio Tessari]

POSTMODERN 1990-
[Joel & Ethan Coen, Tim Burton, Oliver Stone, Jean-Jacques Beinex, Luc Besson, Quentin Tarantino]

Prague Spring / Czechoslovak New Wave (Czechoslovakia) 1963-1968 = 5 years (1962-1971)
[Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jan Svankmajer, Jiří Menzel, Frantisek Vlacil, Karel Kachyna, Jaromil Jireš, Jaroslav Papoušek, Jan Němec, Evald Schorm, Pavel Juracek, Jan Schmidt, Juraj Herz, Jiri Weiss, Jiri Krejcik, Zdenek Brynych, Vojtech Jasny, Hynek Bocan, Ladislav Rychman, Otakar Vavra, Zdenek Sirovy, Antonin Kachlik, Stanislas Milota]

Primitive Cinema (France-USA) 1895-1905 = 10 years
[Louis & Auguste Lumière; Thomas Edison; Georges Méliès; Edwin S. Porter; G.A. Smith; James Williamson; Feuillade]

Pure Film Movement (Japan) 1910-20s
[Eizō Tanaka, Masao Inoue, Thomas Kurihara, Kenji Mizoguchi]

Queercore (USA-UK) 1985-
[Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, John Waters, Vivienne Dick, Derek Jarman] Critic : G.B. Jones, Bruce LaBruce

Ranchera Comedia (Mexico) 1936-58 = 22 years
[Tito Guizan, Jorge Negote]

Ranchero Melodrama (Mexico) 1943-64 = 21 years
[Dolorès del Rio, Mario Félix, Pédro Armen Doriz]

Réalisme Poétique (France) 1922-1957 (1954) = 35 years
[Marcel Carné, Jacques Feyder, Jean Renoir, Jean Gremillon, René Clair, Anatole Litvak, Julien Duvivier, Claude Autant-Lara, Roger Leenhardt, Yves Allégret, Marcel Pagliéro, René Wheeler, Jacques Becker, Max Ophüls, Pierre Chenal]

Réalisme Sociale (France-UK) 1955-
[André Cayatte, Paul Carpita, Maurice Pialat, Claude Miller, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardennes, Ken Loach]

Remodernist Film (USA) 2004-
[Jesse Richards, Harris Smith, Peter Rinaldi]

Rive Gauche (France) 1950-63
[Marguerite Duras, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Henri Colpi, Jacques Demy, Agnès Varda, Jean-Pierre Melville] critique :  Richard Roud

ROAD MOVIE 1969-
[Hall Bartlett, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Bob Rafelson, Barba Loden, Monte Hellman, Wim Wenders, Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, Michael Cimino, Agnès Varda, David Lynch, Aki Kaurismaki, Abbas Kiarostami, Walter Salles]

SCIENCE FICTION 1902-
[Georges Méliès, Fritz Lang, Y. Protozanov, Robert Wise, Byron Haskin, Inishiro Honda, Don Siegel, Richard Fleischer, Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas, Ridley Scott, Andrei Tarkovsky, John Carpenter]

SCIENTIFIC FILM 1897-
[Dr Eugène Louis Doyen, Dr Jean Comandon, Jean Painlevé]

Sixth Generation (China) 1990-
[Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai, Zhang Yuan, Li Yang, He Yong, He Jianjun]

Socialist Realism (USSR) 1934-53 = 19 years
[S. & G. Vassiliev, Friedrich Ermler, Grigori Kozintsev, Leonid Trauberg, Efim Dzigan, Boris Barnet, Vladimir Legochine, Youli Raïzman, Alexandre Zarkhi, Yossif Kheïfts, Mikhaïl Romm, Mark Donskoi, Serguei Guerassimov, Alexandre Dovjenko, Lev Arnstam, Vsevolod Poudovkine, Mikhaïl Tchiaourelli, Adolf Minkin, Gerbert Rappaport, Sergeï Youtkevitch]

Soviet Montage (USSR) 1919-1930 = 11 years
[Dziga Vertov, S.M. Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Alexandr Dovjenko, Jacob Protazanov, Boris Barnet, Abraham Room, Lev Koulechov, Grigori Kozintsev] Critiques : S.M. Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Lev Koulechov

Soviet New Wave (USSR) 1962-68 = 6 years
[Andrei Tarkovsky, Mikhalkov-Kontchalovski, Paradjanov, Iosselani, Daniela, Klimov, Muratova, Panfilov]

Soviet Second New Wave (USSR) 1974-78 = 4 years
[Andrei Tarkovsky, Panfilov, Choukchine, Cheptiko, Guerman, Mikhalkov, Sokurov, Soloviev]

Soviet Parallel Cinema  / New New Wave (USSR) 1980ies
[Soloviev, Muratova, Sokurov, Kanevski, Longuine, Omirbaev, Karakulov, Lapouchanski, Pitchoul, Amirkoulov, Dykhovitchni]

Spaghetti Western (Italy) 1958-80 = 22 years
[Sergio Leone, Jesús Franco, Lucio Fulci, Sergio Corbucci, Sergio Sollima]

Superhero Franchise (USA) 1978-
[Richard Donner, George Lucas, Richard Lester, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, Alex Proyas, Joel Schumacher, Sam Raimi, M. Night Shyamalan, Ang Lee, Guillermo del Toro]

Surréalisme (France) 1930-1969 = 39 years
Breton [L'Age d'Or, Entr'Acte, Potemkin, Ombres Blanches, Buñuel, Mack Sennett, Chaplin... King Kong, Peter Ibbetson]; general [Salvador Dali, Luis Buñuel, Man Ray, Germaine Dulac, Petr Karl, La Perle (Georges Hugnet, Henri d'Arche), Fleurs Meurtries (Roger Livet), Records 37 (Brunius), Jean Vigo, Prévert, Wilhelm Freddie (Spiste horisonter), Marcel Mariën (L'imitation du cinéma)]; USA underground [Maya Deren, Curtis Harrington, Gregory Markopoulos, Kenneth Anger, Joseph Cornell]; Canada [Lipsett]

Taiwan New Wave (Taiwan) 1982-1990 = 8 years
[Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Chen Kunhou]

TEEN FLICK (USA) 1950-
[Elia Kazan, John Hughes, John Landis, Judd Apatow]

Tendency films / Left wing cinema (Japan) 1920-30s
[Kenji Mizoguchi, Daisuke Itō, Shigeyoshi Suzuki, Tomu Uchida]

Tercer Cine / Third Cinema (Latin America) 1960-70s
[Fernando Solanas, Octavio Getino, Raymundo Gleyzer, Jorge Sanjinés]

Tropicalisme (Brazil) 1968-72 = 4 years
[Nelson Pereira, Joao Pedro de Andrade, Walter Lina Jr.]

True Cinema movement (India) 1980ies
[Rajan Sarma] Critic : Rajan Sarma

Underground film / New American Cinema (USA) 1957-80s
[Stan Brakhage, Harry Everett Smith, Maya Deren, Andy Warhol, Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, Ron Rice, Jack Smith, George Kuchar, Mike Kuchar, Bruce Conner, Kenneth Anger, Carmelo Bene, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, Stephen Dwoskin, Paul Morrissey, Otto Muehl, Pierre Clémenti] Critic : P. Adams Sitney, Manny Farber, Jonas Mekas, Amos Vogel

Unspoken Cinema / Contemporary Contemplative Cinema (World) 1971-
[Chantal Akerman, Abbas Kiarostami, Fernand Deligny, Franco Piavoli, Darejan Omirbaev, Sharunas Bartas, Tarr Béla, Aleksandr Sokurov, Tsai Ming-liang, Pedro Costa, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Lav Diaz, Lisandro Alonso, Carlos Reygadas, Gus Van Sant, Fliegauf Bence, James Benning, Tacita Dean, Amat Escalante, Albert Serra, Govindan Aravindan] critique : HarryTuttle

Video Art installation (World) 1963-
[Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, Fred Forest, Peter Campus, Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Doris Totten Chase, Norman Cowie, Dan Graham, Joan Jonas, Bruce Nauman, Martha Rosler, William Wegman, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Domingo Sarrey, Juan Downey, Wolf Vostell, Slobodan Pajic, Wolf Kahlen, Peter Weibel, David Hall, Paul Wong, Lisa Steele, Colin Campbell, Miroslaw Rogala, Danny Matthys, Chantal Akerman, Akram Zaatari, Mireille Astore, Miranda July, Douglas Gordon, Martin Arnold, Matthias Müller, Lucio Fondana, Les Levine, Dennis Oppenheim, Charlotte Morman, Antoni Muntadas]

Yugoslav Black Wave / Novi Film (Yugoslavia) 1961-1972 = 11 years
[Dušan Makavejev, Živojin Pavlović, Aleksandar "Saša" Petrović, Želimir Žilnik, Miroslav "Mika" Antić, Lordan Zafranović, Mića Popović, Marko Babac]

WESTERN 1894-
[Thomas, H. Ince, J. Cruze, John Ford, Howard Hawks]

Wuxia / 武俠 / Kung Fu (China)  1966-
[King Hu, Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou, Chang Cheh]

Yeşilçam / Green pine (Turkey) 1950-70s
[Ömer Lütfi Akad, Osman Fahir Seden, Atıf Yılmaz, Memduh Ün,  Metin Erksan, Halit Refiğ, Duygu Sağıroğlu, Remzi Aydın Jöntürk, Nevzat Pesen]



And these are only the identifiable groups of filmmakers with a certain common affinity, it doesn't account for all the one-off films, the insular filmmakers, the oddities escaping all possible classifications...



Related :

11 septembre 2012

Serge Daney (Cinémathèque Française)


Serge Daney : 20 ans après 
(La Cinémathèque française; 20 juin - 5 août 2012)
Vingt ans déjà. Cela fait tout juste vingt ans que Serge Daney est mort. Il n'avait que 48 ans, laissant une véritable œuvre critique, un ensemble touffu de textes sur le cinéma, la télévision, la pub, le tennis, la vie politique. Textes critiques, textes théoriques, textes de journaliste et de voyageur. Il a marqué des penseurs contemporains comme de jeunes critiques en pleine activité aujourd'hui, mais aussi des cinéastes désireux de montrer leur film à un critique « voyant ». Sa pensée a été utile en son temps et à beaucoup de spectateurs. Vingt ans après sa disparition, il faut dire aussi comment et en quoi cette pensée peut servir aujourd'hui. 

Journée de conférences (22 Juin 2012)

Serge Toubiana : « Persévérance, in extremis »  32'
Serge Toubiana est directeur de La Cinémathèque française

Dialogue avec Patrice Rollet : « Éditer Daney » 35'
Patrice Rollet est membre du comité de rédaction de la revue Trafic depuis sa création, en 1991. Il mène l'édition la plus complète de l'œuvre de Serge Daney sous le titre La Maison cinéma et le monde, aux éditions P.O.L, dont le troisième volume paraît en juin

Charles Tesson : « La carte et l'écran : voyager et écrire » 36'
Charles Tesson est critique et ancien rédacteur en chef des Cahiers du cinéma. Il est actuellement délégué général de la Semaine de la critique.

Table ronde 1 : « Serge Daney, ici et ailleurs » 71'
Avec : Hervé Gauville (journaliste, Libération), Jean Hatzfeld (journaliste, Libération), Françoise Huguier (photographe, Libération), Olivier Séguret (critique, Libération)

Lecture de textes de Serge Daney, par Melvil Poupaud 22'
Dès l'enfance, Melvil Poupaud joue dans La Ville des pirates de Raoul Ruiz. Par la suite, il a tourné avec Jacques Doillon, Éric Rohmer, Arnaud Desplechin... En 2011, il a publié Quel est Mon noM ? (Stock) où il évoque son amitié avec Serge Daney.

Alain Bergala : « Penser "à mains nues" » 26'
Cinéaste, critique aux Cahiers du cinéma, enseignant à La fémis, commissaire d'expositions, Alain Bergala est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur Roberto Rossellini, Abbas Kiarostami et Jean-Luc Godard.

Stéphane Delorme (critique, Cahiers), Jean-Marc Lalanne (critique, Les Inrockuptibles), Jean-François Rauger (critique, programmateur), Axelle Ropert (critique, scénariste, réalisatrice), Olivier Séguret (critique)

Dork Zabunyan : « Daney-Deleuze : lectures croisées, écritures sous influence » 40'
Dork Zabunyan est l'auteur des Cinémas de Gilles Deleuze et co-auteur de Foucault va au cinéma. Il enseigne à l'université de Lille 3 et dirige, aux éditions Bayard, la collection « Logique des images ».

Pierre Eugène : « Daney à l'image, images de Daney » 31'
Pierre Eugène écrit pour Critikat et Art press. Il publie un texte : « Apparitions de Serge Daney » dans le numéro 82 de la revue Trafic (juin 2012).

Avec : Olivier Assayas (réalisateur), Claire Denis (réalisatrice), Jean Douchet (critique), Pascal Kané (réalisateur), Serge Le Péron (critique et réalisateur), Serge Toubiana (Cinémathèque)


* * *

Serge Daney, 20 ans après. Présentation par Serge Toubiana (14/06/2012) 8'
Serge Daney, 20 ans après. Présentation par Eva Markovits (12/06/2012) 9'


* * *

Films projetés lors de la rétrospective :

  • Amère Victoire - Nicholas Ray
  • Ana - Antonio Reis, Margarida Cordeiro
  • Au bord de la mer bleue - Boris Barnet
  • Autopsie d'un meurtre - Otto Preminger
  • Boat People/Passeport pour l'enfer - Ann Hui
  • Boy Meets Girl - Leos Carax
  • Cinéastes de notre temps - Jacques Rivette, le veilleur : le jour / la nuit - Claire Denis
  • Le Cinéphile et le Village / Conversation Nord-Sud : Daney Sanbar
  • Contes de la lune vague après la pluie - Kenji Mizoguchi
  • Damned Daney - 1 et 2 (1988) - Bernard Mantelli (vidéo 1-2-3
  • De l'autre côté du racisme - Pascal Kané
  • Di Cavalcanti / L'Âge de la terre - Glauber Rocha
  • Dodes'Ka-Den - Akira Kurosawa
  • La Dolce Vita - Federico Fellini
  • Du cinéma à la télévision, propos d'un passeur Serge Daney - Philippe Roger
  • El / Tourments - Luis Bunuel
  • En rachâchant / Trop tôt, trop tard - Danièle Huillet, Jean-Marie Straub
  • L'Enfance nue - Maurice Pialat
  • L'Enfant secret - Philippe Garrel
  • L'Etat des choses - Wim Wenders
  • La Femme d'à côté - François Truffaut
  • La Femme de l'aviateur - Eric Rohmer
  • Francisca - Manoel de Oliveira
  • Frontière chinoise - John Ford
  • Gertrud - Carl Theodor Dreyer
  • Ici et ailleurs - Anne-Marie Mieville, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin
  • Karkalou - Stavros Tornes
  • La Loi du marcheur - Nicolas Bouchaud
  • Mr Arkadin / Dossier secret - Orson Welles
  • Nuit et brouillard / Hiroshima mon amour - Alain Resnais
  • Pickpocket - Robert Bresson
  • La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV - Roberto Rossellini
  • Programme Artavazd Pelechian
  • La règle du jeu - Jean Renoir
  • Rio Bravo - Howard Hawks
  • Un roi à New York - Charlie Chaplin
  • Sayat Nova - couleur de la grenade - Sergueï Paradjanov
  • Serge Daney : le cinéma et le monde - Serge Le Péron
  • Serge Daney, itinéraire d'un ciné-fils, le regard du zappeur / le temps des cahiers / des cahiers à Libé  - Dominique Rabourdin, Pierre-André Boutang (prologuevidéo 1-2-3)
  • Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock
  • Toute une nuit - Chantal Akerman
  • Trafic - Jacques Tati
  • Travail au noir - Jerzy Skolimowski
  • Le Trou - Jacques Becker
  • Vers le sud - Johan van der Keuken





Voir aussi :

10 septembre 2012

Shortcomings of Subjectivity

... and the benefits of rational education, investigation, larger context, critical thinking and objectivity.
 



Why would you blindly trust your subjectivity???

People believe what they want to believe, not necessarily what is the most probable, or the most likely...
But sometimes things are a little more complicated than what they appear, or slightly different when you change your vantage point, or more complete when you take the time to reflect.

You gotta wonder why anybody would put so much blind faith into their own personal subjectivity as if it was infallible, unique to one single person, characteristic to one's personality, superior to universal knowledge, objectivity... while in fact, experience proves that EVERYONE falls for the same tricks of the mind, optical illusions, that we are slaves to our whimsical taste for random reasons, and entertainment relies on collective conditioning to get programmed responses from us (because that's how our system, our senses, our brains are built). Why on Earth would you reject culture, knowledge, science, technique, canons, standards, education... when your subjectivity is prone to manipulation (voluntary or not)? 

Entertainment is conceived to elicit predicted emotional responses in its audience. The fact that you respond strongly to certain cues is more indicative of an efficient job on the part of the creators than an intimate connection between you and the movie. What happens inside you is what your emotional capital allows to happen. The movie is merely the trigger there at the right place, at the right time.
The regular movie goer agrees to suspend disbelief, plays the game, falls for it, draws satisfaction from it, and asks for more. This relationship is purely subjective, and should remain that way.

But when you postures as a film critic, you CANNOT limit your "critical appreciation" at whatever you felt under the magic spell of dramatic manipulation... you need to snap out of it (possibly on second viewing), and observe from an outsider's perspective whether the tricks are fair or not to the viewer under dramatic hypnosis. Does a movie work only because it's impossible to escape its spell (i.e. hyper-editing that never allows you to judge your state of mind), or because its content is profound and its art is powerful? That's what a critic is useful for.
If you believe that a movie reviewer is only there to take the drug, get an automatic high, and tell everyone that this drug is the gate to Heaven... you're just another average movie goer, victim of marketing propaganda and dramatic manipulation. Everyone can do that if they are allowed to watch movies in advance and give that superficial feedback. A film critic is a little more special than that, or else the critic's opinion is worthless. Thus the importance of education, to bring an independent scrutiny to whatever filmmakers decide to put their audience through, to look through the tricks and ploys instead of blissfully falling for it without an ounce of evaluative ability.


Related :

08 septembre 2012

Forgotten Obsolete English Word #8 : Tradition

Tradition 
Origin : Middle English tradicioun, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French tradicion, from Latin tradition-, traditio action of handing over, tradition. First Known Use: 14th century
  1. an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom) 
  2. a belief or story or a body of beliefs or stories relating to the past that are commonly accepted as historical though not verifiable
  3. the handing down of information, beliefs, and customs by word of mouth or by example from one generation to another without written instruction
  4. cultural continuity in social attitudes, customs, and institutions
  5. characteristic manner, method, or style
Synonyms:
  • custom; culture, values; heritage, legacy
  • convention, rule, norm, principles, standards; form, mode; prescription
Source : Merriam Webster 

What is traditional is something fully structured, corresponding to an expected form, purposefully produced to fit in this identified norm.

The Avant Garde is against anything tradition represents! (contrary to what Matthew Flanagan was arguing with me during the Unspoken Journal preparation) There is no such a thing as an "Avant Garde tradition", it is obviously a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron. No artist from the experimental margin is trying to FIT IN any pre-established pattern, or repeat what their elders have established before them, nor do they want their work or body of work to be described as a conventional tradition. And they certainly don't want to see spawning a bunch of disciples turning their unique proposition into a serial assembly line production. What is experimental is meant to remain outside of the norm, and fail to become a tradition.

Surrealism is NOT a tradition, even if there might be a lot of wannabes who imitate the outer quircky look without understanding the particular unconscious process. 
Soviet Montage is NOT a tradition, even if it had a very structured teaching but a short-lived following. There is no apparent continuity perpetuating the tenets of Soviet Montage in today's cinema or any period following the disappearance of the few Soviet Montage filmmakers. If whatever gimmicks passed on to the MTV fast editing, it's a watered down, simplified version, one that doesn't deserve to bear the name of a legacy. A distant formal influence on the mainstream formula is far from being a tradition. When Nolan or Greengrass will edit their films like Eisenstein we'll call that a tradition... 
There is no tradition before or after Brakhage, or Kubelka, or Warhol, or Maya Deren... apart from the little affinity they develop around them, in a very limited circle of like-minded artists. There is a huge step between mere affinities and an established tradition.

This should be self-explanatory enough for anyone familiar with art history (even outside cinema).
There is one main branch in the history of all arts with trans-generational continuity and conventional tradition, where the mainstream develops, evolves and perpetuates. It's not necessarily the branch that innovates, invents, reforms the succession of fads and styles, on the contrary a tradition is rather conservative and protectionist with its own rules. Eg. : the tradition of classical narrative from antic tragedy to today's cinema.

Classical Theatre Tragedy => Classical Literature => Primitive cinema genre codes => Classical Silent Cinema => Classical Early Sound Cinema => Classical Hollywood Golden Age => Classical Genres =>  Classical TV dramas => Classical Blockbusters => Classical Franchises => Today's Classical Mainstream. THAT IS WHAT IS CALLED A TRADITION!!!

In the margin of the comformist mainstream, there are many sub-branches of various free-form explorations, without rules, without standards, without conventions, without imitation, without respect for the past... this is the frontline of formal invention. The links from one generation to the next, or from one precursor to successors is NOT one of a traditional transmission, but if we want to be more precise and nuanced, one of partial stylistic influence or bifurcation or secession or antagonism or revolution or tabula rasa that characterises the NON-TRADITIONAL evolution of marginal art-cinema (umbrella term for all the various shapes and forms of non-mainstream cinema).

What is the direct traditional ancestry leading to David Lynch? Harmony Korine? Charlie Kaufmann? Miranda July? Matthew Barney? Todd Solondz? Eugene Green? James Benning? Charles Burnett? John Cassavetes? They are not completely sui generis of course, some of them largely borrow from the basics of narrative cinema, even most of the film grammar issued from Classical Cinema... but this is the most elementary technical substrate common to almost anything shot on film, due to the specific constraints of the medium and how the best intuitive solutions have been implemented to communicate with an audio-visual audience. This is what makes cinema cinema. These basics do not define the classical nature of mainstream cinema.
The classical norms (5 acts structure, shots-countershots, formated screenplays, standardized shots, reaction shots, symphonic scores, star system, contrasted stereotypes, family-friendly themes, heroic triumph, lyrical escapism, taylored dialogue...) are what unite all films made under the classical tradition, and sets apart films not made to honor and perpetuate this tradition (and clearly the names cited above do not rely on these traditional cues, nor do they repeat models from other traditions so blatantly).
A traditional filmmaker makes sure to be identified as belonging to the codes of a certain tradition. When a filmmaker doesn't follow cues, hit the conventional marks, respect the genre, then (s)he doesn't try to abid to the tradition, doesn't want to fit in, doesn't seek for his or her body of work to be filed under a pre-existing tradition!

How do you demonstrate any kind of tradition before or after Robert Bresson? Jean-Luc Godard? Luis Buñuel? Jacques Tati? Chris Marker? Chantal Akerman? Marguerite Duras? Straub-Huillet? Leos Carax? Roy Andersson? Michel Gondry? or even between eachother? How could there be ONE SINGLE TRADITION, the so-called "art cinema tradition" represent and define the stylistic identity of each one of them, of all of them as a whole? These figureheads obviously represent their own stylistic branches of cinema, and few of them formed disciples who faithfully carried on the exact values of their master in order to build up and maintain its identity in a traditional transmission. Yet they end up scooped up in the same bag, one indifferentiated bag called "art cinema" (like what David Bordwell purports). Why?

What differences can you make in cinema history if you disregard probably the most obvious one separating the TRADITIONAL evolution of film form within the classical mainstream establishment, and the NON-TRADTIONAL evolution of MULTIPLE (sometimes incompatible) film forms developed in the margin of the dominant film grammar.


Related :


06 septembre 2012

French Critics Legacy 7

Michel Ciment (Positif) slams Nick James (Sight & Sound)
"Quelle mouche a piqué Nick James, le rédacteur en chef de l'excellente revue britanique Sight & Sound, qui, dans son éditorial de juillet 2012, se lamente sur l'état du ciné français ?  Dans une publication qui ne se caractérise pas par son esprit polémique (on est loin du sang chaud de la cinéphilie française!), le ton et les réserves ne manquent pas de surprendre. [..]
Certes l'abondance de la programmation dans les grands festivals ne permet pas d'avoir une vue d'ensemble, mais Le Grand Soir de Kervern et Délépine (primé à Un Certain Regard), Journal de France de Depardon et Nougaret, Camille redouble de Noémie Lvovsky, Adieu Berthe de Bruno Podalydès ont retenus l'attention de la presse internationale, sans oublier Thérèse Desqueyroux du regrété Claude Miller. De rouille et d'os, que Nick James n'estime guère, figurait dans les cinq films préférés du panel de critiques étrangers (dans Screen International) auquel il participe, tandis que Vous n'avez encore rien vu figurait très haut pour nombre d'observateurs. [..] Et si Nick James ajoute, pour faire bonne mesure, 'Je me demande si le désir de transformer des gens comme Haneke ou Kiarostami en réalisateur français ne se fait pas au dépens de jeunes talents locaux', on peut penser au contraire que cette ouverture sur le monde témoigne d'une cinéphile active et féconde. [..]"
Droit de réponse (editorial, Positif, n°619; Sept 2012)


Lire aussi:

04 septembre 2012

Misleading Choices and Pseudo Free Will (Iyengar)

Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing (TEDglobal; July 2010) 24'08"
Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices -- and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.
Sheena Iyengar studies how people choose (and what makes us think we're good at it).
We all think we're good at making choices; many of us even enjoy making them. Sheena Iyengar looks deeply at choosing and has discovered many surprising things about it. For instance, her famous "jam study," done while she was a grad student, quantified a counterintuitive truth about decisionmaking -- that when we're presented with too many choices, like 24 varieties of jam, we tend not to choose anything at all. (This and subsequent, equally ingenious experiments have provided rich material for Malcolm Gladwell and other pop chroniclers of business and the human psyche.)
Iyengar's research has been informing business and consumer-goods marketing since the 1990s. But she and her team at the Columbia Business School throw a much broader net. Her analysis touches, for example, on the medical decisionmaking that might lead up to choosing physician-assisted suicide, on the drawbacks of providing too many choices and options in social-welfare programs, and on the cultural and geographical underpinning of choice. Her book The Art of Choosing shares her research in an accessible and charming story that draws examples from her own life.

False assumptions :
  1. Make your own choices
  2. More options => Better choices
  3. Never say no to choice
* * *


Malcolm Gladwell: Choice, happiness and spaghetti sauce (TEDtalk; Feb 2004) 17'34"
Malcolm Gladwell : Detective of fads and emerging subcultures, chronicler of jobs-you-never-knew-existed, Malcolm Gladwell's work is toppling the popular understanding of bias, crime, food, marketing, race, consumers and intelligence.

Malcolm Gladwell searches for the counterintuitive in what we all take to be the mundane: cookies, sneakers, pasta sauce. A New Yorker staff writer since 1996, he visits obscure laboratories and infomercial set kitchens as often as the hangouts of freelance cool-hunters -- a sort of pop-R&D gumshoe -- and for that has become a star lecturer and bestselling author.

* * * 

Baba Shiv: Sometimes it's good to give up the driver's seat (TEDxStandford; May 2012) 9'48"
Over the years, research has shown a counterintuitive fact about human nature: That sometimes, having too much choice makes us less happy. This may even be true when it comes to medical treatment. Baba Shiv shares a fascinating study that measures why choice opens the door to doubt, and suggests that ceding control -- especially on life-or-death decisions -- may be the best thing for us.

Baba Shiv studies how “liking” and “wanting” shape the choices we make, and what that means in the world of marketing.

* * * 

Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice (TEDglobal; Jul 2005) 19'40"
Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

Barry Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. Lately, working with Ken Sharpe, he's studying wisdom.



Related :

02 septembre 2012

The Decline of the Hollywood Studios (France Culture)

LA SITUATION DU CINEMA AMERICAIN (Projection Privée; France Culture; 1er Sept 2012) [MP3] 1h

Roundtable on the state of American Cinema today

Avec : 
  • Jean-Baptiste Thoret (historien et critique cinématographique) 
  • Jacky Goldberg (critique cinématographique)
  • Philippe Rouyer (critique à Positif et Psychologies Magazine)
  • Stéphane Delorme (rédacteur en chef des Cahiers du Cinéma)
  • Michel Ciment (rédacteur en chef de Positif)

Filmographie citée :

Positif / Success  Négatif / Failures 
Newer :
  • J. Edgar (Eastwood)
  • Terri (Azazel Jacobs)
  • Keep The Lights On (Sachs)
  • Twixt (Coppola)
  • Dark Horse (Todd Solondz)
  • The Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Take Shelter (Nichols)
  • Mission Impossible IV
  • 4:44 Last Day on Earth (Ferrara) 
  • Damsels in Distress (Stillman)
  • Inception (Nolan)
  • Bug (Friedkins)
  • Magic Mike (Soderbergh)
  • Black Swan (Aronofsky)
  • Avatar 3D
  • Alice in wonderland 3D
  • Hugo 3D 
  • Wall-E
Older : 
  • Sex, Lies and Videotapes
Newer :
  • The Dark Knight Rises
  • Spiderman
  • John Carter
  • Battleship
  • Cars 2
  • Rebel
  • MIB3
Older :
  • Tarzan franchise
  • Steven Segal franchise
  • Heaven's Gate (Cimino)
  • The Sorcerer (Friedkins)


Key points :
  • Hollywood is in denial about the creative/financial crisis ($100 billion loss in the last 10 years)
  • Saturation of prequels, sequels, reboots, franchises...
  • Hollywood afraid to take risks, sterilized by Wall St.
  • Projects built on bank-ability, BO predictions, whatever the public wants
  • Failure of 3D 

* * *

Festival de Deauville (Mauvais Genres; France Culture; 1 Sept 2012) [MP3] 2h
avec : William Friedkin et Florent Emilio Siri
En ouverture de sa 15e saison, Mauvais Genres dressera ce soir son antenne à Deauville, riante cité normande où se tient la 38e édition du Festival du film américain (son directeur, Bruno Barde, ouvrira l'émission). Une édition à haute teneur en mauvais genres : ouverte par le "Mud" de Jeff Nichols, close par "Savages" d'Oliver Stone, elle recevra, outre Harvey Keitel et Melvin van Peebles, WILLIAM FRIEDKIN dont le dernier film, "Killer Joe", polar "white trash", sort le 5 septembre dans les salles. Friedkin ! Et les images d'affluer : la partie de bras de fer surnaturel avec geyser de bile, spiderwalk et sommier volant, entre la fillette possédée (Lynda Blair) et Father Merryn (Max von Sydow) ; Gene Hackman mettant fin, d'une balle dans le dos, à l'issue d'une poursuite automobile mythique, à la cavale new-yorkaise de Marcel Bozzufi ; la camion hanté de "Sorcerer" progressant dans la nuit glauque d'une jungle détrempée ; William Dafoe, le dandy faussaire, l'ange pervers de "Police Federal Los Angeles".




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