30 mai 2011

French critics legacy 4

Dave Kehr: "The studios aren't distributing anymore, it's not on TV anymore... [..] But when you realise how much films were made in that period, and how many are actually in circulation, it's pretty startling. Very tiny percentage. Mostly it's the Oscars pictures. And that's what's gonna survive unfortunately. And I don't think that's what represents the best of what came out of Hollywood. And the same for Germany, Italy, France, Japan... We just have the very surface of the stuff that is accessible. [..]
The one thing that America has never done and that the French did very early on, was to move beyond movies as nostalgia. Here, home videos have always been pitched to people who remembered these movies when they were kids. And as that audience dies out, those films go out of circulation because we never moved to that next stage: works of art are interesting in and of themselves, not because they evoke nice days of our youth. [..]"

Dave Phelps: "The culture they are preserving is American culture. Paris has devoted 3 or 4 small cinemathèques that show different classical Hollywood films every day. [..]"

Dave Kehr: "The French also have a huge back lot of stuff they're not seeing. Pierre Chenal, Henri Calef... and another couple of dozen people who worked in the 20ies, 30ies, 40ies who were really major [sic] interesting filmmakers, of which nothing is on commercial distribution. And maybe you can see some of it in museums..."

Dave Phelps: "So if France is keeping a lot of our culture, maybe we should be [doing the same for them]"

Dave Kehr: "That would be nice! I don't think we're going to be returning that favor anytime soon... [..] But France is the only country that has a huge archive that is supported by tax money. Every ticket you buy, there is a percentage that goes to the CNC, and that preserves their film culture. French film culture, of course, but they also have an awful lot of American film culture, that they are slowly repatriating to the Library of Congress, UCLA... We should have a program like that. The new facilities at the Library of Congress are the best in the world, and it's a gigantic collection of movies. And we're preserving more and more stuff, it's just that we can't see it, movies don't come out of the vault. [..]
It's also a byproduct of the 60ies where we all learnt that our feelings is what really matter, not so much the objects, just the expression of it. I love that movie, I love it, but why? And they can't explain it. But it's not important to them. It resonates on some level. How is it affecting ME. Is it boring? It's not about the movie anymore... [..]"
Source:

What's going on? The American Film Critic Society recently lifted the embargo on French Culture or what? Is it not frowned upon anymore to mention France, to praise French critics? It's about time American culture is starting to compare itself with something else than America.
The next step will be to stop being fatalistic about it, and try to put faith in the idea that it is POSSIBLE to change the system imposed to your limited, conditioned sheep consumption, with some efforts and some commitment. You can't always rely on the French to preserve and analyse American films for you. An heritage you later appropriate like if you invented it on your own while snubbing French critics.




Related :

28 mai 2011

Stanley Kubrick (La Cinémathèque) 2

Dès le début de son œuvre, Kubrick s'est démarqué des styles hollywoodiens dominants, privilégiant la recherche de la singularité et de la nouveauté. C'est ainsi qu'il élabore son odyssée de l'espace, destinée à révolutionner la science-fiction. Nourri de plusieurs films des années 1950, qu'il améliore techniquement, 2001 puise dans les registres des cinémas expérimental et scientifique, comme dans la musique classique, avec l'idée, a priori paradoxale, d'un grand spectacle sidérant en Cinerama.
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Bruno Dumont parle de Stanley Kubrick
Bruno Dumont on Stanley Kubrick
28 avril 2011 (La Cinémathèque) 13'43"
A l'occasion de la rétrospective et de l'exposition Stanley Kubrick à la Cinémathèque française (jusqu'au 31 juillet 2011), le cinéaste Bruno Dumont parle de son rapport au cinéma de Kubrick, de la vision qu'il s'en fait et de l'influence qu'il peut exercer.
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Jan Kounen parle de Stanley Kubrick
20 avril 2011 (La Cinémathèque) 6'15"
A l'occasion de la rétrospective et de l'exposition Stanley Kubrick à la Cinémathèque française (jusqu'au 31 juillet 2011), le cinéaste Jan Kounen parle de son rapport au cinéma de Kubrick, de la vision qu'il s'en fait et de l'influence qu'il peut exercer.

Voir aussi:

25 mai 2011

Urbanisation galopante (Jayasundara)

A travers l'histoire de deux frères, Chatrak questionne l'urbanisation galopante de l'Inde. Le premier, architecte, est à la recherche du second, parti vivre en ermite dans les bois du Bengale.
Vimukhti Jayasundara, ancien lauréat de la Caméra d'or, n'a pas eu peur de proposer un récit qui ne devient vraiment accessible qu'à mesure que le film avance. D'après lui, la gravité des questions qu'il pose sur son pays justifie de demander au public un petit effort de compréhension aux spectateurs.
Le réalisateur estime d'ailleurs que le cinéma indien est uniquement tourné vers le divertissement, et donc trop uniforme. Le monopole de Bollywood empêcherait ainsi d'évoquer au cinéma des questions essentielles dans l'Inde d'aujourd'hui.

24 mai 2011

Pratiques du cinéma dans le monde (France Culture)

Se faire une toile : pratiques du cinéma dans le monde
(France Culture, 17-19 mai 2011) 1 - 2 - 3

Alors que le festival de Cannes a débuté la semaine dernière et que tout le monde a les yeux rivés sur les toiles - c'est-à-dire sur les films  eux-mêmes, nous allons aujourd’hui décentrer notre regard et nous tourner vers la salle, vers le spectateur. En quoi le cinéma est-il un fait social? Dans quelle mesure peut-on parler d'une fonction intégratrice de la pratique cinématographique? En quoi cette pratique diffère-t-elle en fonction des contextes culturel? Autant de questions que nous poserons à notre invité du jour, le sociologue de la culture Jean-Marc Levaretto, professeur à l'université Paul Verlaine de Metz et directeur du Laboratoire lorrain des Sciences Sociales. Nous aurons également au téléphone pour nous éclairer sur la pratique cinématographique en Iran Hormus Key et Agnès Devictor.

Aujourd'hui, nous nous intéressons au cinéma dans la cité. Quels rapports - sur le plan économique et social - le cinéma entretient-il avec la collectivité? Financements, infrastructures (multiplexes ou salles d'art et d'essai), prix de l'entrée...Autant de problématiques sur lesquelles nous nous penchons ce matin avec notre invité Laurent Creton, professeur à l'Université de Paris III Sorbonne Nouvelle et directeur de l'Institut de recherche sur le cinéma et l'audiovisuel (IRCAV). Nous retrouverons aussi le journaliste Baba Diop et Luc Damiba, le co-fondateur du Festival Ciné Droit Libre, avec qui nous évoquerons la disparition progressive des salles de cinéma au Sénégal et au Burkina.


Deux pays, deux cultures au sein desquelles le cinéma tient une place bien particulière...Aujourd’hui, nous consacrons notre rendez-vous à deux immenses industries cinématographiques du Sud : Bollywood et Nollywood ! Nous parlerons du mode de production du cinéma indien et du cinéma nigérian et des enjeux spécifiques de ces deux industries. Avec nous ce matin pour en parler : Pierre Barrot, journaliste, ancien attaché audivisuel de l'Ambassade de France au Nigéria et Emmanuel Grimaud, ethnologue ayant travaillé sur les studios de cinéma à Bombay.


 Voir aussi:

Hypnoses, émotions, animalités (Bellour)


Une œuvre parlée : Raymond Bellour
Le coprs du cinéma: hypnoses, émotions, animalités
23 février 2011 (centrepompidou) 1h23'

Dans le cadre de l'exposition au Centre G. Pompidou (16 février - 7 mars 2011): Aether de Christophe Keller, De la cosmologie à la conscience

23 mai 2011

Formatisation globalisante

  • les versions russes et coréennes du film hollywoodien Gulliver's Travels (2010/Rob Letterman/USA) a rapporté presque 4 fois plus que les recettes sur le marché américain. Le film n'aurait pas été rentable sans l'exploitation à l'étranger. 
  • Dans les 10 dernières années, les ventes de billets ont augmenté d'1/3 aux USA, et doublé dans le reste du monde (IHS Screen Digest).
  • Les ventes de DVD aux USA déclinent.
  • 2007, les films américains ont rapportés en Russie 2 fois plus que les films russes. En 2010, les films américains ont rapportés en Russie 5 fois plus que les films russes!
  • Le gouvernement chinois, protectioniste pour le cinéma national, a limité l'importation de films étrangers à 20 par an. Moins de concurrence entre films étrangers = plus de bénéfices pour les films projectés (Hollywood principalement). 

Alexis Ipatovtsev: "Le journal The Economist résume l'affaire, pour qu'un film aie un véritable succès commercial partout dans le monde, il faut que l'action se passe à l'étranger, que les méchants et les gentils soient de culture différente, et qu'on parle plusieurs langues dans le films. Les grands et bruyants spectacles voyagent le mieux. La globalisation du marche du cinéma profite surtout aux grands studios, mais pas parce qu'ils font de bons films, mais parce qu'ils sont les seuls a avoir des capacités d'extraire tous les revenues possibles de leur production. Leur machines de marketing global sont supérieures, tout comme leur capacités d'enticiper les goûts des étrangers." (Frontières, France Culture, 23 mai 2011) 5' [MP3]

22 mai 2011

A.I. (Chauvin)

A.I. Intelligence artificielle tient une place singulière dans l’oeuvre de Spielberg. Véritable mise à nue de ses obsessions, sonde proustienne au coeur de l’enfance, jamais film du cinéaste n’aura porté la douleur à un tel point d’incandescence. La beauté d’A.I. vient de cette rencontre entre un matériau intime et une vaste odyssée de science-fiction. 

21 mai 2011

International Film Festivals (stats) 1

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Source:
  • FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations) [PDF]


Related:

20 mai 2011

Masterclass Costa Gavras

"Toute ressemblance avec des événements réels, des personnes mortes ou vivantes n'est pas le fait du hasard. Elle est VOLONTAIRE". En ouvrant son film Z en 1969 avec cette phrase, Costa-Gavras donne le ton de ce que sera son cinéma, une arme qui dénonce. S'attaquant à la dictature des colonels en Grèce (Z), au stalinisme (L'Aveu), ou au coup d'état du général Pinochet (Porté disparu), il a su garder sa liberté de parole en toute circonstance, que ce soit à Paris ou à Hollywood.
Aujourd'hui président de la Cinémathèque française, Costa-Gavras revient sur plus de 50 ans de carrière pour le plus grand plaisir des spectateurs du Forum des images.

19 mai 2011

Palme d'Or de la meilleure conférence de presse

Michel Seydoux (producteur): "Alain [Cavalier] a carte blanche. Il me dit 'je vais faire ça'. Je dis 'faites'. Et moi je me débrouille. Prochain rendez-vous [9 mois plus tard]. Je m'occupe de mon problème économique. Et lui a carte blanche, économie libre. Et c'est comme ça qu'on travaille depuis 11 ans, 12 ans. Ça a toujours été l'inconnu avec Alain, mais on a une telle confiance, qu'on se comprend. Et après j'essaie que tout ça aie un sens économique, que ça se passe en douceur, qu'il n'y aie pas de problème de production, que la liberté d'artiste soit totale. Mon rôle est d'offrir une liberté et de trouver les solutions économique qui vont entourer le film."
Alain Cavalier : "Il faut donner l'impression que c'est comme à la cuisine. comme une conversation dans une cuisine pendant le repas. C'est à dire familier, aisé, juste, pas trop long, pas ennuyeux... [..] Imitation de la vie. Rien n'est posé. Ça n'est pas fait d'idées  générales, c'est fait de choses courantes, liées au moment où l'on vit."
Vincent Lindon : "Alain m'a influencé sur une chose. Un jour, Alain me disait 'sur un film normal, dit tourné de façon normal, je me suis rendu compte que ça ne pouvait plus fonctionner avec moi. Qu'il y avait quelque chose entre l'actrice et moi. Avec tout ce maquillage, ces répétitions, ces plans de travail... où on me demande tous les matins d'avoir tel ou tel talent, d'être obligé de fournir tous les jours 20 plans, 17 plans par jour... C'était trop pour moi.' "
conférence de presse pour le film d'Alain Cavalier : Pater (2011/France) [video 48'09"]
avec Alain Cavalier, Vincent Lindon, Michel Seydoux

Sans langue de bois, sans auto-promotion, sans fausse-modestie, direct, honnête, et radical.
Un film réellement INDEPENDENT, petit budget, ambition raisonnable et maitrisée, replaçant la création cinématographique au centre du projet, sans se soucier d'argent, de style standard, de tradition, d'académisme rigide, d'organisation optimale de la production... Expérimenter et naviguer à vue, en corrigeant au fur et à mesure, pour laisser le film se développer organiquement, sans contraintes exogènes (non-artistique, non-cinématographique).
Un petit cinéma artisanal que l'obsession du box-office à enterré il y a trop longtemps!



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Interview subversive de Vincent Lindon contre la promo
Juin 2011 (AlloCiné) 17'06"

14 mai 2011

Mandarins vs Philistines (Bordwell)

"In most arts, academic study isn’t considered the enemy of journalistic criticism. [..] When it comes to cinema, though, the relations are cool, even adversarial."
Academics vs. Critics. Never the twain shall meet: why can't cinephiles and academics just get along? David Bordwell (Film Comment, May 2011) 
He's talking about the climate in the USA of course, which is a particular combination of anti-intellectualism, fear of alienating oneself from the gut reactions of the crowd and the guilty conscience of enjoying cinephilia. American critics have the phobic anxiety to be perceived as "objective" or "intellectual". American scholars have the repressed guilt of infusing their love of cinema into their object of clinical studies. I guess the Grand Theory chiasm is typical to American ambivalence. There is so much useless drama around the repressed subjectivity of film students who want to be accepted in academe through self-important jargon. 
You don't see such extreme polarisation in French culture... There is a gap between common reviewers and actual researchers, each side acknowledges their territory of competency and their incompatibility but they use eachothers and communicate to exchange ideas (even when it fails). In fact French film scholars come from cinephilia (which is something American scholars tend to forget). Delluc, Epstein, Mitry, Desnos, Malraux, Artaud, Blanchot, Debord, Metz, Duras, Lyotard, Foucault, Debord, Deleuze, Bellour, Rancière, Badiou, Nancy are unapologetic cinephiles! French intellectuals are not afraid to admit their cinephilia, or their guilty pleasure, they don't shy away from hermeneutics and evaluation.  
This topic seems to be a recurring concern for Bordwell, and I'm glad because it's worth repeating until the futility of such arguments stops clouding the general film discourse. This is an abstract categorization though. Evaluation and subjectivity might be the casus belli between actual film studies and actual film criticism, but what worries me more is the dissemination and misappropriation of such theoretical arguments into the lowest planes of film discourse. Pseudo-academics and wannabe reviewers appropriate and abuse this conflict, in order to somehow validate their participation to film culture, while they are neither scholars nor critics. It's not because somebody positions oneself in the objective/subjective war that it makes him/her a critic or a scholar. The impression of holding and defending a position replaces for some people the importance of discipline and ideas. What is destroying film culture is the infiltration of posers and other impostors at institutional levels, in the film press, in academic circles... And the main reason is that either nobody pays enough attention to notice the B.S. published everywhere, or, which is worse, that a pervading complacency lets such counterfeit arguments be for the sake of putting out content and mutual friendly encouragements. These types of irresponsible practices make the academic vs. journalist gap seem trivial.

A more pressing issue than the academic vs. cinephile debate to oppose Grand Theory, is to reflect on the nature of their incompatibility. The reason why Semiotics, Reception Studies, Gender Studies, Cultural Studies failed assimilation to Film Culture, is precisely because they deal less with cinema itself than with a broader theory or abstract concepts across general culture in its globality. Semiotics is to cinema what grammar is to Literature, or chromatology to Painting. Reception studies is hardly specific to cinema, and could indifferently apply to Theatre, Literature or Pavlov. Gender studies is a socio-cultural issue, again spanning across all arts and media indifferently. Knowing the building blocks of words (Literature) or colors (Painting) or chords (Music) is important to acquire a general understanding of the technique, but doesn't inform the production of aesthetic meaning resulting from the artist's use of such generic technique.

I see Cultural Studies as being a subset of Sociology, using movies as a statistical sample, on the other hand I see Aesthetics as the only academic studies dealing with what makes cinema an art, treating films as artistic statements. The controversy is whether you consider cinema as an ethnological evidence for the study of mankind or as the contribution to the history of the Arts for the study of Cinema itself. There is no wrong answer, but your slant will make your writing relevant to Cinema or to another domain of interest outside of and larger than cinema (Humanities, Sociology, Economy, Epistemology, Philology...) That's why there is no possible reconciliation. Academics from Cultural Studies are observing ideological phenomena AROUND the consumption of cinema as entertainment, OUTSIDE of the Arts.

You don't understand the place of La Joconde in the Arts by surveying visitors at Le Louvre, observing under the microscope its canvas, or contemplating whether Mona Lisa was a dude... Unfortunately that's how Cultural Studies are treating Cinema, as a commodity consumed by pigeon-holed shares of a demographic.

Bordwell is wondering why there is a gap between cinephiles and academics... I think it is a moot point. If it doesn't take away precious time from the serious study of Great Cinema (classics and contemporary), film scholars may study whatever they fancy! Be it Humanities or Economy or the Star System or Movie posters or trade newspaper or gossips... as long as any of this is NOT put in the same box as Cinema Art, just because it is remotely related to film production. Scholars don't need to seek the approval of auteurists or cinephiles...
That's the real problem today: anybody can write any bullshit about some movies and it will insidiously infiltrate Film Discourse, and sometimes pass as "serious criticism" just because it is a subversive way of looking at a B-movie that everyone else ignored. Turning lowbrow entertainment into highbrow film studies is a very very marginal share of cinema history, it doesn't happen every year! It's not because one blockbuster becomes socially relevant worldwide for a couple months that it has become an instant classic. I wish film discourse (contrary to humanities) had prospects with longer terms than that.

Bordwell: "[..] the auteur tradition never studied in detail how the Hollywood system worked. Suspending evaluation allows us to ask questions that aren't simply factual but have broader implications. The standard story about the early 'evolution of film language' has been shown over the last 30 years to be at best an oversimplification and at worst inadequate. But scholars had to look beyond the few classics of Griffith, Chaplin, and DeMille to what now realize to be a great diversity of creative choice."
The purpose of "Authorism" (or "Auteur Theory") is to look at films (possibly as part of a body of work or œuvre) from the perspective of the film director (most likely scenarist-director). It is self-limited in scope and in its object of study, by definition. It doesn't study ALL films, only those made with the implicit intention to create an œuvre (recurrent theme, trademark style, obsessions, original mise en scène). Not all films fit this criterion, especially not most early films. It is very selective by nature, not only in the titles studied but in the specific, narrow aspects of a larger production. So it seems OBVIOUS why the study of an industrial economical infrastructure like the "Hollywood system" is not part of the "auteur tradition", no? It's like blaming a biographer of Honoré de Balzac for not mentioning once the complete history of Gutenberg's movable type printing... Some academics study the infrastructure, other academics study the art. To each his own job. He said that as if the "auteur tradition" had the responsibility to write the TOTAL HISTORY of cinema (including non-auteurist productions), and failed. This said, I believe that in the 50ies, the so-called "auteur tradition" studied more seriously the "Hollywood system" than any American academics or critics, if only as a starting point for further investigations.
Second point : Isn't it a bit presumptuous for historians to base a comprehensive understanding of the average production of silent cinema on what amounts to 20% of leftovers from that period? About 80% of nitrate prints have been destroyed or lost! At this rate, it's more like archeology based on sparse fossils found in the soil by chance. Do you think we would KNOW about the cinema of the XXIst century if we only watched 20% of the current production? Oh wait, this is about as much of world production (including Hollywood production!) that is actually screened in commercial theatres in the USA...

"The prototypical cinephile piece in effect answers a question like this: “What distinctive qualities of this film can I detect, and how do they enhance our sense of its value?” The prototypical academic interpretation would be answering something like: “What aspects of the film are illuminated by my theoretical frame of reference?” I think, however, that we academics can make progress in understanding cinema if our questions are more specifically and self-consciously formulated." Academics vs. Critics. Never the twain shall meet: why can't cinephiles and academics just get along? David Bordwell (Film Comment, May 2011) 
"Film criticism lies at the centre of nearly all intellectual discourse about the cinema, and if we take criticism to be an effort to know particular movies more intimately, it probably deserves its prime place. But contemporary film criticism is failing. In academic venues, it mostly grinds Movie X through Theory Y, in the hope that somehow the exercise will yield political emancipation." Backpage: Against Insight David Bordwell (cinemascope, #26, 2006)
This sounds great. And then, when he reviews a minimalist, contemplative film he exemplifies himself the very shortcomings he criticizes Academia for : inadequately grinding random films through his classic theories of transitions with a film like What Time Is It There? (David Bordwell, The Hook: Scene Transitions in Classical Cinema, January 2008), or his classic theories of editing with a film like The Shaft (Three from Palm Springs, 16 Jan 2009), or his classic theories of staging for an undefined "slow cinema" (The Cross, David Bordwell, 1 June 2010) or his classic theories of suspense with a film like Le Quattro Volte (No suspense? David Bordwell, 11 April 2011; see my comment here), instead of adapting to what the specific stylistic of the film requires, and trying to understand what distinguishes classic narratives from minimalist narratives. What is the point of knowing so much about Cinema History if it's to treat recent films as if they had been made 70 years ago?

"Less obvious is the overlap between cinephile criticism and what I’d call middle-level research." David Bordwell (Film Comment, May 2011) 
More on "middle-level research" if you read his 1996 book :

"This 'middle-level' research asks questions that have both empirical and theoretical import. That is, and contrary to many expositors of Grand Theory, being empirical does not rule out being theoretical.
The most established realms of middle-level research have been empirical studies of filmmakers, genres, and national cinemas. [..]" Post Theory, reconstructing film studies (Carroll/Bordwell, 1996)


Hopeful parting thought:
"Academics have more elbow room to study how those qualities came into being, how they work together, and what roles they play historically and culturally. Academics can also contribute new ideas that critics on the front lines can try out. Readers who enjoy cinephile criticism should sample the academic work that stays close to the sensuous surface of a movie. Meanwhile, academics should recognize how cinephile criticism can alert us to the movie’s unique identity. Perceptive appreciation and analytical explanation can enhance one another."
Amen.



Related:

50 SiC

50ème anniversaire de la Semaine de la Critique (Festival de Cannes)
écoutez : Projection Privée, Michel Ciment (France Culture, 14 mai 2011) 59' [MP3]
avec:
  • Jean-Jacques Bernard (journaliste et réalisateur, Président du Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma et de télévision),
  • Jean-Christophe Berjon (délégué général de la Semaine Internationale de la Critique) et
  • Charles Tesson (critique et historien du cinéma)
Jean-Jacques Bernard: "C'est une concurrence et une stimulation [avec la selection officielle de Cannes]. noublions pas que si le festival de Cannes n'existait pas dans son ampleur, dans sa magesté - premier festival du monde - la Semaine de la Critique n'aurait pas cet éclat. C'est parce qu'il y a un grand festival ici qu'il y a une grande semaine de la critique. L'un et l'autre s'adossent constament."

Quelques découvertes des premiers films selectionnés par la SiC :
  • Jacques Rozier (Adieu Philippine, 1962)
  • Chris Marker (Le Joli mai, 1963)
  • Denys Arcand (Seul ou avec d’autres, 1963 et La Maudite galette, 1972)
  • Bernardo Bertolucci (Prima della revoluzione, 1964)
  • Jerzy Skolimowski (Walkover, 1965)
  • Dusan Makavejev (Man is not a Bird, 1966 and Love Affair, 1967)
  • Jean Eustache (Le Père Noël a les yeux bleus, 1966 et La Rosière de Pessac, 1969)
  • Jean-Marie Straub (Nicht Versöhnt / Non réconcilié, 1966 et Chronique d’Anna Magdalena Bach, 1968)
  • Ousmane Sembene (La Noire de…, 1966)
  • Robert Kramer (En marge, 1968 et Ice, 1970)
  • Otar Iosseliani (La Chute des feuilles, 1968)
  • Philippe Garel (Marie pour mémoire, 1968)
  • Fernando Solanas (L’Heure des brasiers, 1969)
  • Barbet Schroeder (More, 1969)
  • Alain Tanner (Charles mort ou vif, 1969)
  • Ken Loach (Kes, 1970)
  • Paul Morrissey (Trash, 1971)
  • Victor Erice (The Spirit of the Beehive, 1974)
  • Benoît Jacquot (L’Assassin musicien, 1975)
  • John Sayles (Liana, 1983)
  • Leos Carax (Boy Meets Girl, 1984)
  • Amos Gitai (Esther, 1986)
  • Idrissa Ouedraogo (The Choice, 1987)
  • Tran-Anh Hung (La Femme mariée de Nam Xuong, 1989 CM)
  • Wong Kar-Wai (As Tears Go By, 1989)
  • Arnaud Desplechin (La Vie des morts, 1991)
  • Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux et André Bonzel (C’est arrivé près de chez vous, 1992)
  • Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, 1993)
  • Jacques Audiard (Regarde les hommes tomber, 1994)
  • Kevin Smith (Clerks, 1994)
  • Andrea Arnold (Milk, 1998 CM)
  • François Ozon (Une Robe d’été, 1996 CM et Sitcom, 1998)
  • Gaspar Noé (Carne, 1991 CM et Seul contre tous, 1998)
  • Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores perros, 2000)
  • Neil Jordan (Not I, 2000 CM)
  • Bertrand Bonello (Le Pornographe, 2001)
  • Bill Plympton (Eat, 2001 CM)
  • Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know, 2005)
  • Arturo Ripstein (Los Heroes y el tiempo, 2005)

La Semaine de La Critique célèbre sa 50e édition lors du prochain Festival de Cannes. Pour célébrer cet anniversaire, la Semaine, qui se consacre depuis ses débuts en 1962 à la découverte de nouveaux talents en présentant des premières et secondes œuvres du monde entier, met à l’honneur les personnalités qu’elle a révélées. Avec ces témoignages filmés, la Semaine rend hommage aux réalisateurs et comédiens ayant débuté dans cette section en partageant les souvenirs de 50 ans de premières fois cannoises. Ces vidéos, réalisées par un journaliste critique ou par les cinéastes eux-mêmes, donnent la parole aux réalisateurs.
Abel & Gordon; Hany Abu-Assad; Karin Albou; Marie Amachoukeli; Jacques Audiard; Aida Begic; Alain Bergala; Bernardo Bertolucci; Julie Bertuccelli; Christoffer Boe; Bertrand Bonello; Claire Burger; Adrian Caetano; Grégoire Colin; Carlos Diegues; Jean-Pierre Daroussin; Guillermo del Toro; Anaïs Demoustier; Fabrice du Welz; Claude Duty; Inès Efron; Patrik Eklund; Pablo Fendrik; Esmir Filho; Marina Foïs; Anne Fontaine; James Franco; Shira Geffen; Amos Gitaï; Arturo Goetz; Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu; Romain Goupil; Otar Iosselani; Benoît Jacquot; Thierry Jousse; Anna KArina; Marin Karmitz; Etgar Keret; Agnes Kocsis; Lee Chang-dong; Pierre Lhomme; Jean-Pierre Limosin; Ken Loach; Paul Morrissey; Greg Mottola; Johannes Stjärne Nilsson; Anna Novion; Martin Piroyansky; Lucia Puenzo; Jacques Rozier; Nicolas Saada; John Sayles; Alo Simonsson; Fernando Solanas; Judith Henry; Keren Yedaya.



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Reprise des 7 films en competition à la Semaine de la Critique à Paris (La Cinémathèque Française) du 3 au 6 juin 2011.

Related:

11 mai 2011

Cahiers-Cannes

Stéphane Delorme : "[..] le Festival est devenu le rendez-vous absolu à la fois des meilleurs films et de l'industrie, une suprématie qui ne va qu'en s'accentuant. [..] Mais combien de films seront écrabouillés dans l'étau entre septembre et novembre ? On doute fort qu'un effet « rentrée littéraire » soit favorable à la distribution. [..]  Embargo sur la compétition [..] Les Cahiers se retrouvent donc à se caler sur le rythme précis imposé pour Cannes. [..] L'an prochain, faudra-t-il refaire un dossier spécial ? La question se pose. Peut-être, si des gros films se jettent à l'eau en mai et que les plus petits envisagent le coup de pouce de la revue à l'approche de Cannes. Le lecteur des Cahiers ne descend pas forcément sur la Croisette (les distributeurs ont tendance à l'oublier) et est friand en amont d'informations, de textes, de photos pour suivre le Festival. [..]  Parce que ce ne sont pas des films Cahiers ? Mais cela fait trente ans que les Cahiers défendent Craven, et quinze ans les Farrelly ! Que ce soit à cause de la négligence, du mépris, ou de la peur de la presse, il devient difficile de faire un mensuel."
Pas étalonné! Editorial Cahiers, n°667 (mai 2011)
Contrairement à ses homologues anglophones, Delorme a la sagesse de reconnaitre l'importance de Cannes, et ne pas tomber dans la mesquine polémique des "cinéphiles" snobinards qui prennent un malin plaisir à rouler dans la boue les festivals majeurs qui font vivre la planète cinéma.
En critique consciencieux, il s'interroge sur les difficultés de la distribution des films de la sélection cannoise. Moins sortent en mai, en synchronicité avec la projection pour les critiques. Et plus sortent en septembre-octobre, dans un embouteillage infernal. Au moins, on devrait s'en réjouir, ils sortent en salles pour le grand public en France, ce qui n'est pas le cas outre-atlantique! 
Ensuite, il se plaint de ne pouvoir révéler le nom des films avant tout le monde, et de publier des résumés pour les films en première mondiale, début mai, avant que quiconque ne soit arrivé à Cannes.

Je crois qu'il oublie que Cannes n'est pas un festival franco-français dont les Cahiers serait une sorte d'attaché de presse... Si Delorme s'oppose à l'effet de surprise d'une première mondiale, le prestige d'un grand festival comme Cannes issu du principe d'exclusivité n'a plus lieu d'être! En fait, il rechigne à voir les films en même temps que tous les autres critiques mondiaux, avec ses insinuations de chantage affectif (y'aura pas de dossier l'an prochain... nanana nanère). Soit on accepte les règles du jeu de l'embargo, pour faire de Cannes un moment unique qui n'est pas pré-digéré à l'avance dans la presse. Soit on abandonne l'idée d'avoir en France un festival qui compte dans le monde. Etant donné le pôle magnétique qu'est devenu Cannes, les desiderata des Cahiers importent peu sur les décisions de Jacob et Frémaux.
Je trouve tout à fait normal de ne pas lire dans le numéro de mai, les synopsis de tous les films qui doivent conserver leur mystère, non seulement avant l'ouverture de Cannes, mais aussi jusqu'au jour de leur projection. Sinon ça n'a aucun sens de faire attendre certains réalisateurs jusqu'au dernier jour du festival pour projeter leur film après tous les autres. Ils acceptent d'attendre parce que les critiques continue d'anticiper jusqu'à la première officielle. Et si le prix à payer est de prolonger la frustration des lecteurs, qu'il en soit ainsi. 

La couverture d'un festival ne devrait pas être envisagée comme n'importe quelle semaine de l'année, dont les films en distributions sont annoncés et décryptés avant même d'apparaître sur les écrans. La compétition de Cannes c'est pas les sorties en salles de la semaine.

Les lecteurs seraient surement plus content de pouvoir lire les réactions des Cahiers avant le numéro de Juin! Mais on ne peut pas satisfaire tous leurs désirs égoïstes, ni ceux des mensuels... Un festival ça se dévoile au jour le jour, et si les mensuels sont incapable de suivre le rythmes des nouvelles technologies, tant pis pour eux! C'est pas aux festivals de s'adapter à la presse papier du XXe siècle.
Burdeau avait tenté un moment d'établir un contact en direct de Cannes via le site web des Cahiers, avec chat et billets journaliers. Mais, Delorme a réduit à néant cette interface web : plus de chat, plus de forum, plus de contenu web hors-issue... Ce n'est pas à Cannes à s'adapter à la presse papier, ce sont aux mensuels à s'adapter au XXIe siècle!

A défaut de pouvoir tout savoir sur les films de la sélection, peut-être serait-il bienvenue pour un mensuel d'imaginer une manière différente de participer au festival, sans en gâcher le plaisir. Soit en se détachant du format mensuel pour l'occasion, en usant de moyens plus interactifs. Soit en proposant autre chose qu'une liste de synopsis, en parlant d'autre chose que d'actualité qui n'a pas encore eu lieu. Il faut parler avec des acteurs décisifs du cinéma mondial, faire un bilan de la distribution de l'ancienne sélection, la carrière des lauréats dans leur pays respectif, en France et dans le monde. Reprendre l'excellente idée de Tesson/Frodon pour un Atlas mondial du cinéma (annuel), l'occasion de prendre contact avec des critiques étrangers qui décrivent l'état de leur marché national, de comparer l'évolution des goûts aux quatre coin du monde.
Et puis repousser à juin, le numéros spécial Cannes, avec des papiers plus posés, moins bâclés, sur chaque film, sur les sections parallèles. Un numéro sur Cannes écrit et publié APRES Cannes, est plus crédible qu'un mois avant l'ouverture du festival! Même si il arrive 2 semaine après tous les quotidiens. Mais il faut choisir entre le presse de l'immédiat, et la presse au temps long des mensuels qui s'attardent sur les sujets pour les approfondir. L'opinion des Cahiers devrait garder tout son intérêt même si on a déjà lu l'opinion superficiel des journaux et du web, surtout si les lecteurs ne peuvent voir les films qu'à la rentrée. C'est aux Cahiers de se faire attendre, plutôt que compter sur l'unique avantage d'avoir parler avant les autres.

Cannes est un moment exceptionnel dans l'année, une seule fois par an. Les films présentés se précipitent pour être vu là-bas des professionnels. Mais ce n'est pas la date de Cannes qui définit quand sortent les films commercialement. On ne peut pas avoir tous les meilleurs films de l'année sortis dans la même semaine sous prétexte que les critiques les ont déjà vus. Le temps des professionnels et le temps du grand public ne coïncident pas. 

Ce n'est pas la première fois que les Cahiers se plaignent de n'avoir pas accès aux films de genre commerciaux (selon le cliché que ce ne sont pas des "films-Cahiers"). Burdeau, fan d'Hollywood, avait déjà réclamé qu'on lui paie le voyage pour avoir accès à des junkets à L.A. Quelle misère d'en arriver là... quémander à Hollywood ce que même les journalistes de l'entertainment devrait refuser par déontologie professionnelle. Ça ne grandit pas la critique cinéma.
Ainsi, Delorme explique que les Cahiers défendent Craven depuis 30 ans et Farrelly depuis 15 ans. Si cela avait un impact sur les ventes d'Hollywood... ils vous harcèleraient sans répit. Pas la peine de jouer au lèche-cul. Ce que cet aveu implique est plutôt malsain : si Craven et Farrelly ont "la carte", qu'il on reçu le "label Cahiers" pour leur films précédents, vous promettez donc de publier une critique positive pour leur nouveau film sans l'avoir vu??? Ça craint quand même une mentalité pareille. Pourquoi est-ce qu'ils devraient vous faire confiance à l'aveugle? Et d'ailleurs, interdire les projection de presse dans la crainte d'un mauvais papier est contraire aux règles. S'il suffisait de montrer le films aux critiques qui adorent, la vie serait tellement simple pour les studios qui aiment faire des navets. 


Si les exclusivité vous est soufflé par Twitter, et que vous êtes obligés de voir les films en salles (comme tout le monde, quelle horreur!)... il va bien falloir faire une sérieuse introspection et repenser le rôle de la presse à une époque où tout lecteur est connecté au web en permanence et n'attend pas un mois pour connaitre les moindres infos dont la presse avait jadis le monopole. 
Regardez de l'avant. Les nouvelles technologies ne vont pas ralentir pour vous faciliter la tâche.



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10 mai 2011

Clueless anti-festival clichés

"Here follows a number of current clichés about the film business:
  • Film festivals are a massive growth industry [..]
  • Film festivals are now a crucial part of modern independent (and especially foreign-language) film business [..]
  • Film festivals now constitute an alternative "distribution network" [..]
  • Film festivals are about discovery, revealing to the world films that the existing distribution mechanisms fail to reach [..]
Let's just, for the sake of balance, shade a little reality into some of the clichés:
  • New film festivals are indeed springing up all the time, particularly in North America [..] All film festivals rely on 3 revenue sources - ticket sales, public money and sponsorship
  • All film festivals rely [..] on a number of poorly paid short-term staff [..] unpaid volunteers
  • Film festivals may be an alternative distribution network for a certain type of film, but one entirely devoid of a business model: apart from the occasional screening fee [..] no money is generated for the film's maker. Tickets revenue goes to the festival
  • There are not nearly enough good films to go around [..]
[..] it is the excessive top-down structure of the film distribution system : [..] we see what films Warners or Paramount [..], when [..] and for as long as they decide we should see them."

"Big society, little clue", Nick Roddick (Sight and Sound, May 2011)

Finally an ounce of pertinence in the pages of Sight and Sound, taking a hard look at the spoon-fed system that gives the film press its only reason to carry on. If you didn't review "all films of the month", in a servile manner, the ones approved by the official distribution system... maybe this magazine would have the legitimacy to criticize the festival circuit and the state of cinema in the world. Nonetheless, this is a good baby-step in the right direction.  

Film Festivals are no more an "industry" than international car shows... it's a place to show your products and sell the rights to export them. The commercialization (the part where you sell cars to consumers) takes places afterwards, once the distributors have negotiated their contract, bought the stock and exhibit the commercial products to the public. The car shows or the film festivals do not make benefits at this point, marginal sales are insignificant  to the expected gross revenue (that shall refund the production cost). 1 or 2 screenings at a festival (500 or 2000 admissions) does not pay back the production cost of a feature film!!! The film festival circuit is located outside of the commercial circuit, upstreams from the actual commercialization. Even the festival cuts of the film are sometimes different from the final official cut, precisely because it's merely a screening destined to professionals only, fresh from the editing room, and sometimes barely finalized.

If certain films (non-commercial films, challenging artfilms, niche audience offerings...) are only allowed to meet an audience (of regular public spectators), on the "festival circuit", 1 screening at the time, they are never going to make profits. Not only it is not a viable alternative to the commercial exhibition, but it is not an acceptable ghettoization. All narrative films, whatever their format or content or style, should be treated equally by the distribution circuit, meaning that they should have at least access to a public release. Films cannot be relegated to back alleys just because they are considered "non-profitable" or "intellectual". The popularity of "blockbusters" will influence the number of screens allocated of course. There is no point in having a mass audience locked out of full theatres because there are screens showing non-commercials films to an empty auditorium... But the other extreme is equally stupid, and that is the situation we are in now : artfilms are not even slated for public distribution (or eventually on a single screen nationwide!) just because the marketing predictions estimate that the audience doesn't like artfilms. 

There must be a reasonable number of screens (or show time slots during the week) dedicated to NON-COMMERCIAL cinema, because even if few people at the time wants to watch them (and it takes more than a week-end for the artfilm word of mouth to succeed) the access to the public must be guaranteed by law. It is too easy for distributors to purchase cheap artfilm distribution rights in the sole intention to shelf them ad infinitum (keeping them off the market, where risk-taking distributors would try to buy them). Money can't buy your competition like that. Or else the richest studios would lose less money by holding up their direct competition, than by having to market their films against too many alternative choices. In the USA, money buys everything, even the silence of the artfilm culture. And American critics find this situation perfectly fine... I don't care if American audiences refuse to watch (better) artfilms / foreign films, because their taste has been formated by Hollywood standards of mediocrity. The role of film critics and the film industry is to respect all films and give them all a decent chance!  

All this isn't the fault of a growing festival circuit! All this does is to develop the professional network to exchange distribution rights, not only globally at the few major festivals, but also locally at every local festival, relaying the discoveries made by major festivals on the other side of the planet. International buyers can afford to travel to Cannes, Venice or Berlin every year. But the local arthouse exhibitors (who are not part of a mainstream franchise) need the existence of local festivals at their level, within their reach, to discover themselves the non-commercial titles they will want to invest in, take a chance to support and sell to their local regular spectators. The commercial profits of artfilms shall be made in commercial arthouses, not on the festival circuit. Art films are not made for the unique privileged festival-goer audience (the cinephile jet-set)! Art films are made to reach out to every city and villages, even if it's only 1 screening a week, and if it takes 3 or 5 years after it's world premiere. Unfortunately, it is impossible to watch them currently if you don't live in a state capital, or a cinephile city, because art films are not marketed elsewhere, and art filmmakers cannot make a living based on one-off screenings, unpaid festival screenings, direct to DVD distribution, and illegal downloads. Hollywood loses peanuts with illegal downloads, but art filmmakers lose a much larger share of their total sales (which is, at the same time, significantly lower than the average Hollywood flick's revenue). They lose a larger percentage of a smaller total. 

Art filmmakers are not making films for the sport, to be watched by critics who don't even pay admission fees. The job of serious critics is to convince readers that challenging films are worth begging for, by inciting to harass lazy distributors until they give artfilms a dignified release! 


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06 mai 2011

Random Factoid 3: Festival sizes

To those who think that festivals grow exponentially every year, out of control... you can see that the number of films selected in competition in the Cannes International Film Festival, since 1994, didn't vary much. (see PDF here for details). The official competition where nominees are eligible for La Palme d'Or, just like the parallel section, Un Certain Regard, have always been between 19 and 24; both 20 this year. La Semaine de la Critique didn't change its format, always 1 feature film per day : 7 in total (plus a handful of special screenings). La Quinzaine des Réalisateurs has fluctuated without regularity from 15 to 25, with a peak at 30 in 2003. La Cinéfondation supports 13 to 20 debuting filmmakers each year, since 1998.
Only the Off Competition screenings have increased steadily, from only 3 in 1994 to 23 in 2006... 19 this year.

In total the various competitions (Official, Regard, Quinzaine, SiC) amount in 2011 to 68 mandatory feature film viewing, plus the short films. The rest are promotional screenings. With 6 screenings a day, in 10 days, a dedicated critic could watch at least 60 films during the course of the festival (without counting the few advance-screenings for the press, ahead of the festival). And since the coverage of a festival by a film magazine or a newspaper is never a one-man show, 2 or 3 well organised critics could easily watch the complete selection (including the often neglected parallel sections!), plus snoop around for some unexpected gems in the promotional screenings and the marketplace. The task is easily manageable. I don't understand why certain critics dare to complain. World cinema is not defined by the maximum capacity of a single man to watch films within 10 days (especially when they crash celebrity parties instead of doing their job!)
Number of films in Cannes (1994-2011) Official selection
The only notable expension of the Cannes event, is actually a side show that is not an integer part of the Film Festival : Le Marché du Film; which doubled in size since 1994 (435 projects for sale), reaching a peak in 2008 (1004 projects). 876 films last year. But this part of the event is reserved for buyers (and the press), and is only there to benefit from the media coverage energized by the festival competition and the presence of red carpet galas!
The films selected in competition are the cream of the crop, at world-class level for the current year, these are the films critics must see and review. But critics don't need to watch all (if any) of the projects (often unfinished or not even started) promoted on the marketplace. So these should not count in the survey of the festival evolution. Most of these projects are not even great in the first place... it could easily be the commercial fare, at a mediocre level. If producers can afford to showcase a bad film in Cannes, nothing prevents it. While the Cannes competition is a serious process of selection from the best filmmakers in the world. Not necessarily the very best of the year (some may surface in Venice or Berlin), and sometimes films are invited for their original or risky aesthetics even if they don't measure up to the world's top tier. But the selection is artistically sound, contrary to the marketplace.

Do not mistake the marketplace event (commercial business) with the Festival competition (non-commercial celebration of art cinema). 
Number of films at the marketplace (Cannes 1994-2010)

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02 mai 2011

Voluntary Engineered Apathy

Implicit Comfort Zone (defined by the system)

Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles" (TED talk, March 2011) 9'05"
As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

* * *
  1. We acquire predictable habits by living in a self-alimented sphere (Closed distribution market)
  2. The system observes our habits, and defines a taste profile for us ("you might also like this")
  3. We consume the proposed choices and reinforce the taste pattern (Avoiding to be exposed to alterity)
  4. Our engineered consumption, observed by the system again after recommendations, comforts the system's predictions (Proving the system right)
All it takes is for consumers to be lazy enough, not to seek out new films by themselves, the ones hard to get hold of immediately, and a minimal satisfaction from the movies suggested by the system, to make us believe in the miracle of the taste pattern prediction.

"People who bought this DVD, also bought these" Why would I want to watch everything my neighbours (or the control group who picked the same movie as me) did? This assumes that people are not individuals but predictable robots. Also, it means that movies are not unique, but neatly fit into a statistical box where the same demographic will come back to feed regularly like butterfly answering the call of pheromones...
Who said people who watch a type of movie would always want to rewatch the same type of movies? Statistics on the average consumer maybe... Open minded people with a normal dose of cultural curiosity, like to discover things that escape their usual diet, to be surprised, shocked, startled, challenged, transformed. Unfortunately we move towards a standardized universe that suits all too well the industries that produce a limited number of cultural goods, one-size-fits-all, mass produced for optimal cost. The Long Tail Consumption (the peer to peer exchange) is the nightmare of big corporations that can't count in small numbers. 
If you live in a country where the titles of films available for distribution are predefined by overarching marketing strategies whose interest is to boost local economy (i.e. the titles/remakes offered by their national studio), chances are that you don't know what you're missing. The apparent plethora of titles distributed every week keeps consumers busy with pointless choices between half-good and mediocre (deceptive free will). Meanwhile they don't worry about the actually great films they are missing. Because this involves effort to think outside the box and go get the informations by yourself. Moreover, being subject to this cultural isolationism and conditioning, since an early age (as the entire society is built upon these systems of predetermined options) shapes up an even more predictable taste pattern, one that will make you feel repulsed by alternative choices or challenging tastes, should you ever stumble upon them by accident. Just like babies fed with sweets refuse to eat spinach. Demanding what "feels rewarding immediately" is not always the best option for your long term intellectual development. You have to eat spinach! But you don't know it, and it doesn't feel right. But it's not because it's harder than you should always go for the easy choice that feels like hitting home. These systems of taste patterns are treating movie goers like babies, constantly feeding them what they want, and not what is good for a healthy culture and a sensibility to alterity. Infantilization of the masses. And since the mass is happy with it... nobody cares to ask for alternative choices. 

Critics can not walk into the system without any critical distance with its consequences, conveniently locked on the railtracks of the industrial optimisation of consumer goods. You can't behave like any other consumer, blissfully happy with the tailored choices delivered to your doorsteps, like as many trees hiding the forest that distributors do not want you to peek into, because it's more trouble and less profit for them to inject these in the system. Not to mention that inserting alternative choices in the system will screw up the predetermined taste patterns.

Don't think you escape the "filter bubble" because you don't rely on the multiplexes to watch movies... These filters are everywhere, investors decisions or online algorithms, at every level of the distribution system. And the most efficient ones are located at the root : keeping artists from making films in the first place, so their creation is not even surveyed as a potential choice excluded by the system. 


  • "Most popular articles" are what people who want to know what everyone else knows go for
  • "Most viewed videos" will be viewed even more (snowballing traffic)
  • "Favourited by most people" (approved by the mass)
  • "Trending news" is signaled as a hot topic to become hotter (this is what you should be interested in because everyone else is)
  • "Most subscribed" outlets will continue to get best exposition (and upstage everything else)
  • "Most followers" because alternative channels work like mainstream media (widest appeal = highest authority)

And the content available in the film criticism community is funneled through the same sort of filters and standardisations. Critics read critics who read critics. Knowledge keeps circulating inside a closed circuit, amongsts the same people who think alike. They keep exchanging informations coming from the same sources, allowed by the distribution system (Studios public relation talking points, Google/Facebook algorithm, clique forums, syndicated news, RSS feeds, Tweeter circular self-feeding) and the institutional media (paper press tradition, limited translations, outdated canons, stereotypical reviews, conservative taste, low ambition, anti-intellectualism). Linkage galore and Tweets only transmit what publicists intend to publish and reviews of available material. Either the titles excluded by the system are totally ignored, deemed inexistent, or their rare and awkward mention amidst the flow of "official zeitgeist" feels out of place to the conditioned readers who don't know what to do with them.

Think about it : everything you write about, you got it from pre-existing channels of official informations, and you're only able to reflect in a limited number of ways about a limited quantity of informations pre-approved by the system. A critic can not rely on a pre-packaged series of information without questioning where they come from, what infrastructure allowed them to come to you, and what absent informations are missing, blocked off by that system. Critics need to take a look at the big picture to figure out by themselves what is the selection of pertinent information they would like to highlight, without being spoon-fed by a frame of mind (intentional propaganda or mindless automatization).

Critics think by themselves. 

* * *

The antidote to apathy (engagement)
TED talk : Toronto 2010, Dave Meslin, Oct 2010, 7'
Local politics -- schools, zoning, council elections -- hit us where we live. So why don't more of us actually get involved? Is it apathy? Dave Meslin identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care. Multi-partisan and fiercely optimistic, Dave Meslin embraces ideas and projects that cut across traditional boundaries between grassroots politics, electoral politics and the arts community. 
Leadership is about :
  1. Collective effort (engagement of a whole community, each at their level/capacity)
  2. Imperfect (not glamourous, doesn't suddenly start/stop, lifelong ongoing process)
  3. Voluntary (no hero-messiah prophecy)

Related:

French Critics Legacy 3

Jason Solomon: "My cinematic education happened in Paris. I spent a year there, ostensibly teaching English, but really sneaking off in the afternoon in tiny little cinemas on the Left Bank or in the dingy depths of Les Halles to catch a repertory classic every afternoon. It helped me build up a picture of cinema history, from B-movie westerns to French  New Wave, to Jean Renoir and Film Noir. I couldn't have done that in any other city in the world. So France in undoubtedly the most cinephilic culture. But does that mean they make the best films?
They certainly have the best film festival in the world : Cannes obsesses the whole nation for 2 weeks every May. By contrast the London Film Festival barely interest anyone outside Soho, and on its opening night."
Thanks for paying homage to the educational value of Paris' film culture, sincerely, without being pressured at gunpoint.
The popularity of Cannes in France might be a little over-exaggerated... The tennis tournament Roland-Garros  is always overlapping, and that is the event that captures the audience majority in France. This said, I would be surprised if a film festival in another country does gather a broader attention, on TV, in the Press, in the street buzz, in the couple weeks leading up to Cannes, during the event, and with its awards. Precisely because cinema is historically part of French culture, unlike anywhere else in the world. Anybody knowing about film history knows this is not a chauvinist statement.
I don't see this as bragging rights or a competition. Sadly, a lot of "cinephiles" in the world are bitter about this, and display jealous reactions (either by suppressing French culture or by dissing it), when they are not in total denial (believing cinema culture in their country is not subdued by the industry).
I would like every country in the world to reach the level of familiarity with cinema developed within French culture. Wouldn't it be a better world for cinéphiles if France wasn't the only haven that combines popular support, governmental support, industrial support, artistic support, intellectual support? I don't see why this cannot happen, with a little effort.

Bertrand Tavernier: "I think British politicians have never been preoccupied with cinema. They never fought [for] culture, never saw that culture was important, except people like Winston Churchill, who was more educated than most of the politicians now. He was a brilliant writer and he understood the tremendous importance of cinema to sell your own culture, to sell your own values, to sell your products. [..] You need another Winston Churchill. You need another politician who seem to have read a few books."    
Well, the BFI [EDIT:UK Film council] budget has been cut down by the current government, and when Sight and Sound did a "special issue" on British cinema that very month (summer 2010), Nick James, editor in chief of the BFI magazine, no less, had no clue it was going to happen... That's how you realize it's a long way to sustainability. S&S promised changes (starting by cutting down the fat: credit rolls in reviews! lol) so maybe, the content will be more discerning in the future...

Jason Solomon: "Those French do have a knack for damning with faint praise, don't they? But do they feel their cinema really is superior to ours? I heard many answers to this rather blunt question, and invariably most responses involve two names: Ken Loach and Mike Leigh."
He forgets Stephen Frears, who is named by his interviewees too. These are the 3 famous names amongst most French movie goers with limited British culture. 
I would add Paul Greengrass, Steve MacQueen, Michael Winterbottom, Peter Watkins, Terence Davies... who are consistently high praised by the French press when a movie is released here. And they are familiar to cinéphiles. Don't be so hard on yourself. Tavernier only liked the 50ies, but there were great British films in recent years. Although, with a little over a 100 films produced a year, it's not Hollywood (nearly 600) or France (230)... Industry-wise, there is a concrete gap.

But if we talk about quality, I'm not one who will defend contemporary French cinema. Comparing to the UK is unfair (there are more "big names" in French cinema, so by sheer numbers alone...). But in absolute, within world class standards, I don't think it's at the top, where it once was. It is solid and consistent in above-mediocre quality, like Hollywood, like the UK, like most major cinema nations in the world, but we haven't seen exceptionally outstanding films recently. Smaller countries, especially in Asia or South America are making better movies than us, and for some years now. The petty bickering of the love-hate "Entente cordiale", ignited by Truffaut's remark, doesn't mean much in the big picture of world cinema.

When you ask French guests who came to promote an all-French festival in London, you don't really expect them to tell the local press they think British cinema sucks and that French cinema is superior, do you? Just like when Hollywood celebrities visit Paris, they say on TV they love France to arouse the audience... even though they don't care.
And frankly, I think the interviewees handled this "question provocatrice" quite well, by refusing to make blanket statements, generalisations, about "British cinema" as a unity, and acknowledging that we only see the British cream of the crop released in France. They are not pandering to the British audience either, with fake enthusiastic hyperboles or over-flattering praise. 

Jason Solomon: "So Ozon points to a British snobbery around theatre and film. But after agreeing with him, it's hard not to gaze across the Channel and envy their national pride and political support for the art of cinema. But political and financial help only add up to so much. In the end, French cinema, like any thriving cinema culture, lives and dies on new ideas. [..] My gut instinct is that British cinema in its current state of flux could learn a lot about loving film from our French rivals and neighbours."
True. And that's all we should talk about. Ideas. Not about national pride contests.  
Well, I know what the "new idea" implies... We shouldn't take that as a rush towards novelty. I don't care if auteurs repeat themselves. Art is not about finding new stuff for novelty sake, just to do something that others haven't done before... Cinema is a narrative art and true inventions in dramatic structures or content doesn't happen every year. So reviewers should not expect auteurs to trash their past œuvre at every new film they make, to change their style, their obsessions, their themes... just to surprise critics or festivals. This is not a game show. Aesthetic evolutions are slower and less ostentatious than what attention-deficit commentators would like it to be. 

Source:
  • Jason Solomon (Film WeeklyThe Guardian, 25 March 2011) 31'19" [MP3



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