SCREENVILLE: janvier 2013

31 janvier 2013

Shot Scale Before Cinema (Paintings)

I wonder how cinema, at the beginning of the XXth century, came up with standard shot scales and predefined plastic composition of the frame ...

Aide française au cinéma (CNC)

Les Assises pour la diversité du cinéma français (23 janvier 2013)

les thèmes abordés pendant les tables rondes des Assises pour la diversité du cinéma français [Programme PDF]

VOIR LES VIDEOS DES INTERVENTIONS : (ici)

Introduction et mise en perspective par Eric Garandeau, Costa-Gavras et Michel Hazanavicius
La force du système français et les vrais enjeux – témoignages de grands auteurs (31'29")
Table ronde 1 : La concentration des financements sur les films menace- t-elle la diversité ? (1h07')
Avec : Philippe Bony (M6); Stéphane Célerier (Mars Films); Sidonie Dumas (Gaumont); Vincent Maraval (Wild Bunch); Marc Missonnier (Fidélité Productions); Elisabeth Tanner (Artemedi – SFAAL); Nathalie Toulza-Madar (TF1 Films Production)
Table ronde 2 : Quels marchés et financements pour les films du milieu ? Comment favoriser l’accès des auteurs à un plus large public (1h06')
Avec : Manuel Alduy (Canal +); Alain Attal (Les productions du trésor); Denis Freyd (Archipel); Daniel Goudineau (France 3 Cinéma); Serge Laroye (Orange); Carole Scotta (Haut et court)
Table ronde 3 : Le prix de la découverte – comment stimuler la vitalité du cinéma par la recherche et l’accompagnement de nouveaux talents, comment financer la prise de risques ? (44')
Avec : Djamel Bensalah (Miroir magique cinéma); Bénédicte Couvreur (Hold up Films); Laurent Danielou (ADEF); Olivier Père (Arte cinéma); Matthieu Poirot Delpech (AFC); Anne Dominique Toussaint (Les films des tourelles)
Remerciements par Eric Garandeau, Président du CNC et conclusion par Aurélie Filipetti, ministre de la Culture et de la Communication (24'17")

* * *

Le CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de L'Image Animée)

Vidéos de présentation de ses missions et domaines d'intervention destinée à mieux faire comprendre l'action du CNC auprès des professionnels du cinéma, de l'image animée et du grand public.

Vidéo de présentation générale du CNC (3min03) English version
Vidéo détaillée du budget du CNC (6min56) English version
Tout ce que vous avez voulu savoir sur le CNC - illustration des missions du CNC et de la performance du modèle français [PDF]

Voir aussi :

29 janvier 2013

Ville et campagne au cinéma chinois (Duzan)

Cours de cinéma de Brigitte Duzan : Ville/campagne : yin et yang du cinéma chinois
21 janvier 2013 (forumdesimages) 56'27"

Écrivain, linguiste et traductrice, Brigitte Duzan travaille tout particulièrement sur les interactions entre la littérature et le cinéma chinois. Elle a publié “Cent ans de soucis et soudain le printemps” (Éd. de l’Aube, 2004), et dirige deux sites de référence incontournables sur le cinéma chinois et la littérature chinoise moderne : chinesemovies.com.fr et chinese-shortstories.com.
Ville inséparable de la campagne, ville désirée de loin mais rejetée de près : le cinéma de la Chine nouvelle, après celui des années 1930, épouse les modes de pensée et les contorsions de l’idéologie au gré de la croissance urbaine, la nostalgie de la ville alternant avec la nostalgie de la campagne. Brigitte Duzan

Ce Cours de cinéma a eu lieu le 25 janvier 2013 au Forum des images, à Paris, dans le cadre du cycle de films "De Pékin à Taipei, 1 000 visages de la Chine".

Voir aussi :

27 janvier 2013

Politique culturelle à l'ère numérique (Lescure)

Mission de la concertation sur les contenus culturels et pratiques numériques
Ministère de la culture et de la communication (août 2012 - mars 2013)

L’acte II de l’exception culturelle

Composition :
Présidée par Pierre Lescure, la mission comprend un coordinateur, Jean-Baptiste Gourdin, trois rapporteurs, Raphaël Keller, Sarah Lacoche et Juliette Mant, trois experts, Frédéric Bokobza, Thierry Chèze, Jean-Philippe Mochon et une assistante, Marie-Laure Drouin.

Il réunira, autour de la ministre de la culture et de la communication, le ministre des affaires étrangères, Laurent Fabius, le ministre de l’économie et des finances, Pierre Moscovici, la ministre du commerce extérieur, Nicole Bricq, le ministre du redressement productif, Arnaud Montebourg, et la ministre déléguée aux petites et moyennes entreprises, à l’innovation et à l’économie numérique, Fleur Pellerin.

Lettre d'Aurélie Filippetti pour la mission de Pierre Lescure [PDF] 6 août 2012

Auditions audio ou vidéo des entretiens complets avec leur synthèse écrite (selection) :

ARP (Société civile des Auteurs, Réalisateurs et Producteurs) 2 nov 2012 / 1h26'
avec : Michel Hazanavicius (Président), Florence Gastaud (Déléguée Générale), Jean-Paul Salomé et Dante Desarthe (Vice-présidents)
SACD (Société des Auteurs et Composeurs Dramatiques) 8 nov 2012 /
avec : Jacques Fansten (Président), Pascal Rogard (Directeur général), Guillaume Prieur (Directeur des relations institutionnelles et Européennes)
FNCF (Fédération Nationale des Cinémas Français) 12 nov 2012 /
Jean Labe (Président), Marc-Olivier Sebbag (Délégué général)
API (Association des Producteurs Indépendents) 3 déc 2012 / 1h06'
avec : Nathanaël Karmitz (directeur général de MK2 et co-Président de l’API), Hortense de Labriffe (Déléguée Générale), Marc Lacan (Directeur général de Pathé)
SRF (Société des Réalisateurs de Films) 10 déc 2012 /
avec : Jean-Jacques Jauffret (Coprésident), Cyril Seassau (Délégué général), Pauline Durand-Vialle (Délégué-adjointe), Michel Andrieux (membre du bureau)
Arte (France) 11 jan 2013 /
avec: Véronique Cayla (Présidente d’ARTE), Anne Durupty (Directrice générale d’ARTE France)
Dailymotion (platform de vidéos en ligne) 9 nov 2012 /
avec : Martin Rogard (Directeur général)
Creative Commons (France) 11 déc 2012 / 1h12'46"
Danièle BOURCIER (Directrice de recherche au CNRS, Responsable du Département e-Gouv du CERSA, Membre du Comité d’Ethique des sciences du CNRS et de l’Alliance ALLISTENE, Responsable scientifique, Creative Commons France), Mélanie DULONG de ROSNAY (Chargée de recherche au CNRS, Institut des Sciences de la Communication du CNRS, Chercheuse associée au CERSA/CNRS Université Paris 2 et Responsable juridique Creative Commons France, Présidente, Communia, association internationale pour le domaine public), Camille DOMANGE (Doctorant au CERSA/CNRS Université Paris 2 et Responsable politiques publiques Creative Commons France, Chargé d’enseignement droit des affaires et économie du numérique à l’Institut de Droit des Affaires, Faculté de droit d’Aix-Marseille), Primavera DE FILIPPI (Experte légale Creative Commons France, Chercheure associée au CERSA-CNRS et Coordinatrice du groupe de travail sur le domaine public à l’Open Knowledge Foundation)
Parti Pirate 7 déc 2012 / 1h
Maxime Rouquet (ancien co-président, membre du Parti Pirate), TXO (porte-parole du Parti Pirate)

Conférence de presse du bilan d’étape de la mission culture-acte 2 (11 déc 2012) Avec: Aurélie Filippetti, Pierre Lescure

Voir aussi :

26 janvier 2013

American critic's sense of responsibility (Brody)

The Art-House Consensus (Richard Brody; The New Yorker; 25 Jan 2013)

La Politique des Auteurs VS La Nouvelle Vague (necessary reminder)

Richard Brody is kind enough to write up an umpteenth account of La Politique des Auteurs, which should be common knowledge and a boring rehashing by now, 60 years later... But whatever. And as customary in the American legend-printing, it is partial and misleading. To him there is a clear cut divide between what happened in France and what happened in Hollywood, whereas Renoir, Becker, Gance, Ophuls (and Bresson circa 1954 for sure) were just like Hitchcock, Hawks and Ford : commercial filmmakers working within the (French) studio system (just not the popular ones at the time of the article). The margin of that system only appeared in the wake of the New Wave, after 1959, with the popularization of non-studio filmmaking, when the Young Turks took realist cinema to the streets.

There are 2 distinct stages (at least) : the critical awakening of Cahiers in 1954 (or around that year), 5 years before any of the writers became filmmakers (except for Rivette and Rohmer). This stage is referred to as 'Cahiers jaunes', or 'La politique des auteurs'. The second stage is 1959 (after Bazin's death), when some of the Cahiers critics made their first attempt at filmmaking. This stage is referred to as 'La nouvelle vague'. The only thing linking these 2 milestones is that roughly the same people were involved, but I'm sure you can tell the difference between (intellectual) journalistic activism, and (hands-on) filmmaking activism. Maybe you don't, and that would explain a lot.

Dismissing Auteurism as a Hoax... (Pathetic)

The cliché in the USA, is that "La politique des auteurs" was merely a ploy for them to set a foot in the movie industry. Which is completely retarded. How many American critics became world-class auteurs, cunningly or not, by abusing the (alleged) power of film reviewing??? Peter Bogdanovich? Paul Schrader? Yeah right... You got my point. No, whatever you publish in movie pages is not the royal road to becoming a movie star !

How does it matter if it was a ploy or not? With such superficial mentality you could look back and turn every self-made-man success story into a series of opportunist strategies. You (knee)jerk ! If that is the quality of your history classes, no wonder you can't open more than 250 arthouse/repertory screens in a country of 300 million inhabitants...

Firstly if it was a dumb hoax, we would only talk about the prank itself today (if it wasn't forgotten altogether), not about the enduring legacy of the critical theory behind it, which is probably one of the most important in film theory to date, if not THE most crucial to mainstream cinephilia. So if your "prank" results in such insightful content, it would be a little dismissive and insulting to characterize it as such, don't you think? No you don't... think. It's like rewriting history with a bitter voice : "If Galileo face death sentence to oppose the Church's dogma about geocentrism, it was just cause he was such an attention-seeker scientist." Does it make you feel better about yourself to trash other people's historical achievements? Have a bit of retrospective respect for people who have proven to be more talented than you !

Secondly, *IF* it was an elaborated prank (which it's not for people who value actual content instead of sensationalistic headlines), wasting 5 years of their lives writing criticism in an unpopular journal, going against one of the most powerful studio industry in the world, hoping to be successful with home-made films unlike anything offered to the familiarised/conditioned audience just because they said so in print... (Dude, you really believe in fairytales!), *IF* it was a prank, and it met the success we know today, then they deserve what they got, without your cynical undermining tone. More people should pull out "pranks" like these!

Here's a free tip : if a "hoax" takes 5 years of preparation and turns out to be validated by 60 years of intellectual scholar studies, maybe you should stop calling it a hoax... just saying.

Brandname Auteurs

His next point is to reduce the whole "Auteurism" to the marketability of films by director's name instead of poster-face stars or title or studio. Is that all you take from the principle that the director is the AUTHOR of a film aesthetic as much as a writer is the author of a book? Your beloved Godard might be a brandname that sells random stuff with his signature on it, like Duchamp, Warhol or Damien Hirst... But most auteurs are actually developping a unique style, a personal mise en scène, and a consistent content throughout their œuvre !

If the "auteur name dropping" tradition couldn't be taken down by the conservative establishment of the French studio system in the 50ies, the Hollywood studio system in the 70ies, Barthes and Foucault in France at the end of the 60ies... I don't see why an article by Adrian Martin in 2010 or Richard Brody today could dream of singlehandedly put an end to what has become a structural definition in world cinema culture and will remain so until the production of narrative on a visual medium will cease to be considered an art.

It is not the only existing way to write on cinema, just like you can write about books out of their biographical context, nonetheless, reviewing a movie without mentioning the style of its author doesn't change the fact there is an author behind it.

New Hollywood

In your last article you suggested that Hollywod just borrowed ideas from European cinema, and dispensed itself from importing anymore European movies because the new generation of American filmmakers (New Hollywood) could do just as well. Which was bullshit on principles. And if we look into it, still is. In the 70ies you had Cassavetes, Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Allen, Altman, Hopper, Deren, Mekas, Warhol (for the most important powerhouses)... where are the ones that could replace the creative invention of a Buñuel, a Bergman, a Fellini, an Antonioni, a Pasolini, a Resnais, a Godard, a Rivette, a Marker, a Duras, a Melville, a Rouch, a Varda, a Chytilova, an Angelopoulos, an Oliveira...? Who in 70ies America would offer such original voices? Let's not get into a vain battle of who's "best", just compare the FORMAL INVENTION, the POETRY complementing an environment of conservative classicism.

New Hollywood had the neorealism with a tint of modernism covered, with street-level intimist stories (which was excellent as far as naturalism is concerned, the peak of their respective career according to me, before they went on to make academic blockbusters)... but for the formal invention, the fantasy (not commercial science fiction), the oneiric, the stylisation, the mannerism, the aesthetic breakthrough there was practically nobody. And that is this fertile moment in history that you are remorselessly turning your back on, as if the end of imports from Europe didn't matter to your culture and society...

But here's the "final blow on the head", the "trapdoor feature" of his random speech on the French New Wave :

Richard Brody : "Ultimately, that’s what is at stake in criticism—not just the evaluation of movies that are shown, but a vision of the future of the cinema. For the critics who became the New Wave, that vision was performative; for those of us who won’t be making movies, it’s a vision that remains fixed on the ever-expanding possibilities of cinematic creation itself, not on influencing legislation or on presuming to improve the minds and souls of viewers or on improving the state of the industry. The art-house consensus is a matter of power, which is why aesthetics are, too—and why audacious artistic invention is intrinsically an act of liberation. In the retrospective light of history, it’s no surprise that the French New Wave, which started out apolitical yet with a right-wing tinge, gave crucial and early impetus to the movements of May ’68."

That's what he had in mind when he name-checked Truffaut for no apparent reason. That's a long winding historical road to justify the fatalism of American critics... Sorry but Truffaut is not responsible for your apathy... In fact, his record shows quite the opposite.

Truffaut proved that critics don't only review movies but :

make movies themselves, make changes, improvements in the movie industry frm the inside!
write about the fate of the industry, care about the visibility of films (and not just his), care about the cultural diversity, care about the availability of cinema culture
help make improvements, at governmental level, in confrontational ways if necessary
assist the government when reforms are needed
run cine-clubs to educate the taste of the public one screenign at the time (like his mentor Bazin)

So why name drop the Young Turks to excuse your absence of responsibility in the state of your film culture and your arthouse circuit, when THEY are the ones who shaped the prized cinema diversity and openess that we have today in France?

Don't you see that even the "ever-expanding possibilities of cinematic creation itself" is entirely dependent on the larger context of the cinema culture available in a given country, which will nurture and open the mind (or not if inacessible) of the new generations of filmmakers and spectators and critics. If you don't do shit to preserve this, you're stuck reviewing a self-referencing formulaic industry. I know Hollywood tries to circumvent this in-bred devolution by buying out talents abroad... but sticking them in a golden cage, a Hollywood cubicle, doesn't make Chaplins, Murnaus or Hitchcocks anymore.

Let's face it. You can't live eternally on the eventuality that the studio system (sometimes) gives birth to genial auteurs... it's not as frequent as it once was. The Cold War is over dude! It's not a dichotomic clash between the studio system (Hollywood) and the arthouse (non-Hollywood cinema)... The best cinema in the world comes from various places, not necessarily an alternative to the studio system, sometimes they come from the commercial system of their respective industry (whether they are labeled arthouse or given a normal commercial release on the USA market!).

Art-house consensus?

I have no idea what the "art-house consensus" is... Is it a well known shorthand for an elaborate conceptual debate I'm not aware of? We could talk about a consensus regarding a series of opinions, votes, alignments... But what is a consensus of brick-and-mortar venues? Or is 'art-house' meant as a cultural niche? Unfortunately it doesn't make more sense. A consensus around what everyone considers "art-house films"? "art-house taste"? "art-house audience"? Why this "consensus" matters and what does it have to do with the topic of the article???

P.S. Delorme's Cahier redaction (today's staff at Cahiers) is NOT Bazin's Cahiers, or Rivette's or Rohmer's... "The ten pitfalls of the auteur cinema" was an amusing stunt, that mainly justified a posteriori their idiosyncratic choices for the year-end list of 2012... It clearly has no comparable scope and depth with Truffaut's 1954 essay.

Cinéma à Shanghai (Anne Kerlan)

Cours de cinéma d'Anne Kerlan : Shanghai, une ville-cinéma
18 janvier 2013 (forumdesimages) 1h19'

Chercheure au CNRS (Institut d’histoire du temps présent), Anne Kerlan explore les relations entre la société chinoise et son cinéma, tout particulièrement d’avant 1949. Elle a publié de nombreux travaux, notamment sur la fréquentation des salles de cinéma en Chine, le destin d’une grande star de l’écran, la propagande. On la nommait, dans les années 30, le Hollywood de l’Orient. Shanghai accueillit le cinéma dès ses débuts et le destin de cet art, alors symbole de la modernité occidentale, est fortement lié à celui d’une ville unique, partagée entre parties chinoise et internationale. On explorera ces liens, selon un parcours historique qui traverse tout le XXe siècle.

Ce Cours de cinéma a eu lieu le 18 janvier 2013 au Forum des images, à Paris, dans le cadre du cycle "De Pékin à Taipeï : 1000 visages de la Chine" (9 janvier - 3 mars 2013)

Voir aussi :

23 janvier 2013

Cinephiles At Work

Self-Affirmation Delusion (USA Cinephilia)

The State of the "Art Film" : Why "Art Films" Are Thriving (Richard Brody; The New Yorker; 17 jan 2013)

Turd Polishing

Richard Brody of the New Yorker doesn't think the arthouse market is an endangered species in the USA, on the contrary he believes that it is THRIVING. WTF? Keep on polishing that turd!

He wouldn't look at reality in the eyes and acknowledge that there IS some kind of a problem...

between the lopsided distribution of domestic versus foreign cinema in USA commercial theatre,
between the distribution of American indies and Major Studios releases,
between how many spectators watch the best American films (as voted by American critics) within the USA, and how many watch them in other countries in the world.

People who call themselves "cinephiles" in the USA are diseased. This disease is called "Self-Affirmation Delusion".
Either they lie to themselves, and actually have no clue about what is going on around them (see the charts above about the ACTUAL state of artfilms at the Spectators, Distributors, Exhibitors and Critics level respectively). Nobody with a sane mind would consider these numbers "successful" or even remotely encouraging... But Richard Brody, maybe just ignores them, ignores the comparison with other markets from comparable countries in Europe (or in the West more generally), and with the rest of the world, or he knows and decides to lie to his readers, by spewing out a standard propaganda speech to keep the masses happy and comforted in their own superiority.

Positive Thinking (or Panglossianism)

Positive Thinking is a method that works well if you need a morale boost before a job interview or a blind date... to help you perform at the best of your possibility, to prevent stress from making you under-perform But Positive Thinking isn't a miracle cure, it's only a placebo, it doesn't make reality go away, it doesn't make you perform above your own limitations. But what can you do when an entire nation is raised on Positive Thinking at a national scale, in political statements, on news channels, at school, at work, in commercials, in entertainment... Repeating that the USA is the BEST COUNTRY IN THE UNIVERSE is in effect the national motto or more exactly a religious mantra. Keep telling yourself you're the best will make it happen. Not doing something about, not making some efforts, not reforming, not improving upon errors, not tracking your progress, not comparing your level with what best is found in the world... nah. Just repeating USA will ALWAYS be at its best is enough sweat. Keep polishing that turd together, until it's the shiniest that ever was.

Brody doesn't give a shit that artfilms (American-made or Foreign imports alike) are gradually and systematically becoming a Straight-to-Video commodity, that VOD will replace the default theatrical release (which was only exceptionally above 100 screens nationwide anyway). It's not the theatrical sales that are doing bad (at worst, it is stagnating), because people continue to "go to the movies" in mass, IF it is Hollywood-made spectacle of course. The only sector going down is the arthouse circuit. You can't blame that on a world wide bank crisis, a recession, or a massive transfer of viewing habits from the big screen to the home cinema. It is not happening for the blockbusters. Only for the arthouses. Why? Because regular movie goers, with mainstream taste, continue to ENJOY going to the movies, while so-called "cinephiles" have given up, and prefer to sit on their ass watching DVD or BluRays at home, watching their brick-and-mortar circuit of independent arthouses go bankrupt, shut down and die. They don't give a shit. And critics wouldn't even stand up to call for action, solidarity, support... Because they don't care.

Last year a bunch of bored hipsters took it upon themselves to put the heroic effort to push a petition button online to support Margaret, one out of a hundred American-made indie movie neglected or red-lit by Hollywood distributors (not even an outstanding indie, just one that is barely decent, that tries very hard to produce a Hollywood lookalike network narrative drama, a melodramatic distant adaptation of Cassavetes's Opening Night). What about all the others? What about all the world-class foreign films, much better than Margaret? Nah, that's too much effort. Besides they don't even think there is anything to be done... because EVERYTHING is GREAT.

In his article he seems pretty happy to boast about "The state of the 'Art Film' ", as if there was anything to be proud of... He's content to report that Sofia Coppola's next film will be released only in a handful of theatre, and, what a fantastic news, on VOD! Yeah, theatrical films are switching to being viewed only on the small screen, in digital form, and he celebrates!

"In short, 2013 is already a very good year; we’re living in a golden age of cinematic quality and quantity, and distributors are—not unfailingly, but nonetheless diligently and courageously—making a remarkable range of excellent films available (even if it’s the ones that remain unavailable that stick in the craw)."

Failing distributors, yes! Diligent and courageous? Who the fuck are you kidding dude??? Since when securing a safe, limited release on a dozen arthouses, in NYC and LA, to test the water, see if it sticks, could be described as courageous??? Courageous would be to open The Artist on at least 1000 screens nationwide, long before the marketing momentum of an Oscar win. Opening it on 4 screen for 4 weeks, and waiting after the Oscars ceremony to raise its distribution to over 1500 screen, is as cowardly as can be. Opening the film that was voted number 1 by all American critics in 2012, Holy Motors, on a handful of screens (and letting it reach a whooping 29 screens after the polls announcements) is NOT courageous. Opening a Hong Sang-soo film on 2 screens across America, is NOT courageous. You're in total denial dude!

Didn't you notice that even American indies get a wider release abroad? Have you no pride? Have you no shame? With close to 40000 screens, the USA has the largest theatrical circuit in the world! Above China or India!!! And yet, you let smaller countries release YOUR films on a wider scale than at home? Isn't it a definite proof that your distributors/exhibitors are totally useless? (See: Shut-in "Cinephiles" (USA) 1-2-3-4-5-6)

What is courageous is to select films before they have been released anywhere, like major festivals do. They put their trust in them, before any jury or critics poll or BO figures or Academy awards come in, they place a risky bet ahead of the business circuit, they grant faith to an artist. That is courage. Releasing A Separation, a worldwide popular success as a serious non-Hollywood art film can be, on only 4 screens, even though it was months after its success in Iran, in France, on the festival circuit... is NOT courageous! It's being AFRAID of risking money on something that already had a history of popular success. If you can even back this, then what?

Sorry, I see no sign for self-congratulation there. No one in the USA is professing a voice of reason, offering a reality check to those self-affirmative pundits, telling things as they are, and not how the marketing propaganda would like their turd polished...

Releasing high-profile foreign films on 1 single screen in NYC, just to get it registered in print in the New York Times, is not what we could call "courageous", or even "admirable" for the art film scene. This is a sham, a cover up. You can't lie to yourself and pretend that a WIDE RANGE OF EXCELLENT FILMS is AVAILABLE when it is de facto NOT AVAILABLE to practically EVERYONE in the USA except one neighborhood in Manhattan. Who are you kidding? Are you preaching to babies? Are you a baby yourself? What is it you think is going right in this scam? Hopelessly delusional.

Then he digs out an old article from 1992 (that he couldn't find anything more recent is proof of the silence of the press on this situation!) to show how the 80ies and 90ies were so much worse... I have a hard time imagining a worse level of commitment really... The USA is still dead last compared to any European country. So worse than a 5 screens release is what? Zero? Yeah right. Congratulation!!! The RICHEST country in the world, with the WEALTHIEST movie industry in the world, asks for applauds because they release world-class masterpieces on 5 screens now instead of ZERO. WOAW. I'm floored.

So Brody and his pal Roger Corman pat themselves in the back for this appalling distribution circuit, domestic-centric and entertainment-exclusive club. They even go so far as blaming THEIR FAILURE on the unaffordable price tag of European films... If Hollywood can't afford it, then which country could? Yet, the distribution of non-Hollywood films is doing pretty well everywhere, EXCEPT in the USA. Maybe it's time to realise that there is an unspoken CENSORSHIP going on here. Not by law like in Iran, but stricter than Iran's isolationism... WITHOUT AN OFFICIAL BAN... There is no cause for celebration to beat Iran at his own game.

Even if it was true, that ALL European distributors ask for too much money (dude, do you really want me to check if ALL SINGLE major European films unreleased in the USA had a fee way above standard practice, only to find out you didn't buy them because you're too lazy?), it wouldn't excuse the USA to deprive its citizens from the best of what cinema has to offer... Sometimes you have to pay the price, especially when you're the last country on Earth would should complain about financial problems. That's what happens on the art market, the highest bid wins the world-wide coveted painting! American museums don't scrap the spoils after European museums or Japan or China have bought out all the major artworks... they make sure to get the BEST, at all costs. That is the strategy when you seek to maintain the highest level of art appreciation in the world. If you want Kiarostami, you pay whatever he asks, period. You don't settle for "nevermind, we won't distribute it then"... If a smaller country with an economy 1 tenth of your size can release the same films, you shouldn't draw attention to this aspect. Cope out! Liar!

Maybe we should organise an Aid concert to donate money to the penniless Hollywood distributors so they can buy our movies... Wouldn't that be embarrassing; they would still take the money I'm sure.

American distributors and exhibitors just didn't learn how to do their job, how to take risks, how to put some efforts to attract and build an audience. The full extant of what they can do is to rent a guaranteed blockbuster and watch the profits cash in. If the appeal is not immediately visible or if the carpet-bombing marketing didn't fabricate ready-made die-hard fans long before the release, they have no clue how to do their job, how to HELP a film, how to bring in audience that come in by themselves... How dare you speak of COURAGE???

" In other words, viewers could see something of the essence of the European art cinema in the Hollywood movies of the seventies. "

Bullshit! Stop lying to yourself. New Hollywood in the 70ies (10 years later!) was never on the level of formal experimentation and thematic transgression that it ever was in the 60ies in Japan, France, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Germany, the UK, Québec, South America, Yugoslavia, Argentina, Portugal, Brazil... IT was a shock for the puritan mentality of the time, but it was merely a Hollywood-lookalike "neorealism". Not to mention all these directors jumped right in the doors of Hollywood when they try to buy them out, and went on to become VERY COMMERCIAL, POLITICALLY CORRECT for-hire directors in Hollywood. We can't exactly say the same for all the independent directors in the rest of the world. Who are you brainwashing with such lies? Don't you think your readers know at least a little about New Hollywood and the New Waves in the world?

Besides it's an excuse a profit-driven studio executive would come up with. How could a film critic with self-respect, would declare that since Hollywood stole all the good ideas from Europe (and applied them with much less talent or subversion), then it was A-OK to stop importing them. WTF? On what side of history are you? Even if Hollywood and Europe made films based on the same aesthetic and thematic (which is far from the truth!), it will NEVER make two films interchangeable, or films from one part of the world dispensable... Isolationism might be a political argument (at times), it is NEVER a cultural argument! Don't you defend culture wherever it comes from, you miserable movie-pages employee??? This is really disappointing...

" “The repertory houses died because of video,” but a new generation of movie lovers who are accustomed to watching movies on their computers increasingly go out to watch movies on the big screen, and—at least in New York—the repertory scene is booming."

What a delusional hypocrite! Why a megalopole such as NYC, with 20 million urbanite inhabitants, cannot outperform the arthouse ticket sales of a smaller country (including both urban and rural populations thus with a lower density of culture-driven intellectuals!) like Belgium, The Netherlands or Austria (each under 17 million population)??? I'd like to know.

"Booming" my ass! What a strong word, for an arthouse circuit that can't dedicate more than 5 screens to festival winner films... Totally out of touch with reality, using disproportionate vocabulary for marketing purpose and refusing to call for action to improve the disastrous situation.

"On the one hand, the Internet makes it possible to get a discussion going—in effect, to force the hand of publication’s editors by making news news from the ground up."

Yeah sure! But where did you see that happening yet? Even your column is still on propaganda mode.

"virtual revelation of the ubiquitous director as “that man [or woman] behind the curtain” and the sense that the director was, in effect, on hand at the edge of the frame throughout the film, guiding the action and commenting on it"

That's his definition of what "European art cinema" is, the very guy who wrote a biography of Godard himself... What a joke! There is nothing else to draw from European cinema once you caught on with this trope. Nothing else! It's basically The Wizard of Oz, and all the formal invention, the intellectual reflection, the sociopolitical subversion, the themes, the stories, the mise en scène styles, the visions, the unique voices... none of this is WORTH distributing, as long as Hollywood can turn them into watered-down, pre-digested stereotyped remakes for domestic consumption. Yeah I would expect that mentality from an apologetic studio executive, not from a guy who pretends to write serious criticism in the New Yorker!

"If the so-called art cinema has become increasingly important (and if Hollywood itself has expanded, radically, its aesthetic range—and it has), it is, in part, because the range of subjects at hand has expanded"

More delusional B.S. Increasingly important in the world, not quite in the USA though.

"We’re seeing more American films that qualify for that loose term, art film."

LMAO.

"Indeed, the increased pace of production for Terrence Malick and other directors is due to the presence of congenial financiers who don’t expect something other than what the filmmaker intends to deliver."

Yeah, cause they are funded (or co-produced) by European risk-takers money!

"And while it would be familiarly silly to think that all is for the best in this best of all cinematic worlds, the range of styles and subjects, and of world views and experiences, that the cinema now offers is bewilderingly, dazzlingly vast—and the works in question are more readily available than ever".

Silly indeed, but it doesn't stop you from gushing out an hyperbolic, undeserved praise and feeding your readers with delusional propaganda. Vast it is not. I begin to worry whether you know the meaning of the adjective you use. But who cares? The American people is bred on Positive Thinking, and collective denial. So the press plays its part in feeding this delusion, just like another branch of the self-serving marketing campaign. There is no "independent critic" working in the USA today. There is no "cinephiles" in the USA today, if there ever was. If there were, they would take offense to such article, they would organise themselves and defend a dying arthouse circuit, instead of encouraging it substitution by video distributors!

Phallocentric Aspirational Role Models in Movies (Stokes)

Colin Stokes: How movies teach manhood

Nov 2012 (TEDxBeaconStreet) 13'

Female Glass Ceiling in Hollywood (CUFF)
Women Make Movies (films by and about women)
Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film (Martha Lausen; University of San Diego)
Women and Hollywood (Melissa Silverstein; indieWIRE)
Films By and About Women (14 Oct 2011)
Facts and Statistics About Women in Film and Hollywood (18 Jan 2011)
Ressources for Women and Film (17 Jan 2011)
How Can Women Gain Influence in Hollywood? (NYT; 14 Aug 2012)
Brits in Spandex and girl power: movie trends that will keep us talking in 2013 (Tom Shone; The Guardian; 3 Januray 2013)

19 janvier 2013

Contraste rural-urbain dans le cinéma chinois des 20 dernières années (Frodon)

Cours de cinéma de Jean-Michel Frodon : Villes chinoises au prisme du cinéma
11 jan 2013 (forumdesimages) 1h28'

Evolution of the Mainstream Taste (USA)

Michael Haneke philosophiquement (France Culture)

Philosopher avec Michael Haneke (Adèle Van Reeth; France Culture; 2013)

1. Le cinéma sans issue (14 jan 2013) [MP3] 58'
avec Philippe Rouyer (critique, Positif)

Certains films rassurent et donnent envie de se réconcilier avec le monde, d’autres, et c’est le cas de l’œuvre du cinéaste dont nous allons parler cette semaine, laissent au mieux, un goût amer, au pire, une colère violente dont on ne sait si elle se porte sur le film qui vient d’être vu, ou sur la réalité elle-même.
Alors après Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock, Eric Rohmer et David Lynch, Philosopher avec Michaël Haneke, c’est le défi de cette semaine.
Demain, Valérie Carré viendra nous parler du Ruban Blanc, à l’occasion des 24 heures France-Allemagne organisées par France Culture, mercredi, Yannick Rolandeau dissèquera la perversion sans issue de Funny Games, et jeudi, c’est le philosophe Bernard Baas qui viendra jouer du piano malsain aux côtés de la Pianiste. Mais pour l’heure, pour commencer cette semaine, j’ai le grand plaisir d’accueillir Philippe Rouyer, critique de cinéma qui connaît l’œuvre deMichaël Haneke mieux que personne, pour nous initier au cinéma sans issue du réalisateur autrichien, du 7ème Continent au magnifique Amour.

2. Le ruban blanc (15 jan 2013) [MP3] 58'

Avec : Valérie Carré, maître de conférences au Département d'études allemandes à l’université de Strasbourg, spécialiste du cinéma allemand

Pour le deuxième temps de notre semaine consacrée au cinéaste Michaël Haneke, et à l’occasion de la journée spéciale qu’organise France Culture aujourd’hui mardi 15 janvier autour des relations franco-allemandes, j’ai le plaisir d’accueillir aujourd’hui Valérie Carré pour parler du Ruban Blanc, palme d’or au Festival de Cannes en 2009.

3. Funny Games (16 jan 2013) [MP3] 58'

Avec : Yannick Rolandeau, cinéaste

Quant à nous, après Le septième continent et Amour, lundi, Le ruban blanc, hier, et avant La Pianiste demain, c’est le troisième temps aujourd’hui de notre semaine passée à philosopher avec le cinéaste Michaël Haneke, c’est le philosophe Yannick Rolandeau qui vient aujourd’hui nous livrer les clés d’un film faussement joueur et pas si drôle, quoi qu’en dise le titre, Funny Games.
Tout commence par un jeu ; un couple et leur enfant assis à l’arrière de la voiture jouent à deviner le nom des compositeurs dont les musiques – classiques- sont diffusées à la radio. Ils s’amusent. Arrivés dans leur maison de campagne, chacun s’installe et un jeune homme, croisé rapidement auparavant alors qu’ils saluaient des voisins, entre dans la maison. Il n’en sortira pas. Un autre le rejoindra. Et ils joueront, eux aussi, à leur façon : ils joueront à tuer.
Dans quel but, se demande légitimement le spectateur, me montre-t-on ce jeu d’autant plus malsain qu’il est sans issue, puisqu’il conduit de manière inéluctable à la mort des personnages ? La question n’est pas celle de savoir si l’on peut jouer de tout, mais si le cinéma doit avoir des limites, morales, éthiques, au nom du respect du spectateur. Cinématographiquement impeccable, Funny games crée une expérience filmique rarement atteinte. Littéralement insoutenable, il contraint quiconque parvient à surmonter sa colère à s’interroger sur ce que la représentation d’une telle violence dit du monde, de nous-mêmes, et, entre le monde et nous-mêmes, le rôle qu’y joue le cinéma.

4. La pianiste (17 jan 2013) [MP3] 58'

Avec : Bernard Baas, professeur de philosophie à l’université de Strasbourg

Voici le dernier temps de notre semaine passée à réfléchir sur le travail du cinéaste Michaël Haneke, lui qui, par sagesse de vie et intelligence du cinéma, filme l’insoutenable, non par provocation, mais comme rappel de ce de quoi le monde est aussi fait.
Après le 7ème continent et Amour, lundi, Le Ruban blanc mardi et Funny Games hier, c’est aujourd’hui le philosophe Bernard Baas qui vient jouer du piano malsain aux côtés d’Isabelle Huppert, pour évoquer le plus musical et le plus masochiste des films de Haneke, la Pianiste.

Voir aussi :

16 janvier 2013

Wu Tianming

Rencontre avec Wu Tianming, cinéaste, acteur et producteur
10 jan 2013 (forumdesimages) 1h32'

Né en 1939, Wu Tianming est acteur, cinéaste, mais aussi le producteur mythique des studios Xi’an dans les années 80. Sous sa direction, “ces studios se transforment en un Eldorado du cinéma, sur lequel souffle l’esprit nouveau et qui marque les débuts de la fameuse Cinquième Génération, celle qui a, entre autre, lancé le cinéma chinois dans une orbite internationale”, note Luisa Prudentino, spécialiste du cinéma chinois. Cet homme au charme débonnaire a non seulement produit le premier film de Zhang Yimou (Sorgho rouge, Ours d’or à Berlin en 1988) mais l’a fait aussi tourner comme acteur dans Le Vieux Puits (1986). Il a ainsi permis au futur célèbre cinéaste de rafler le Prix du meilleur acteur au Festival de Tokyo en 1987 !

Cette rencontre, animée par Damien Paccellieri, a eu lieu le 10 janvier 2013 au Forum des images, à Paris, dans le cadre du cycle De Pékin à Taipei, 1 000 visages de la Chine.

Voir aussi :