La consommation culturelle (Montebello)

Université Paul Verlaine - Metz (20 Avril 2010) 1h09min (Canal-U)
avec : Fabrice MONTEBELLO (historien du cinéma), Jean-Marc LEVERATTO (sociologue), Olgierd KUTY (sociologue)

« Si nous devions raisonner en termes de taille (Latour, 1995), nous dirions que le mouvement observé entre 1929 et 2004 opère selon la logique suivante :

1. expansion du marché des films (1929-1965)
2. redéploiement (1966-1985)
3. prolifération (1986-2004)

Si nous devions raisonner en termes de grandeur (Boltanski, 1990) et introduire ainsi dans notre observation l’action des personnes sur les films, nous dirions que ces trois moments correspondent à trois types d’action :

1. la réduction du spectacle au film
2. sa domestication - qui permet la généralisation des savoirs sur ce dernier ainsi que l’expansion de la culture cinématographique
3. la domestication du spectacle cinématographique lui-même

La thèse défendue dans cet ouvrage va à contre-courant du catastrophisme ambiant sur « la mort du cinéma » et la menace que la « massification hollywoodienne » ferait peser sur le cinéma national et sur ses spectateurs. Elle pointe au contraire la prolifération de l’offre filmique dans toute sa diversité et la demande croissante de qualité de la part d’un public toujours plus nombreux, plus informé et plus averti. [..]

La démarche oblige également à prendre comme unité d’observation, non pas le film, ni même la copie de film, mais la séance. Dans la séance de cinéma ou la séance télé, le film est le support principal du spectacle. Mais il ne peut agir efficacement qu’avec la complicité du spectateur. Cette précision est importante car elle permet de rappeler que l’exploitant propose généralement à des publics différents plusieurs spectacles à partir d’une seule copie de films. L’oubli de cette pratique banale a conduit des chercheurs à surévaluer la présence du cinéma américain en France sur la seule base du rapport des nouveaux films entre eux, et non des copies en exploitation et encore moins de leurs passages. [..]

La présence planétaire du film américain par exemple, est souvent interprétée de manière unilatérale, soit qu’elle corresponde à la seule action des personnes (la domination politique ou économique des Etats-Unis), soit qu’on l’attribue à celle du film uniquement (un cinéma-monde). Mais ce n’est pas parce que le film américain est universel, qu’il est présent partout dans le monde. C’est parce qu’il est présent partout dans le monde, et que l’on peut faire concrètement l’expérience de sa qualité, de Tombouctou à Oslo, de Lille à Marseille, de Rome à New York, des temples de la cinéphilie parisienne aux usines de Longwy, qu’il est universel. Ce constat banal qui rappelle que le cinéma ne se réduit ni à des œuvres ou des auteurs, ni même à une communauté élue de spectateurs (les cinéphiles cultivés des classes supérieures) mais à un dispositif technique qui engage des êtres humains et des objets (les films), est aussi une manière de réintroduire – sans célébration, ni dénonciation – les figures oubliées de l’histoire du cinéma : producteurs, distributeurs, exploitants, spectateurs ordinaires. A condition toutefois de rappeler que le moteur de l’histoire du cinéma, c’est le plaisir. Un plaisir cultivé - non pas au sens d’un plaisir réservé à une caste ou à une classe - mais au sens d’un plaisir que tous les hommes, les gens comme vous et moi, ont la capacité d’entretenir, c’est-à-dire d’élaborer, de partager, et de transmettre pour en faire bénéficier d’autres personnes qui y trouveront, comme ils l’ont eux-mêmes trouvé, la confirmation de leur humanité. Sans films américains en France et sans spectateurs français pour prendre plaisir à ces films et en reconnaître la qualité, pas de Nouvelle Vague, ni de « nouvelle vague de spectateurs » pour en apprécier les réalisations.

L’histoire culturelle du marché cinématographique

En fait, les querelles esthétiques recoupent des tensions réelles au sein des professionnels du cinéma et soulignent la part importante prise par les tenants d’une intervention de l’Etat au sein du marché. L’appel à ce dernier pour garantir le « cinéma indépendant » et « la diversité de l’offre » doit s’entendre comme une demande de soutien au « cinéma d’auteur », et à la programmation de salles Art et essai. [..]

Cette brève description du marché cinématographique français et des débats récurrents qu’il suscite montrent que « marché » et « industrie », avant d’être des catégories de discrimination de la qualité cinématographique, sont des réalités qui n’existent pas en dehors de l’action quotidienne des individus (Leveratto, 2000). Qu’il soit « artistique », « indépendant » ou « commercial », qu’il relève de « l’exception culturelle » ou du « business », le film n’en demeure pas moins une marchandise qui se fabrique, se paie, se vend et s’achète. Et dans ce domaine, l’argent ne tombe pas plus du ciel que « les idées justes » du président Mao Tsê-tung. Dès lors, il importe moins de noter qu’une logique de préfinancement s’est substituée à une logique de risque que d’identifier les modèles d’expertise de la qualité cinématographique qui la soutiennent. Le régime de la dispute demeure un bon moyen d’objectiver les entreprises de justification des acteurs. Les querelles régulières opposant les tenants d’un cinéma à « fort potentiel commercial » aux défenseurs du « cinéma indépendant » révèlent au moins deux modèles d’expertise. Le premier privilégie le public, notamment celui des salles, comme un instrument de mesure de la qualité cinématographique. Le second utilise la figure de l’auteur. Son usage est systématisé dans les commissions d’experts mises en place par le CNC et se trouve partagé par les principaux partenaires qui accompagnent la fabrication et la diffusion des films sélectionnés (producteurs et distributeurs indépendants, salles Art et essai, programmateurs télé et éditeurs vidéos de productions à prétention artistique). Dans les deux cas, les choix opérés demeurent des anticipations et comportent un risque inhérent à la fabrication de tout produit culturel (qu’il soit « commercial » ou « artistique »). Il n’y a pas plus de facilité à tenter de rentabiliser des millions d’euros en espérant séduire des millions de spectateurs, qu’il n’y a d’audace à toucher des milliers de personnes à partir de produits qui ont coûté des milliers d’euros. Ce qui ne préjuge ni du devenir grand du petit film, ni de la chute fracassante du grand film. La différence essentielle provient de la mutualisation du risque. Le « cinéma commercial » engage essentiellement le public des films rangés sous cette étiquette, le « cinéma indépendant » est garanti par l’Etat. Il engage donc une deuxième fois le public, mais sous la forme de la délégation et de la représentation démocratique, c’est-à-dire l’ensemble des citoyens - en fait l’ensemble des spectateurs français car les aides de l’Etat au cinéma ne proviennent pas du budget, mais des taxes parafiscales internes à la filière - y compris ceux qui n’adhèrent pas au « cinéma d’auteur ». [..]

Par ailleurs, la disponibilité télévisuelle – à l’origine de la dénonciation traditionnelle des effets négatifs du petit écran provoqués par « l’accoutumance » (addiction) – affine la sensibilité de l’œil. Petits et grands, jeunes et vieux, hommes et femmes, ouvriers et bourgeois, citadins et ruraux, etc., apprennent à forger leur regard et à discriminer la qualité des films en les consommant à la télévision, avant de se rendre dans les salles. Dans ce domaine, c’est moins la possession d’un capital culturel (Bourdieu) qui détermine la capacité à discriminer la qualité des films que le temps passé à les consommer. [..]

Conçues sous la forme de synthèses, ces histoires sont des histoires du cinéma mondial (« à la Sadoul »). Les travaux collectifs les plus aboutis proposés par les chercheurs aujourd’hui se présentent toujours selon ce modèle : La storia del cinema mondiale (Brunetta, 1999-2001), The Oxford History of World Cinema (Nowell-Smith, 1999), Film History, An Introduction (Bordwell and Thompson, 2003). En fait d’histoires du cinéma mondial, il s’agit d’histoires mondiales des cinémas nationaux dans lesquelles chaque filmographie est rapportée, le plus souvent, à son espace original de constitution (le film hollywoodien aux Etats-Unis, le film français à la France, le film italien à l’Italie, etc.,). Ces histoires du cinéma mondial oublient ainsi de prendre en considération ce qui les rendent possibles : la mondialisation des films, et plus exactement, leur traduction.

La mondialisation des films est une réalité que connaît le spectateur ordinaire depuis les débuts du cinéma. Elle n’est donc pas une caractéristique du film parlant. Mais elle permet de rappeler que les films nationaux sont rarement appréhendés, fabriqués ou consommés en dehors de la présence de films étrangers. [..] »

Fabrice Montebello, Le cinéma en France – Depuis les années 1930, Paris, Armand Colin, 2005

Autres lectures recommendées:

• Jean-Marc Leveratto et Fabrice Montebello, « Politiques du cinéma », Politix. Volume 16 - n°61/2003
• Jean-Marc Leveratto, La mesure de l’art, sociologie de la qualité artistique, Paris, La dispute, 2000 ainsi que Introduction à l’anthropologie du spectacle, Paris, La dispute, 2006.

Invisible thread (ironic)

RayBan viral -anonymous- campaign (original video here) 7 may 2010

deconstructed by a video special FX analyst (Captain Disillusion) :


CupNoodles (Japan) copycat ad 2010 :

American Fatalism (2)

"Tout est au mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles"

Voltaire, Candide, ou l'Optimisme, 1759.

Maybe I'm extremely naive... I thought that only the lowbrow crowd, who doesn't know what "foreign cinema" is, could be against the visibility of non-domestic films, because they are too "different", too "boring" or too "subtitled". I thought that real cinephiles in the USA didn't think like the majority that makes the box office numbers. I thought that art-film critics, film historians, cinephiles magazines would hold dear the values of freedom of expression, cultural diversity, philoxeny (welcoming the other), even if it meant going against the homegrown "studio system". A no-brainer, I assumed.

I mean, you may love Hollywood entertainment, and find European films overrated, but still defend diversity by principles, just for the sake of showing your children what overseas countries create. Cultural exchanges are NECESSARY in principles, even if you don't need the comparison.

Well, that's my belief anyway, you may say I'm a dreamer.

So I won't hide my disappointment when the reputable Kristin Thompson condoned the status quo imposed by the "system" in her recent article : "it takes all kinds" (24 May 2010).

Roger Ebert issued an open-minded proposal to support more of what he called "Real Movies" as an alternative to the formulaic fare available on the American screens :

"We should start a Campaign for Real Movies. These also would not be carbonated by CGI or 3D. They would be carefully created by artists, from original recipes, i.e., screenplays. Each movie would be different. There would be no effort to force them into conformity with commercial formulas. [..] These aren't all masterpieces, although some are, but they're all Real Movies. None follows a familiar story arc. All involve intense involvement with their characters. All do something that is perhaps the most important thing a movie can do: They take us outside our personal box of time and space, and invite us to empathize with those of other times, places, races, creeds, classes and prospects. I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization." Roger Ebert (19 May 2010)

Who would disagree? Even if Ebert's idea of an empathic movie might not be my idea of greater cinema, I would obviously welcome such initiative meant to loosen up (a little) the monopoly the Hollywood system has and has had on American culture for decades, well let's just say for ever.

Why on Earth would Kristin Thompson, a scholar well versed in world cinema (with a slight preference for Hollywood alright), see the need to shoot down such initiative that could only improve culture as a whole and would not alter in any perceptible way her own consumption of Hollywood offerings?

Why would anyone be against the presence of blue cheese at the supermarket, even if all you eat is apple pie? It does not force you to eat it. And it only broadens the horizon of taste for everyone, if they feel like giving it a try. But it won't alter the "free market", it would not stop the masses from voting with their money (their consumption).

I'm not against dumb crowds choosing willingly to consume crap, if that's what they really want even after knowing what the counterculture is. I'm against a market where such crowd is brainwashed since early childhood not to even desire something different because they haven't been exposed to alternative choices, and has been educated to look down on anything foreign and/or artsy and/or intellectual.

To me this looks like an unjust trade, not to mention the drawback of cultural isolationism (and the pointless protectionism of an already hegemonic culture!).

I begin to understand why this situation hasn't changed... it's because even foreign friendly scholars in America not only approve this status quo, but voice their opposition to any change to break the insularity. There really is a cultural barrier!

I had already noticed a certain conservatism of the copyrights about conservation of film archives... I should have figured out that the divide was a matter of political ideology, and not a matter of cultural protection regardless for national borders and private industrial interests.

In my article (Second Class Film Distribution), I suggested that the alleged "free market" wasn't fair, that the apparent low consumption of foreign films in the USA, wasn't solely due to the strict preference for the Hollywood fare, but was influenced/forged by an intentionally isolationist market (by not distributing foreign films, by limiting their circulation/accessibility to a wide market, by rendering them virtually invisible).

I was talking about the same facts, but drew very different conclusions, less fatalistic, less defeatist indeed.

In her article, Kristin Thompson, not only disagrees, but affirms that the market is BIASED by subsidies, thus favouring artificially foreign films... So basically, she says that the 5 or 8% of foreign films consumed in the USA would go even LOWER if festival and arthouses didn't support them against the popular taste. Well festivals are not part of the commercial distribution market, they are not part of the "free market" featured in the BO and admissions statistics. A festival is a showcase for professional (critics, buyers, producers). If the "civilian audience" can only see foreign films at a pre-distribution event, and a scholar complains that this "subsidies-supported" festival circuit tempers with the "free market"... something is very wrong!

Is it even possible in a major Western industrial nation (world leader at that) for its population to score a disinterest for foreign film culture as low as Iran or India? And the dominant position, the higher quality of its domestic cinema (Hollywood) does not justify alone to turn a blind eye on what other countries do, like such a repressive regime as Iran could impose by force, censorship and fear. Even India which has more than twice as many domestic films to sell (thus would have more economical incentive to ban foreign competition) leaves a bigger share of their market to non-Indian films!!! There is no pride for Iran or India to be culturally isolationist, but I think that there is even less excuses for a cosmopolitan melting-pot like the USA, founded on multiculturalism, freedom of expression and foreign heritages.

I'm sorry I don't see anything natural in this "free market". I refuse to believe that this is the free choice of movie goers who would only judge films on their entertainment quality. Hollywood might be the leading choice for entertainment, and maybe over 50% of the times (like it is in Europe or other foreign markets), but not as far as 90 or 95% of the time. The fact is that American audience prefers to watch in mass crap Hollywood flicks, rather than a better commercial film made by foreigners (based on equivalent content and entertainment value). Anybody who has watched quality entertainment made outside of Hollywood would agree that foreign countries are capable to produce films that could easily compete on equal footing with the average Hollywood flick (if not the best Hollywood blockbusters which are in a different league altogether, out of reach because of an unmatchable budget!).

If the "free market rules", we need to rule it out for the sake of world culture.

Can we trust the "free market" to protect and teach culture? Not the patriot, nationalistic culture against the aliens, where every country fend for their own selfish interests. I mean global culture, the culture of the world we live in, the civilization of mankind, the general history of worldwide cinema. Did you see what conservatism and free market did to the Stock Market, to universal healthcare, to the Press? Art Culture (not popular culture consumerism) has nothing to do with the market, there is no reason to believe commerce has any incentive to regulate itself without the assistance of cultural policies.

Then Kristin Thompson goes on to explain that if you're an American and want to see foreign films, you must take days off and fly to Vancouver, like she does. Because, "If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain". In this case, it seems more appropriate to force everyone who needs to watch a foreign film to add the price of a flight abroad to the admission price, rather than try to change the distribution system to allow such films on a screen near you. Why make things simple for everyone when you can make them complicated for a few? In short, she condones the idea that "art films" should only be accessible in America to consumers who can afford plane tickets, and the rest can forget about it.

After blaming subsidized festivals for having a free ride for too long, she compares art cinema to painting exhibition and opera, to explain that Hollywood is a consumer good accessible for EVERYONE, but art cinema is such an elitist and obscure art form that no larger demographic would possibly be interested in it than the visitors of plastic and lyrical art.

In other circumstances, I would happily compare Cinema to other well established arts like Painting and Opera, because Cinema didn't just win yet its place in the coveted pantheon of recognized arts. But here, measuring up the potential audience that art cinema could draw (and not all of it is inaccessible and intellectual, there are many films with a wide entertainment appeal among foreign films!) to the exclusive crowd of museum goers is simply ludicrous. The narrative plot of foreign films rarely attain the alienation of an Opera livret.

Comparing these art forms reveals her true opinion of "art cinema", and where she ranks it in comparison to the market-approved "commercial cinema".

The sad part : I'm pretty sure the best foreign films don't get nearly as much exposure/accessibility/exhibition time in America as the star painting exhibitions get on a nationwide promotional tour... Heck, an exhibition would accommodate more audience in one opening day, and an opera in one show than a single screening of Sokurov's The Sun! 300, 500 people able to see this film in America (outside of the festival circuit)? I don't think the low tier art exhibitions and the Opera "flops" do that bad...

Kristin Thompson : "To break through decades of viewing habits, such people would need to learn new ones, which takes time and effort. People’s tastes can be educated, but the odds are usually against it actually happening."

This is one thing I wasn't prepared to hear from an academic! Even the elite of the American Education system thinks that there is no hope in teaching some taste for art in the mainstream population... Who else could do it if not the teachers? Even if it was a Sisyphean task, an educator would have the responsibility to die trying, not to publicly discourage others from trying!

Americans watch more movies overall per year than the more populous 27 member-states EU, and still watch less non-Hollywood films in straight numbers as well as in percentage! When I see the low score of foreign films on the American market, I think :

• let's break the hegemony, the cultural brainwashing
• let's find a legit counterpoint to the "free market"
• let's open up the commercial screens to more diversity
• let's preserve a minimal room for "commercially-challenged" films that should stay up a little longer even though they can't compete with blockbusters
• let's educate the mainstream taste, at school, at university, in the press, on TV
• let's force distributors to show all kinds of films if their agenda doesn't see fit...

You see, the French "exception culturelle" wasn't God-given, and it's not because the population of France is genetically distinct. We fought for it, it took "time and effort", but we made it happen, against all odds, because it was worth it. In fact, if there is any artistic appreciation for Classic Hollywood at the universities, and in the specialized film press, it is probably because French educators fought for it!

Langlois stole prints from the Nazis during the war, and showed American silent masterpieces when they were long forgotten in the USA. He saved prints when the Studio system discarded them (destroyed them) right after their theatrical run!

Bazin built a network of cine-clubs to nurse art film appreciation throughout France after WW2.

The students defended Langlois in 1968 when the government stole his Cinémathèque from him.

Malraux made film culture a priority, installed safety nets for the domestic production.

Cinema was admitted at the university thanks to the youngsters Langlois educated screenings after screenings.

L'avance sur recette, the subsidies, the quotas were legislated by the government to save and protect art cinema and foreign cinema against the natural bend of the free market.

It didn't happen overnight...

But now France is in a position, not only to defend its own domestic production against the hegemonic invasion of Hollywood blockbusters (one of the last place in Europe and in the world, not to succumb to the "market rule"), but to help foreign film distribution here (even if there isn't much more audience for it) and even the production of foreign films in their own country.

And the American academe says it is not gonna happen in the USA? What is the incompatibility? What is the unsurmountable obstacle preventing it? Why is the American society so different that they couldn't evolve towards a more welcoming market? towards a broader taste? Why are American intellectuals powerless and unimaginative?

It's not the lack of brain power, or the absence of a cinephile community, or the irrevocable disinterest of the youth... all you have to do is to REGULATE an economic monopoly. And if the audience doesn't support such restraints, a long term education will undoubtedly vanquish any major resistance after progressive exposure to non-standardised culture.

That is if you manage to put an end to the jingoist brainwashing of Hollywood pervading all media which makes sure American audiences keep on buying American products. Then maybe we could talk about a natural supply-demand self-regulation of consumers.

Because of its leading position on the world market of cinema, because of the aura of its culture, and because it is the industry that benefits the most at the global box office, the USA has the responsibility to be the leader in protecting world culture (like Martin Scorsese does with his World Film Fondation), to re-invest a (slim) portion of its huge revenues (mainly earned from the consumption of foreign movie goers!) in non-profit programs that sustains cultural diversity.

The history of cinema was built upon the cross-cultural influences cinema had on filmmakers from every countries, on the appreciation of film critics for underexposed gems in the margin of the commercial circuit. It wasn't the free market who made cinema the art it is today. And it won't stay up there if you let the profit driven studios, focus groups and textbook formulae decide what the audience should or shouldn't see, and ostracize the cinephile minority pushing foreign film lovers towards the ghetto of film festivals and home-video viewing.

If the American cinephiles, scholars, journalists and educators had any cultural ambition, they could dream up a better system and would fight for it, with "time and effort", "against all odds".

YES WE CAN. Change we can believe in. Hope.

Certain people thought it was possible.

YouTube at the Guggenheim

* * *

YouTube Play - Guggenheim Museum biennal for online media art

YouTube Play is a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum to unearth and showcase the very best creative video from around the world. To have your work considered, simply post it on YouTube, and then submit it at youtube.com/play. A jury of experts will decide which works presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel.

Creative criteria seek :

• creative videos: including animation, motion graphics, narrative, non-narrative, or documentary work, music videos, and entirely new art forms.
• to discover works that are innovative, original, and surprising, regardless of genre, technique, or budget.
• works that debate, discuss, test, experiment with, and elevate video in all kinds of ways.
• something different. Not what's now, but what's next.
• The video must not have been distributed to the public more than two years prior to 14 June 2010.
• Creator must be at least 18 yold (as of 14 June, 2010)

Admissions per film nationality - World Cinema Stats (17)

THESE COMMERCIAL ADMISSIONS DO NOT INCLUDE FESTIVAL SCREENINGS !

2008/2009	USA	EU27
Population (million)	307.4	501.3
Total admissions (million)	1364	981.1
Average admission/capita	4.47	1.96
Screens	39028	29225
Domestic Film Production	558	1168

Note:  EU27 members (since 2007) = EU27: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,  Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK

Source : Focus 2010 - Tendences du marché mondial, Marché du film, Cannes 2010 (Observatoire Européen de l'Audiovisuel) [PDF]




Related :

• EU Admissions (2008)
• BO 2009 / Hollywood 2009 / Slow Release 
• Foreign Film Friendly Audiences
• American Fatalism
• World Cinema Stats index

Kapo, Rivette, Daney (Bou)

"De l'abjection [Kapo de Gillo Pontecorvo]", Jacques Rivette

Cours de cinéma au Forum des Images, par Stéphane Bou (26 mars 2010) 1h33'

• "Kapò", Gillo Portecorvo, Italie, 1959
• "De l'abjection", Jacques Rivette, Cahiers du cinéma, n° 120, juin 1961 [PDF]
• "Le Travelling de Kapo", Serge Daney, Trafic, n°4, automne 1992 [ENGLISH]

Contexte, contexte, contexte : la base de la critique objective! En l'occurance ici, l'historiographie objective de la critique de cinéma.

Double Standard - Film Comment (4)

What a coincidence! The following issue of Film Comment (May-June 2010) contains an apologetic editorial (self-persuading affirmative speech about the obvious dedication of the journal to cover the "beyond the multiplex" of cinema) and a ("long time overdue") article about... Experimental cinema! Well, well, well.

Last issue, the editor tells us how conformist and retrograde are the "festival films"... and look what he promotes this time : Metropolis, Breathless! Who is nostalgic of the past, who is channeling past glories now? Today's filmmakers or film critics? That's neo-journalism! Why cover contemporary cinema when you can indulge in the uncontroversial legacy from the past? If you feed the new generation of readers with oldies, don't you think that the new filmmakers will inevitably make films INFLUENCED by past styles??? That's double standard.

What else? Michael Douglas, Polanski, Mia Hansen-Love! These guys aren't guilty of the so-called "La Tradition de Qualité", right? They don't "neatly fit into these prefab formats" you warned us about? Is this the best alternative styles you could find? The youngest one on the list, Mia, is a self-proclaimed follower of La Nouvelle Vague, Assayas, Doillon! That's double standard.

Since when Film Comment decided that polls and best-of lists replaced written, articulated, analytical content? Is this your way to reach out to the teen demographic? List-mania is OK for the movie fans who can't do anything better than order their preferences in an easy-reading fashion. Not only the Avant Garde lists (4 lists no less!), but the whole issue is plagued with lists everywhere... Where are we? On Rotten Tomatoes? Is this where the post-crisis cinephile journalism is aiming for? To become more like the commercial press? Is this what moralizing critics resort to? What a great idea that was to lecture us about conformism! More double standard.

A consensual listing, ranked by popularity, gives already an arguable result for the mainstream cinema everyone has seen, where every voter has more or less seen the same candidates at least (TSPDT). But the same method is so inappropriate for Experimental cinema, which is so vast, so diverse, so difficult to compare, so disparate... and where every voter come in with a different set of films seen (let alone preferred), because they are screened sporadically. Only the films that MOST critics had the chance to watch, will make a list ranked by popularity... which defeats the purpose to defend the underexposed gems. What your list ranks is the "mainstream" of Avant Garde cinema, or the official Avant Garde endorsed and screened by the alternative circuit. Exit the Avant Garde too visionary, too subversive, too radical to find a patron or a projection...

From all the experimental films listed there, how many had a public release outside of galleries and the festival circuit? Making a long list doesn't mean that these filmmakers are welcome by the system, or that the films are seen by the public, or that the press is covering them. Surely a list isn't enough to put an end to this ostracism. I don't know who are the "naysayers" you're talking about, but the point isn't that Experimental cinema doesn't exist (we knew there was an Experimental scene alive and kicking in spite of everything), but that it is not supported by the film press and the public exhibition circuit. You can't use the fact this fringe manages to exist in spite of the cinema system, to prove that your magazine has anything to do with its survival...

I don't know Lewis Klahr, your featured experimental filmmaker. However, from what I could read, I'm pretty sure the article could use some Max Ernst's collage (1920ies!) and Roy Lichtenstein's mock-up cartoon (1960ies!) references, if you really want to be honest about the "prefab formats" and stylistic imitation of the past... Not to mention Virgil Widrich's Fast Film (2003). When Manny Farber was doing collage-painting in the 70ies, it was already passé for Contemporary Arts... This kind of omission is another double standard.

Sure, with double standard, it is easy to paint a negative portrait of the cinema you don't like, and a more advantageous appreciation of the cinema you like. But is this kind of journalism intellectually honest?

Read the full "the critic who cried wolf" saga here : 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Artistes Persans + Kiarostami

L'Iran dévoilé par ses artistes
Centre Pompidou, 5 Mai 2010 (video 2h11') [Français/Farsi]



Mahmoud Bahmanpour (Editeur d'art), Alireza Samiazar (critique d'art), Rose Issa (critique d'art), Neda Razavipour (artiste), Abbas Kiarostami (cinéaste), Catherine Millet (historienne de l'art, ArtPress)

Puisant dans l’expérience personnelle et dans la vie quotidienne, les artistes iraniens tirent le portrait d’une société en proie à un nombre considérable de paradoxes et de tabous, mais dont le désir « d’exister » et d’avenir est plus que vivace. Paradoxalement, les artistes femmes sont au premier plan de cette scène artistique pleine de surprises et bien représentée dans l’accrochage « elles » avec les œuvres de Shadi Ghadirian, Shirin Neshat, Sara Rahbar ou encore Ghazel.

Colloque Stanley Cavell 2010 (ENS Lyon)

Hommage à Stanley Cavell (Canal U) [Français/English]

L'écran de nos pensées : Philosophie et cinéma

(Colloque à l'École normale supérieure de Lyon; 6-7 Mai 2010)

Considérer le cinéma comme écran de nos pensées implique de corréler la théorie avec la création cinématographique. C’est pourquoi nous sollicitons des cinéastes réalisateurs et scénaristes, lecteurs de Stanley Cavell ; soit qu’ils s’intéressent aux possibilités spécifiques d’expression du medium cinématographique (Luc Dardenne, Jacques Audiard, Agnès Varda), soit qu’ils s’inspirent directement de Stanley Cavell (Claire Simon, Emmanuel Bourdieu) ou ambitionnent d’« adapter » sa pensée à l’écran (comme aime à le dire Arnaud Desplechin). Nous souhaitons faire place à des projections de films et d’extraits de films d’Arnaud Desplechin et de Terrence Malick, tous deux « disciples » de Stanley Cavell, car on ne peut dissocier la pensée cinématographique, critique et philosophique, de l’expérience des films. Cette variété d’approches vise à explorer la manière dont le film devient l’écran de nos pensées.

Interroger cette dimension, c’est accepter avec Stanley Cavell une profonde rénovation critique du discours philosophique, l’ancrer dans notre expérience ordinaire du monde et des autres, et mettre en question notre expérience des films, sans préjuger de la clarté de nos pensées projetées, ni des difficultés que l’écran permet ou non de lever. C’est pourquoi nous voulons articuler ce colloque autour des concepts cavelliens de projection, d’éducation, de perception, de mythe pour examiner ce qu’il advient de nos pensées et de leurs objets lors de leurs projections ; ce que la perception cinématographique altère ou révèle de la nature de nos perceptions ordinaires ; ce qui distingue et lie l’expérience cinématographique à l’expérience ordinaire, et l’effet de retour de l’image projetée sur la pensée.

Si le cinéma hollywoodien nous fait rêver à la possibilité de réconcilier ses héros, d’éduquer le faible, de moraliser les vilains, c’est pourtant au cinéma que nous trouvons l’expression d’un sentiment d’exil du monde, d’étrangeté, que Cavell a appelé scepticisme, qui traverse nos vies ordinaires. Dans le mélodrame américain, Cavell a poursuivi une interrogation menée d’abord sur le terrain de l’étude des tragédies shakespeariennes, sur nos dénis du monde et des autres. Le cinéma devient ainsi l’écran de nos pensées, parce qu’il s’offre comme le miroir de nos doutes et incertitudes, tout en nous donnant les moyens d’en « guérir », dit Wittgenstein, et Cavell après lui. Il s’agira donc d’interroger ces rapports entre image, émotion, projection et pensée, sur le double versant de la création cinématographique et de la réflexion philosophique.

Présentation du colloque (8'37")

1 - Le cinéma à l’Université, 40 ans après La projection du monde (1971)

• The Melodramatic Reality of Film and Literature - Cavell and Diamond, Coetzee and Hughes (45'27") Stephen Mulhall (read by William Lossman)
• La « vérité du scepticisme » au cinéma (41'55") Elise Domenach

2 - Mythe, fiction et autobiographie

• Cristal de temps : Cavell et Deleuze (30'36") Anne Sauvagnargues
• The Double Existence of Cavell’s Philosophical Prose (50'29") William Rothman

3 - Éducation, morale et cinéma

• A propos de quelques mystères laïcs - notes sur le «Supplément à La Projection du monde» (34'38") Jean-Michel Frodon
• Ce qu’un certain cinéma sait de la démocratie - Cavell, Hollywood et Rawls (28'38") Paola Marrati
• L’éthique transformée par la pensée du cinéma - L’importance de l’importance (43'36") Sandra Laugier

4 - La pensée et l’expression à l’écran

• Facing Reality: some remarks - on recognition, betrayal, and the photographic field of expression (44'28") Richard Moran
• Écrans, cartes et estampes - les nombres de la "vie moderne " (Baudelaire, Emerson, Cavell) (39'30") Claude Imbert

5 - Penser les genres cinématographiques

• Leibniz, Cavell: la pensée sensible (39'04") Martine de Gaudemar
• Mettre en images la parole des femmes - mélodrames au planning familial (48'34") Claire Simon
• La fabrique cavellienne des genres (33'23") Marc Cerisuelo

6 - Table ronde : L'écran de nos pensées

• Un philosophe, des cinéastes : adapter, lire et mettre en scène une philosophie (81'44") Élise Domenach, Pascal BONITZER, Arnaud DESPLECHIN

Emancipation du jugement de goût (Kant)

"Quand la question est de savoir si une chose est belle, ce que l'on veut savoir, ce n'est pas si l'existence de cette chose a ou pourrait avoir quelque importance pour nous-même ou pour quiconque, mais comment nous en jugeons quand nous nous contentons de la considérer (dans l'intuition ou dans la réflexion). Si quelqu'un me demande si je trouve beau le palais que j'ai devant les yeux, je peux toujours répondre que je n'aime pas ce genre de choses qui ne sont faites que pour les badauds; ou bien comme ce sachem iroquois, qui n'appréciait rien à Paris autant que les rôtisseries ; je peux aussi, dans le plus pur style de Rousseau, récriminer contre la vanité des Grands, qui font servir la sueur du peuple à des choses si superflues ; je puis enfin me persuader bien aisément que si je me trouvais dans une île déserte, sans espoir de revenir jamais parmi les hommes, et si j'avais le pouvoir de faire apparaître par magie, par le simple fait de ma volonté, un édifice si somptueux, je ne prendrais même pas cette peine dès lors que je disposerais déjà d'une cabane qui serait assez confortable pour moi. On peut m'accorder tout cela et y souscrire, mais là n'est pas le problème. En posant la dite question, on veut simplement savoir si cette pure et simple représentation de l'objet s'accompagne en moi de satisfaction, quelle que puisse être mon indifférence concernant l'existence de l'objet de cette représentation. On voit aisément que c'est ce que je fais de cette représentation en moi-même, et non pas ce en quoi je dépends de l'existence de l'objet, qui importe pour que je puisse dire qu'un tel objet est beau et pour faire la preuve que j'ai du goût. Chacun devra admettre que le jugement sur la beauté au sein duquel il se mêle le moindre intérêt est tout à fait de parti pris et ne constitue nullement un jugement de goût qui soit pur. Il ne faut pas se soucier le moins du monde de l'existence de la chose mais y être totalement indifférent, pour jouer le rôle de juge en matière de goût. (...) Définition du beau : Le goût est la faculté de juger ou d'apprécier un objet ou un mode de représentation par une satisfaction ou un déplaisir, indépendamment de tout intérêt. On appelle beau l'objet d'une telle représentation".

Emmanuel Kant, Critique de la faculté de juger, 1790

BO 2009 - World Cinema Stats (16)

Gulliver in Lilliput

There is Hollywood running an industry with $29 billions of BO revenue.

And then, there are every other countries in the world, struggling to make ends meet with around $1 billion... and in most cases : less than $200 millions a year (without even reinvesting all this money back in their own films, since the largest share of domestic BO directly goes to Hollywood). Can you see a problem in the balance of the global industry now?

Even among the most conservative Hollywood lovers (who are aware of foreign cinema!), it would pain me if anyone found this financial situation to reflect the actual value of Hollywood cinema in comparison to any other non-American national cinema.

Do Hollywood films deserve to get the largest share of the cake, the top spot? Probably, yes. For a combination of mass appeal and an undeniable academic professionalism in their production.

Now, do Hollywood films deserve to get over 30 times more admissions in the world than the best European industries, and up to 300 times for the smaller, yet more creative, Asian or Latin-American industries... Is a Hollywood film really 30 to 300 times more universal, more appealing, more commercial, more populist, more entertaining than ANY other mainstream film in a non-English language? Let alone the comparison on an aesthetic level.

How can you produce/distribute competitive films on the commercial/international circuit with 300 times less BO revenues??? Come on...

Sorry, I do not think the quality of the "Hollywood system" and its star factory alone could justify such a monopoly (lockdown) of the global cinema circuit, blockading any cultural exchange and the prosperity of local industries. This is not solely due to the "free market". There is more than star fascination, big budget, special effects and entertainment, to "force" moviegoers to systematically go for the Hollywood flick instead of anything else. This monopoly is aggressively engineered by informal regulations and isolationist mentalities, against what the natural/free choice of the crowd under normal circumstances.

And any true film lover shall seek to elevate the average film taste, educate the consumers by all means, and get the system to accept more diversity, more respect for a DECENT MARGIN reserved for art films (that nobody wants to see) even if it is not PROFITABLE, for the sake of world film culture.

Related:

• Global films admissions and box office 2009 (The Case for Global Film)
• Hollywood 2009
• Foreign Film Friendly Audiences
• Second Class Film Distribution
• American Fatalism
• World Cinema Stats index

Source:

• Focus 2010 - Tendences du marché mondial, Marché du film, Cannes 2010 (Observatoire Européen de l'Audiovisuel) [PDF]
• Theatrical Report 2009 PDF (MPAA)

American fatalism

Try to guess who wrote the following quote :

• a) an average movie-goer, determinist and conservative, opposed to cultural changes, indulging in a personal narrow anti-intellectual taste?
• b) a cinephile-friendly veteran scholar, with the intellectual imagination to dream up a better system for a worldwide cultural diversity?

I know it sounds easy, but it might be counter-intuitive...

"Even the films that play festivals and arouse great emotion and admiration in the audiences will seldom break through into the mainstream. There simply aren’t enough of those art-houses. [..]

However much people decry the crassness of Hollywood—and there’s plenty of it to go around—or denounce audiences who only go to the latest CGI spectacle, the simple fact is that the market rules. Indeed, if there were a truly free market, we probably would see far fewer indie and foreign-language films. Film festivals are supported largely by sponsors, and the films they show are often wholly or partially subsidized by national governments. The festival circuit has long since become the primary market for a range of films that otherwise never reach audiences. [..]

Usually when someone calls for more support of independent or foreign films, there seems to be an implicit assumption that all those films are deserving of support, invariably more so than Hollywood crowd-pleasers. If a filmmaker wants to make a film, he or she should be able to, right? But proportionately, there must be as many bad indie films as bad Hollywood films. Maybe more, because there are always lots of first-time filmmakers willing to max out their credit cards or put pressure on friends and relatives to “invest” in their project. There’s also far less of a barrier to entry, especially in the age of DYI technology. [..]

There’s no way that every deserving film will reach everyone who might admire it. Condemning the crowds who frequent the blockbusters won’t help open new screens to offbeat fare. If someone loves Avatar, as long as they keep their cell phones off, refrain from talking, and don’t rustle their candy-wrappers too loudly, as far I’m concerned they can go on believing that this is the best the cinema has to offer. Simply showing these audiences a film like A Serious Man, say, or Precious isn’t going to change their minds about what sort of cinema they prefer. To break through decades of viewing habits, such people would need to learn new ones, which takes time and effort. People’s tastes can be educated, but the odds are usually against it actually happening."

Answer in the comments below.

Related:

• American Fatalism 2 - 3 

Stéréotypique

Les 15 méthodes de "l'usine à rêves" :

1. Le laquage de la réalité
2. La mécanisation de la créativité
3. Farder la réalité
4. Perpétuation du "rêve américain"
5. Illustration exacerbée de l'individualism
6. L'exposition complaisante des frustrations
7. L'ambiguïté idéologique
8. La manipulation des émotions
9. La falsification historique
10. Une fallacieuse "esthétique"
11. L'oppression de la femme
12. Le racisme
13. La mithridatisation de la violence
14. La naïveté et l'invraisemblance des mises en situation
15. L'inadéquation entre les sujets traités et la problématique du peuple américain

Guy Hennebelle, in Les cinémas nationaux contre Hollywood, 2004

"Le cinéma américain utilisant avec habileté les personnages clés du roman et du théatre du siècle dernier a créé des héros correspondant à sa vision violente et 'humanitaire' du 'monde du progrès'. Hommes magnifiques, forts, honnêtes, sentimentaux et implacables. Femmes indépendantes, maternelles, sincères et compréhensives. Sa structure de communication fonctionne grâce à une série d'éléments qui sont : l'utilisation du vedettariat, la mécanique des intrigues, la fascination des genres et des divers trucs publicitaires."

Glauber Rocha, in Ciné Cubano, n°52-53

"Cinquante ans après la Révolution d'Octobre, le cinéma américain règne sur le cinéma mondial. (...) Actuellement faire un film, c'est raconter une histoire comme on la raconte à Hollywood. Tous les films se ressemblent. L'impérialisme a donné naissance à un impérialisme esthétique. (...) Notre tâche est de nous libérer des chaïnes d'images imposées par l'idéologie impérialiste à travers tous ses appareils : presse, radio, cinéma, disques, livres."

Jean-Luc Godard

“If you live in France and you have written one good book, or painted one good picture, or directed one outstanding film, 50 years ago, and nothing ever since, you are still recognized as an artist and honored accordingly… People take their hats off to you and call you "maître". In Hollywood – in Hollywood, you’re as good as your last picture. If you didn’t have one in production in the last three months, you’re forgotten, no matter what you have achieved ere this. It is that terrific, unfortunately necessary, egotism in the makeup of the people who make the cinema, it is the continuous endeavor for recognition, that continuous struggle for survival and supremacy, among the newcomers, that relegates the old-timers to the ashcan.”

Erich von Stroheim, Eulogy for D.W. Griffith (1948?)

Red is the new Black (ironic)

Punishment Park (USA, 1971, Peter Watkins)

+


CopperCab (YouTube, 15 April 2010)

=

Born Free - M.I.A. (France, 26 April 2010, director Romain Gavras)

+

Notre Jour Viendra (France, 2010, Romain Gavras) Cannes 2010 Marché du Film

Ironic citation (live in situ)

"Auteurs" back in Public Domain!

The website mubi.com, formerly known as "TheAuteurs.com", after a couple year of "beta testing", finally figured out that they didn't hold the exclusive patent for the word "auteur" in America, and changed their brand to a less megalomaniac name!

They imagined that auteurism could be a capitalist corporation, and that slapping the logo "auteur" on their products would automatically make any movie, regardless for the effective control the director had on the whole production, a "film d'auteur". Film theory is that easy in the USA. You can buy yourself legitimacy if you don't have any. Gerald Peary even rewrites history in his documentary on American Criticism and made Andrew Sarris the inventor of auteurism! But when your audience doesn't even know that non-English languages exist, that there is a film press in other countries... you can get away with pretty much anything. So why not do it if you can.

That's how you destroy the cinephile culture in a country, to replace it with star-system fandom which every critics continue to feed year after year. They don't have no "auteurism" in Hollywoodland, the monster they've created is Actorism.

Pauline Kael didn't care about the proper theory, she had an auteur-radar in her guts. The Paulettes didn't care. And that's how you arrive at a cultural state where "auteurs" means "my favourite directors", "cinéaste" [French translation : filmmaker] means "cinéma enthusiast", "montage" [editing] means "metaphorical collage", "Tradition de Qualité" means "mediocre independent art films"... That's the kind of "healthy culture" they firmly believe they get. But if you don't do anything against the spread of deception, you get the cultural climate you deserve.

Last month I received a telling email from TheAuteurs, an impersonal publicity spam asking me to vote for them to win a Webby award (whatever that is). The visual was saying something like : "if you like Hitchcock, Scorsese, Godard, Kubrick, Renoir, Coppola... vote for our website" (or whichever well known auteurs of the same stature). So basically they don't expect to win an award for the work they authored themselves, film reviews, VOD distribution... they don't ask if we like what they actually do to deserve one, they just skip that part and go directly to the source and steal some of the fame off of someone else's hardwork. Clever marketing indeed. Nothing unusual. But it reveals a certain mentality.

It's like if the Academy awarded the Best Picture Oscar to Rotten Tomatoes for syndicating film reviews so admirably, and granting that film a 99% at the tomatometer! Way to go living off of someone else's success.

In China they say that if you point at the Moon, the fools will only look at the finger pointing at it...

Apparently they did win that award. I guess the fans did like the namedropping. And they wanted me to believe it was an obscur website with low traffic... Good job!

I had high hopes when they announced in Cannes last year to offer FREE streaming of films restored by the World Cinema Foundation. And when they accepted my project of a yearly roundtable to discuss important issues, internationally and collectively, called Epilogue. Unfortunately these were one-shot stunts to fill the "air-time" (which they are dedicated to pack densely and quickly). Doing these things once a year is more than enough, and they didn't repeat the exercise, or just forgot about it, which is worse. That is not the level of commitment towards Web 2.0, open access, and educational cinephilia I expected from this self-appointed "auteurist" source. But we have different priorities most obviously, and irreconcilable cultural barriers. Their loss!

Now by liberating yourself from the cumbersome legacy of "auteurism", you're free to go full blown commercial, without the guilt of calling it "auteurism". They will continue to link publicity stunts, press kit marketing and vacuous blurbs, they will sell VOD of whatever movies they fancy, auteurs or not, in the hope to become Netflix or RottenTomatoes.

Never underestimate the appeal of populism in American "culture".

Could have become the rebirth of SERIOUS, INDEPENDENT film culture online in the USA...

As long as American film critics won't do their job by taking into consideration the structural flaws of the system they feed, the international context they live in, they won't have a relevant presence in World culture. (Not that they'd care if they don't; it doesn't matter cause American Film Criticism is #1 in America!) While they would normally have the prerogative (because of the overall power of their film industry) to claim top spot in film culture as well... Only Hollywood is capable to truly influence the (popular) culture throughout the world. Why American Film Criticism can not?

Anyway, welcome back in the public domain to our cherished word "auteur"!

P.S. this kind of cynical provocation is not enough to shake up the complacent inertia that paralyzes the cinema intelligentsia. And by calling it "arrogance" and "elitism" (because sarcasm is too tough for the delicate nature of people whose job is to give a thumb up or down in a wink to months of hard labor) they will feel better about themselves and look away from the long-overdue necessary introspection that might shatters their illusions. That's also called "denial".

Maronniers cannois

Critic at work

This time of the year again... Le Festival de Cannes!

I can't wait to read what critics from around the world think about their hotel room, the color of their accreditation badge, the waiting time before the projection, the elitism of art films that lost touch with the mainstream entertainment-consumers, the lameness of the selection (so much worse than what they usually review every week on their domestic distribution market!), the length of the standing ovations, the number of screenings they walked out of, the made up controversies, the irrelevance of the palmarès, the trivia about the stars' little whims, the wildness of the yacht parties...

...anything to fill the void of film culture, the absence of criticism, and the blindness of viewers who ignore what to look at on the screen.

Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jia Zhang-Ke, Takeshi Kitano, Hong Sangsoo, Lee Chang-dong, Manoel de Oliveira, Mahamat-Saleh HAROUN, IM Sangsoo, Wang Xiaoshuaï, Lodge Kerrigan, Cristi Puiu, Pablo Trapero, Christoffer Boe, Frederick Wiseman... more all the potential discoveries in the debut films.

This sounds like a good sample of the filmmakers creating the best cinema at the moment.

Not just this year (or this quarter, since Berlin and Venice take the other seasons of the year). Not a grandiloquent statement about the cinema of a decade, or the future of cinema. Not a comprehensive survey of the totality of the best films of 2010. Not a flawless selection without disappointments.

A festival is a showcase of great cinema, a good glimpse at the cream of the crop. You won't see that many films with excellence brought together anywhere else... and if you still feel like whining about something, you probably don't know what art means in cinema.

Second Class Film Distribution

If the audience was the first and only one voting for the popularity of films, I would trust the "invisible hand of the free market" (supply/demand direct self-regulation, if such thing is conceivable for cultural goods)... unfortunately, films are pushed into a niche depending on preconceived formats and speculations. There are films born under a lucky star, because they are engineered since the start to become an easygoing mainstream commodity that will fit all. Ultimately successful or not at the Box Office, they will enjoy the easy life, every step of the way, thanks to money and an influential protection.

Then there are the underdogs. Not only they struggle with a Spartan budget, and a less appealing final product due to cheaper production value, but once the film is all done, they also have to face a second class distribution that is sure to bury them. When you make an art-film, a challenging film, a non-conventional film (or even a commercial drama or documentary in a foreign language) the maximum audience base that it could reach in theory is already much more limited than any mainstream drama. This is an empirical fact : people interested in mainstream entertainment will always outnumber the art film scene. That's how humanity works, there is more demand for distraction than for pure culture. Nothing wrong with that, and we can't blame the press for not attracting enough public...

Even if admissions were free, and every potential viewer was available and willing, this maximum niche would still be in minority, even for the greatest films. In fact it is generally the opposite we expect. The movies attracting the most comprehensive audience are usually rather mediocre artistically. But it's OK. I respect this law of the market, each get the popularity they deserve. And art doesn't require the democratic majority to leave a mark in history.

However, what bothers me is when the market is forged artificially to favor a certain class of movies and intentionally undermines the self-limited success of other films. Even if this corruption of the system is more or less legal, by way of injecting amounts of money that smaller producers/distributors could never match, it is unfairly killing a competition that couldn't even claim a dangerous share of the cake under ideal conditions.

Why refuse an equal chance to reach the audience to all films? The audience will make a free choice and each film will get the audience share their popularity/quality deserves. Art films are not stealing any sizeable audience share from the big blockbusters, so why deny them an accessible distribution, for the sake of cultural diversity?

COMMERCIAL CONFORMITY = ProBuzz	MARGINAL NICHE = KillBuzz
1st Class (anything by major studios, mainstream appeal, formulaic format, TV-cast compliant)	2nd class (Independent projects, Non-domestic imports, Documentaries, Short films, Experimental cinema)
Lose censorship board certification (complacent) Less restriction, bigger demographic allowed in	Harsh censorship board certification (discriminatory) more restrictions, smaller demographic allowed in
Comprehensive nationwide marketing, 2-6 months ahead (TV, mainstream press, radio, WWW, specialized press, billboards...)	Limited, regional marketing, 1 week ahead of release (specialized press, few blogs)
Quick release, scheduled far ahead	Delayed release, long time after the post-production is completed, always subject to last minute postponed date without re-scheduling
Public/commercial release open to everyone, everywhere	Discreet release Festival circuit only, for professionals, or at selected art-houses, cinémathèques, in capital cities only
Plethoric numbers of prints to flood the market on 1st weekend (>1000 prints) many version available for accessibility (dubbed, subbed, and original)	Few prints, circulated around on the circuit, degrading the projection over time. (only subbed version or original)
Worldwide simultaneous distribution (critical mass of screens, optimisaion of the initial marketing buzz, global zeitgeist vibe)	Local distribution (limited release, few cities, few screens, spaced out tour circuit)
Widest screens, largest auditoriums, best sound quality, proximity, accessibility	Smaller, older screens, tiny, older theatres, far away, poor sound quality, poor print quality (due to their scarcity)
Longer theatrical run if successful (most numbers of shows per day and per week and per year) Take-the-money-and-run carpet bombing that outshines everything else around	Expeditive, fragile theatrical run if survives the 1st weekend (1 or 2 weeks without special aids, or a dedicated commitment of non-profit oriented exhibitors)
Quick DVD release (to benefit from the theatrical buzz and marketing investments), marketing as big for DVD than for theatrical release (junket, TV, advertising)	Direct-to-video (skipping the public theatrical screenings) or DVD imports only (not distributed locally) or DVD release incognito (only mentioned in few specialised press, blogs)

At the very least, the standard ticket price, equal for every show and every film, is one of the most fundamental basis for the democratisation of film culture. It's not because they are rare that we pay more to see them. It's not because their budget is bigger than they charge us more. Unfortunately this equal footing at the box office is changing, with the 3D shows, the Imax shows, the gala screenings...

This alternative market isn't marginal because only unpopular or unsuccessful films are herded there. The commercial circuit is full of flops! And commercial flops get the same fair distribution scope as blockbusters.

The artfilm market is marginal because it is marginalised in its very conception, before the films get a chance to seduce an audience and become popular and successful and profitable. There are great art films, mass-appeal gems, that are buried in this second class distribution route just because they were not endorsed by the "commercial system".

All this contributes to make an originally small potential audience even smaller, by discouraging the expecting fans, by killing the buzz, by tiring out the anticipation, by denying visibility, by outshining its publicity, by giving a worse experience to the few who eventually make it to a screening.

The mainstream fans have it easy, everything comes directly to them without any effort.

The artfilm fans need a lot of efforts and patience and attention to catch the rare screenings available... when the films are available at all.

This is not fair.

Of course, film critics don't care about that, cause they have their private press screenings, junket invitations, gala screenings, they go to festivals, or more generally live in an active cinéphile city... these are privileges that the widest majority of their readers don't enjoy!

In a society supporting the development of culture and protecting its easy access, we should never let money become a factor in the visibility of work of art! Either because it costs more to make for the smaller filmmakers, or because its underdog distribution is treated unfairly, or because it costs more (in time and money and effort) to the audience to pick one film over another one. These conditions leave the market decide what type of culture gets a chance to touch and influence the population. Big studios choose what popular culture will be, and they choose to dumb it down. The cinephile culture is condemned, under these circumstances, to stay a rarity reserved to the elite and the privileged. It is a minority, but it shouldn't be a ghetto.

Imposture 2

Jean-Luc Godard & Anna Karina dans Cléo de 5 à 7 (1962/Varda/France)

Interview Jean-Luc Godard & Anna Karina, 20 après, chez Ardisson "Bains de minuit" (25 Dec 1987, La Cinq) extrait complet à l'INA 10 min 30 sec

JLG : Mais moi tout ce que je pouvais donner, c'est des films. Mais un film, bon, c'est rien.
ARDISSON : Alors c'est à cause de ça que vous vous êtes quittés, finalement? C'est parce que vous n'aviez pas assez à lui donner, peut-être, non?
JLG : Et puis je copiais. Je voulais faire comme... Je me disais, après tout, il y avait Orson Welles et Rita Hayworth, Sterbergh et Marlène Dietrich, Renoir et Catherine Hessling... Bein je me disais... moi aussi! Donc c'est un modèle, et puis on voit que après ce modèle permet de faire certains films et puis que les films après ont du mal à repasser dans la vie, et que ça a jamais bien marché.

MALUS COPYCAT MALUS WANNABE MALUS ARRIVISTE MALUS DEGUEULASSE MALUS

1. Needing TV to reunite with your ex-wife after 20 years : CHEAP
2. Making Anna Karina cry : LOW
3. Showing off on TV how you used your actress as a social access to a superficial model of celebrity, right in her face : PRICELESS (?)

Il ne suffit pas de copier les génies pour en devenir un.

Imiter c'est se tromper deux fois : une fois en recopiant mal, une autre en se perdant soi-même.

Voir aussi :

• Imposture 1 - 3 - 4

Forgotten Obsolete English Words #4 : Auteur

Well it's kind of a borrowed word from French, but it's not the definition in French language that is obsolete, it's the English rebranding.

Auteur : nom masculin. (Littré)

• Cause première d'une chose. L'auteur de toutes choses, Dieu. L'auteur de cette guerre. Il est l'auteur de sa fortune.
• Inventeur. L'auteur d'un procédé.
• Celui, celle qui a fait un ouvrage de littérature, de science ou d'art. Il ou elle est l'auteur de ce tableau.
• Principe, origine, source
• English translation : author

Auteur : French, originator, author, from Old French autor, from Latin auctor (Merriam-Webster)

• see : author
• an artist (as a musician or writer) whose style and practice are distinctive
• a filmmaker whose individual style and complete control over all elements of production give a film its personal and unique stamp. (Dictionary.com)
• a film director regarded as the author of their films (Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English)

Author : 14th century. Middle English auctour, from Anglo-French auctor, autor, from Latin auctor : promoter, originator, author, from augēre to increase (Merriam-Webster)

• one that originates or creates : source.

The dictionaries have it right! Why is impossible to get auteurists and more generally film critics to agree on a consensual definition here?

LITERATURE (for comparison with a less controversial art)

If you're the original creator of an œuvre, you're the author.

If you have your book written by someone else, a ghost, you're not the author.

If you compile citations and other stolen material, you're not the author.

If someone extracts from you oral stories in a faux-dialogue, you're not the author.

If you ask someone to write the dialogue for you, another the event timeline, another the descriptions, another the plot, another the character psychology... you're not an author.

If you rewrite an old book, you're a plagiarist, not an author.

If you paraphrase history, you're an historian, not an author.

If there is a team of correctors, editors, advisers, publishers, publicists, censors who rewrite, rephrase, redact, patch up, fill in, shorten/dilute, hype up, sensationalise, dramatise, or generally butcher up your work after you've handed out the manuscript and right before publication, you're not the author; you're not an author.

CINEMA (highly controversial art to date!)

Now apply this concept to cinema, keeping in mind that literature is a WRITTEN medium, therefore the literary writer authors a WRITTEN œuvre. An author of cinema, which is an AUDIO-VISUAL medium, does not author a written script but an AUDIO-VISUAL mise en scène (the quintessence of the FILM medium), which is also SPATIAL and TEMPORAL.

This personal style, this unique stamp, this filmic signature is a cinema-specific aesthetic based on (original) spacio-temporal formal ideas.

The subject is secondary, in film art, if it is not immediately translated into a typically cinematic form, i.e. mise en scène. (Barely mentioning political ideas in a dialogue, or using onscreen character's worldview as your own, never adds substance to cinema auteurism).

However, absence of politics and worldview never stopped painters who retreated into abstraction or pictorialism to produce a great œuvre. A great cinema auteur could make great art out of anything, any topic, any genre, any stories... precisely because auteurs express their medium-specific stamp through mise en scène, an original mise en scène they own.

Besides, movies can also be made without a real auteur in charge. Just like you can publish books without a real writer!