SCREENVILLE

18 juin 2011

Roundtable 2 (PNC)

Project:New Cinephilia/ Roundtable 2
Michael Koresky, Kent Jones, Melissa Anderson, Daniel Cockburn, Genevieve Yue

This time they try to have somewhat of a conversation, although awkward and almost reluctantly. The comments on the Mubi forum engaged with the problematics in a more convincing manner... and the official participants of the roundtable didn't pay a single visit to reply to the questions or clarify certain points, staying in their ivory tower, where they get to publish a unilateral formal speech and don't have to mingle with the fray of the interwebs... Sad. They're talking about a "new" cinephilia of the web 2.0, of the interconnected communities and snub them. they talk about connecting with the viewer's response and are unable to listen to their own readers.

1. Owning the movies (06/06/2011) Michael Koresky

"the four of you who have agreed to participate in this roundtable discussion represent the types of people—thinkers— that keep this form we love relevant." No matter what our detractors will say we ARE relevant. End of the conversation. Wish-fulfilling assertion, appeal to authority, to condition readers before a single evidence has been brought forth. That's not a very objective, humble or open-minded foreword.
"the idea of a single influential critic makes his [Andrew Sarris] recollections seem like transmissions from a lost continent, no?" You forget about Pauline Kael then as a "second influantial critic", and Roger Ebert now as a "single influential critic".
"we’re still in awe of the genius of the Hollywood system even as we position ourselves against it" Speak for yourself. I'm not. The Hollywood system is pavlovian marketing applied to mass consumersim, what's so mysterious about it?
good point about the "unifying Bordwellian definition of what constitutes an “art film” (gleaned from Antonioni/Godard/Fellini and carried through to Denis/Hou/Kiarostami)" see: Reality and Representation (Bordwell)
"So if we’re thinking about movies generally the same way—as entities that either a) fit into preconceived notions, or b) bust them open" You use a dichotomy splitting art into an either/or compartimentalisation that complete eachother perfectly, without left-overs, how could it be otherwise? Yes a "preconceived idea" could either be applied as is, or re-evaluated. What does it tell us about mentality changes? This will always be true. If you suggest a change of discourse, maybe you need a model that leaves room for evolution. The proportions of (a) and (b) could change for example, but that's not even the point you are insisting on.
"the question of audience is ever more complicated for all of us who aren’t just in love with film but are trying to communicate something about it." Good.
not surprisingly, they still believe that by talking about American-only history they are defining the global village of what is actually the "New cinephilia"... is it all they know? or are they intentionally ignoring the rest of the planet that shapes up cinephilia more than they ever did?

2. Beyond the romance of cinema (06/06/2011) Kent Jones

"Chris Fujiwara makes an interesting assertion" LOL funniest thing I've heard so far. See: Mandarins vs Philistines 2
"the days of the gentleman film critic, the man or woman of letters or politics who is intrigued by the notion of movies and amused by how seriously people take them, are long over." Again, you're talking about the USA... Have you heard of Žižek, Badiou, Rancière, Jean-Luc Nancy, BHL... ?
"David Edelstein, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jeff Wells, Joshua Rothkopf and Janet Bergstrom" again 100% American-centric references. At least further down he namedrops "Bazin, Kracauer, Adorno" from a distant past (while he claims New cinephilia should move away from that very distant past).
"in the shadow of the holocaust, a movie could be either morally engaged or not, no middle ground." the moral imperative was a concern for film writers in particular (critics), not necessarily for film goers in general (cinephiles).
"The obsessives who filed in and out of movie theaters like penitents on holy days of obligation may have looked pale, been socially maladroit and disrupted the smooth flow of social intercourse" The haydays of French cinephilia in the 50-60ies, it was a mainstream phenomenon, a social activity across all demographics, not the asocial nerd attitude you describe (which is a more recent development).
"mixture of romanticism, essentialism, and a dogmatism so harsh and punitive" where did you read that??? I know that anything that isn't hyperbolic adoration sounds esoteric to Americans, but come on, no need to overdramatise history for your readers, you're not in Film Comment here, you can speak freely.
"a valiant defense of cinema against any and every sign of cultural derision or condescension" I wish. See Dan Kois syndrome (Proud Boredom).
"I think that cinephilia is stuck in the 50s" You think? How many "new cinephiles" know about the 50ies? It's not 1950s cinephilia that we see on DVD forums, on Facebook or Twitter... Even David Bordwell forgets who Bazin was at times!
"New “masters” and “masterpieces” are found by the hour, films are declared “hateful” or “immoral” or “loathsome” at the drop of a hat, moral condemnations of filmmakers convicted of insufficient love for their characters is rampant, and the cheapest rhetorical ploy imaginable, accusing the people who like something that you don’t like or who love something that you hate of being deluded or morally compromised, is enacted with impunity." Ditto. Keep repeating that until your "new cinephiles" get it and move on to more constructive grounds. Then we'll talk about cinephilia.
"preferences for this or that film or filmmaker are routinely declared with all the pomp and circumstance of an explorer planting a flag on virgin territory – and needless to say, nothing can be celebrated without a countervailing condemnation of its supposedly opposite number, and visa versa." very good!
"Only in film culture is the act of list-making freighted with such urgency." Go tell that to Film Comment! Where do you work again?
"the troubling tendency in cinephilia to see cinema itself as the ultimate fulfillment of cinema" You started right and your conclusion takes the opposite side... Returning film writing to the art of cinema itself (film language, aesthetic, direction, style, film history, film poetry, images, soundscape...) is the goal to reach. Reviewers looking beyond the parameters of the film form (politics, psychology, interpretations, summary judgements, plotpoints, inconsistencies, goofs, star system...) is what bad critics abuse instead of talking about FILM CRITICISM. Transcending a given film with real world political interpretation, sounds positive, for the zeitgeist chattering at dinners, but not for film culture itself.
"filmmaking and its critical appreciation [..] they’re like two different planets." in the USA, not in France. If you felt the "whole wide world around it as well", you'd know it.

3. Tastemakers or taste-testers? (07/06/2011) by Michael Koresky

interesting attempt at turning a series of juxtaposed magisterial unilateral articles in somewhat of a conversation. Was it inserted after all the pieces were already written though?

4. On advocacy and anticipation (07/06/2011) Melissa Anderson

well the film lover ALSO consumes movies for a living, the operative distinction is the words "voraciously and indiscriminately". If we're talking about movie goers (customers), then it's their prerogative to deal with their passion however they want. And contrary to food, abuse doesn't make you obese and give you heart diseases. So it's all fine, they CAN be impartial, immoderate, unfair, excessive, obsessive, hyperbolic, fetishist, demanding, carefree, irresponsible. Now if we talk about another category, film writers, then their relation to glutony is a bit different, they have a certain responsibility, and even a certain deontology if they are actual journalists. That's why talking about cinephilia in general and then suddenly making a point about critic's ethics is disingenuous.
The food metaphor is OK for fans, even though it's slightly condescending. But serious academic studies (or serious criticism) are possible without comparing the acquisition of knowledge (like a literary academic would read classics) to gluttony, bingeing and hunger. If you care about words and ideas you should appreciate the hyperbolic prejudice you install here for cinema that doesn't exist for other arts.
"I can’t stomach it" With so many critics on this panel (like the editors of the NYT) against the degradation of film discourse, I wonder why they only speak up today, and why bad reviewers can still have a job and support around them... Something doesn't click there. When they talk about criticism, they all say the right things we want to hear. When they review movies, they go back to their indulgent routine... as if they didnt listen to their own advice.
Taste-making doesn't mean actual influence on the mainstream B.O. or the "fashionable zeitgeist"... of course film writing is marginal compared to the MOVIE INDUSTRY. What taste-making means is to act as an all-knowing oracle making and breaking fads within the tiny milieu of the film criticism readership. And that's how most film writers with an institutional soapbox pose, talking as if what they said (the expression of their taste) determined what was in and what was out (like seasoned masters, debuting directors, festivals, books, countries, year's or decade's legacies...)
"fervent advocate", "hectoring readers"... Two things that we see a lot in film reviewers that have more to do with proselytism and promotional marketing (pushing to consumption in the case of positive reviews). This is the modus operandi of prescriptive reviewing (maintained by newspapers who need sponsors and exclusive interviews). These are bad examples of "criticism". Remember what Kent Jones said about writing without the pressure of evaluation? A GREAT film shouldn't need coersitive persuasion and directive orders to attract an audience. Let the readers decide for themselves, leave the free will to the audience.
You're not talking about serious film criticism, you're talking about being a passionate sign post in paper film pages. The old paradigm of film reviewers. Recommanding "good films" or "older films" doesn't change the short term framework within which you operate. Obviously it's a little better than advertising blockbusters, but film discourse goes higher than a mere economic boost for films we love.

5. What is the birdie? (07/06/2011) Daniel Cockburn

"an impetus at the heart of more considered criticism: the urge to classify and collect, freeze-dry the living object so it can be “understood and known” before moving on to the next one." Is this really what defines "criticism" or is it fetishm and taxonomy?
"how does this film actually have an effect – on viewers one at a time, or on the world at large" Viewer's response theory (Grand Theory), is no closer to cinema studies than gender studies or political studies.
"there is no reason for the territorial battles" Dude, have you read Painting theory, Musical theory, Literature theory, Poetry theory, Theatre theory, Architecture theory, Sculpture theory... there are ALWAYS territorial interpretations and controversies! It's not what invalidates the field altogether.
"critics would do well to write criticism that (in an ideal world) would provoke filmmakers to respond and engage." See the discussion about this misconception in the Mubi forum

6. Cinephilia, love and being caught off-guard (08/06/2011) Genevieve Yue

What a lot of words for having nothing to talk about... Lots of reminders, little insight.
"Why does my training as a scholar, a teacher, and a critic steer me toward critical reserve?" You ask yourself why romanticism and devotion applies to "cinephilia" but not to research, teaching and criticism? Well that's because we use different names to distinguish different sujective/objective, emotional/intellectual activities, or else everything would be called "love".
"the best criticism and academic writing happens when we’re caught off-guard, pushed beyond the comforting edifices of taste or aesthetic judgment" That's a very exclusive claim to make. Again this fantasy of the primacy, equating suprise and novelty to absolute greatness. It's not always the discoverers who are the best at the application of a particular discovery.
"What amazing things can happen when you don’t know what to do with a film, much less how to talk about it." Is this the apologia of neophytes?

7. Cinema is what we make of it (09/06/2011) Michael Koresky:

"Hasn’t cinema always just been what we make of it?" Define "cinema" and "we". You're talking from the perspective of a consumer (availability makes right). That's not quite a reflection on the ontology of the medium dude! Cinema is not contingent to what people who watch it, here and now, wish it to be... Audience response has been wrong many times in history, and relying on THAT is absurd. Think bigger! Be more ambitious for cinema than the idiosyncratic desiderata of a given era and culture.
"Maybe we all need to get back to that place where we first felt that rush of cinephilia, before we even knew what that word meant." So you know what it means now?
"the stark divisions between academia and the critical community [..] is this a condition of the new cinephilia?" I don't think that, in general, today's cinephiles are more theory literate than in the 50ies! In fact the social media phenomenon is more the kingdom of proud amateur subjectivity, like : "critics are overanalysing, i'm writing with my emotions!"

8. Re-making criticism (09/06/2011) Kent Jones:

"the very idea of David Cronenberg being “influenced” by M. Night Shyamalan is ridiculous" In this case, it might be true, but the framing of the statement is wrong. Auteurs don't like to be compared, even if the inspiration was voluntary on their part. What a filmmaker thinks of another filmmaker, or of a potential comparison a critic could bring up, doesn't redefine how criticism works. Bergman hated Antonioni too... is it relevant to us? An artist has the prerogative of territoriality, even if it is unfair or blatantly false. Critics have the duty to challenge this subjective self-definition artist would like us to perceive.
"Cinephile-based criticism treats pretty much everyone like an auteur, and this reverts back to a fundamental flaw in auteurism." You equate cinephilia with auteurism, as if it was impossible to be cinephile without abiding to La Politique des Auteurs. These overlap but the former is not the consumerist side of critical auteurism.
"these limitations and restrictions and demands are all but ignored by cinephiles intent on seeing every director as if he or she were a Monet or a Stravinsky." limitations and constraints are not what disputes the statute of auteur!
"there can’t be such a thing as non-cinephile criticism" that's the rosy view of cinephilia from an American perspective. French critics are a lot more distant from this crave for the label "cinéphile". See Emmanuel Burdeau (ex-Cahiers editor) on not being cinéphile.

9. When a film calls (12/06/2011) Melissa Anderson

Me Me Me. My experience, my job, my movies. That's what film criticism is to her. No broader prospects, no overarching insights. She equates the practice of film criticism to the very controversial job of a weekly reviewer. (see Reality Check: Films Critics are NOT the film press)

10. The well-tempered critic (13/06/2011) Daniel Cockburn

"Some of the most exciting film writing I have read is that which talks about actors (stars or not) and performance in a genuine attempt to articulate what these performances are, and what they do to us." Actorism not Auteurism. By the way, disecting techniques and performances are integer part of "mise en scène", which is the core of Auteurism!
"But I doubt I’ll ever feel like rapidity has anything lasting to give us that would counterbalance what we’d lose if we lost slowness." are you saying this at an event that runs a Twitterthon???
"taking the film as writ, as some unchangeable essence, and this is childish." So to you, to contrary to childish is for spectators to dream up their own story and write about that instead of the filmmaker's work? lol Anybody can imagine stuff from whichever stimulus. The hard part in criticism is to approach the actual meaning of an artwork. Imagination is a convenient cop out for writers without critical skills.
"if you don’t imagine alternate versions of a film you’ve seen, you can’t evaluate it or even really form an opinion of it, beyond liking it or not the same way you like or don’t like mashed potatoes." what you're talking about (and I'm not surprised it comes from an artist) is how you, the artist, wish the work to be appropriated and engaged with at the "reader's response" level (which is legit for the spectator, not for the critic). But film criticism goes beyond a mere spectatorship response!
Watch La Dolce Vita and imagine during the whole film that you're banging either Anita Eckberg or Marcello Mastroiani... yeah that really helps to expand film culture! NOT.
“just temperament” and “equal temperament” see Mubi forum replies

11. Narrowing the gap (14/06/2011) Genevieve Yue

"I’ve actually found considerable support in stepping outside the ivory tower to write criticism and to program films" You think that publishing unilateral criticism and deciding the screenings viewers will get to see is much different from the academic ivory tower??? You've got an odd idea of democracy and participative communities.
"aesthetic evaluation (thumbs, stars, clipart in general)" do you really think rating scales ARE aesthetic evaluation???
"J. Hoberman picked up on Arnheim’s argument in 1998, sharply interrogating the critic’s role in the publicity machine of the film industry." When will this affect the work ethic of American reviewers working today???
"cinema is an activity; its meaning is made by many hands, auteur and otherwise, and it includes our own when we settle down in a theater or work through our Netflix Instant Queues on our laptops." Wrong, on so many levels... Again you're talking about consumption of cultural good which is the prerogative of the regular audience, not about the responsibility of CRITICISM, which cannot indulge such narcissist leasure.
"To try, as the French essai translates into English" To try is the (infinitive) verb (essayer), essai is the noun (try).

"Tous, même le dernier des misérables a fait cette expérience. Même le dernier des crétins est passé à côté de quelque chose... où il s'est dit 'mais est-ce que je n'aurai pas passé toute ma vie à me tromper?'."

Gilles Deleuze, cours à la Sorbonne

* * *

"Le philosophe qui, comme Deleuze, parle de la bétise est toujours un peu suspect de s'exclure du discours qu'il tient. Pour qui se prend-il? pense-t-on. Comme si parlant des imbéciles, on ne parlait pour une fois pas de soi. comme si la bétise faisait exception à la rêgle selon laquelle quoiqu'on dise on ne parle jamais que de soi. Comment la bétise ferait exception à la rêgle où elle trouve justement sa source?
La bétise, c'est la partie de nous-même qui, regardant l'autre comme un mirroir, concave ou convexe, traverse le monde en y cherchant son pareil, son alter-égo, son ombre ou son reflet. La bétise réduit le monde au "Moi", l'autre au même, la différence à l'identité. Telle la pensée unique elle choisit de reconnaitre plutôt que de rencontrer. Elle est le contraire de l'exception, l'amie de l'ordinaire, l'antithèse du singulier. Comme dit Desproges :"L'ennemi est con, il croit que c'est nous l'ennemi, alors qu'en fait c'est lui". La bétise vous noie dans un groupe où plus rien ne vous distingue et c'est le courant qui vous porte. Elle surfe sur la vague et se répend sur les ondes. Elle est affable, accueillante, hospitalière. A la bétise, tout le monde se retrouve, c'est le lieu commun. Et c'est un lieu commun de le dire, de fait personne n'y échappe...
Pour nuir à la bétise, ce qui chez Nietszche est synonyme de philosopher, il faut donc l'admettre en soi-même. De même que pour ne pas se mentir, il faut renoncer à l'ambition grossière de dire la vérité. La bétise n'est pas une affaire d'opinion, c'est une affaire de certitude ou de servitude. C'est l'allégeance faite à la vérité comme au bien. C'est vrai parce que je l'ai vu, dit la bétise. C'est vrai parce qu'on me l'a dit. Voire, c'est vrai parce que tout le monde le dit. De l'expérience singulière à l'opinion la plus commune, la vérité, ou ce qu'on croit tel, est un allibi pour conjurer le hasard, bannir l'altérité, cesser de penser. Mais si le contraire de l'ignorance ce n'est pas la vérité, mais sa mise en doute, alors le contraire de la bétise n'est pas l'intelligence mais l'humilité. A l'image de Montaigne, l'homme le plus cultivé de son temps, qui doute sans cesse de son savoir, ou de Raymond Aaron, trop exigent pour ne pas désirer la vérité, mais trop modeste pour croire un jour qu'il la détient et que le monde s'y réduit. L'entendement n'aime pas ce qui change. La raison n'a pas toujours la souplesse de ce qui évolue. La vie est une étoffe que la raison découpe en voulant l'attraper, et c'est là que la bétise apparait, comme la volonté d'interrompre le cours du temps, pour le soumettre à des vérités éternelles qui dispenseraient du doute une fois pour toute. Né de l'écrat entre la pensée et le mouvant, la bétise tue la nouveauté aussi surement que la routine tue l'amour. Comme une intelligence déçue qui faute de comprendre le monde en sa profondeur, choisit de l'expliquer in extinso, la bétise est le bacille humaine qui fige le mouvement, transforme l'idée neuve en idée reçue, l'aphorisme en proverbe, ou l'esprit critique en bon sentiment. La bêtise, c’est la ciguë de Socrate, le philtre empoisonné que les humains s’administrent à chaque fois qu’ils communient dans l’amour ou dans la haine, et qu’ils veulent changer le monde plutôt que leurs désirs. On la reconnaît chez les donneurs de leçons dont la conduite contredit les paroles, chez les imprécateurs athées qui croient que Dieu c’est le Diable, ou encore chez les hédonistes fervents qui jouissent non pas pour être heureux, mais plutôt pour oublier qu’ils ne le sont pas… Mais on la reconnaît aussi chez ceux qui croient la reconnaître et la diagnostique en se donnant le beau rôle, à la façon dont l’hypocondriaque fait graver sur sa tombe « je vous l’avais bien dit. »
La bêtise a toujours raison. La bêtise a toujours le dernier mot."

Deleuze contre la bétise, Raphaël Enthoven (in Macadam Philo; France Culture, 18 mars 2005)

* * *

"Les professeurs savent bien qu'il est rare de rencontrer dans les devoirs, sauf dans les exercices où il faut traduire proposition par proposition, ou bien produire un résultat fixe, des erreurs ou quelque chose de faux, mais des non-sens, des remarques sans intérêt ni importance, des banalités prises pour remarquables, des confusions de points ordinaires avec des points singuliers, des problèmes mal posés ou détournés de leur sens. Tel est le pire et le plus fréquent pourtant gros de menace, notre sort à tous."

Gilles Deleuze, Différence et répétition, 1968

* * *

La bétise n'épargne personne. De la même façon que l'on n'échappe pas selon Sartre à la tentation d'aliéner sa propre liberté et de se prendre pour une chose. D'ailleurs, Sartre lui-même jouait à l'intellectuel comme d'autres après lui jouèrent à être Jean-Paul Sartre.
Le savoir n’a jamais soulagé la vanité, et tout homme, si vigilant soit-il, finit toujours par prendre la pose et s’endormir sur l’oreiller de ses lauriers. La bêtise n’est donc pas une affaire de contenu, c’est une affaire de forme. Elle tient moins à ce qu’on dit, qu’à l’importance qu’on lui donne. En ce sens, personne n’est plus bête que celui qui ignore qu'il l'est. La bêtise, ce n’est pas Forrest Gump, conscient de son handicap, mais plutôt les sarcasmes de ses camarades de classe, ravis de leur cruauté.
« C’est la raison, dit Rousseau, qui replie l’homme sur lui-même ; c’est par elle qu’il dit en secret, à l’aspect d’un homme souffrant, péris si tu veux, je suis en sûreté. »
La bêtise n’est pas l’adversaire de l’intelligence, mais plutôt de l’intranquillité. La bêtise, c’est l’antalgique auquel on doit de ne pas souffrir des souffrances d’autrui. La bêtise ne pense pas, mais elle est indispensable. De la même façon que les hommes sans courage renoncent à toute individualité pour se cacher dans la foule et crier avec elle, la bêtise donne un peu le sentiment de la sécurité. Elle fait comme s’il suffisait d’avoir un toit pour être à l’abri, ou d’habiter dans une tour d’ivoire pour ne jamais mourir. Sous l’effet de la bêtise, le monde ramolli, l’intersubjectif devient l’interchangeable, l’intime devient l’impudique, l’insoumission devient l’institution. La bêtise s’impose quand la discussion capitule devant l’argument d’autorité, ou quand, à force de parler à tout le monde, celui qui parle n’a soudain plus rien à dire : la bêtise, c’est la « positive attitude ».

Deleuze contre la bétise, Raphaël Enthoven (in Macadam Philo; France Culture, 18 mars 2005)

rediffusion: Les nouveaux chemins de la connaissance, Mille Deleuze: la bétise; France Culture, 16 juin 2011 [MP3] 59'

Lire aussi:

Médiocrité courante (Deleuze)

16 juin 2011

Mandarins vs Philistines 2

Fujiwara: "I have no desire to enter into a battle with Bordwell and no intention of raising larger issues about his work in general. I want only to use the opportunity afforded by this particular text of his to set forth, by contrast, my own views on the current situation of film criticism, cinephilia, and academic film studies."

More solipsist drivel, disguised as academic grandiloquent jargon: Chris Fujiwara's take on Bordwell's article. That explains the lax standards in English language film literature... Mediocrity is encouraged, condoned by the establishment and published! Stealing ideas (often misusing them too), disrespecting intertextual conversations and intellectual honesty.

F: "[..] humanities departments across the USA (Bordwell’s tacit scope of reference throughout the piece) [..] The ramifications of “Grand Theory,” together with other parts of Bordwell’s argument here, were developed at more length in his “Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory,” an essay included in the 1996 Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies"

Don't you feel smart now? (What was his apologetic introduction already, quoted at the top of my post?)

Farber: "It’s practically worthless for a critic. The last thing I want to know is whether you like it or not; the problems of writing are after that. I don’t think it has any importance; it’s one of those derelict appendages of criticism. Criticism has nothing to do with hierarchies."

Then he cites Farber, without any critical reading. Farber falsely equated that proverbial "like it/like not" of the fully-subjective AUDIENCE, with the educated aesthetic evaluation of the CRITIC. Evaluation IS about hierarchies, and that is what differentiates their works from those of scholars.

Fujiwara: "I’ve had more than one exchange with film-studies professors or grad students [..]"

Anecdotal fallacy.

F: " “textual analysis.” If I have difficulty accepting this label, it’s because I’m not sure that what’s in front of me on the screen, much less what I remember and contemplate later, is a text. A text is (1) a body of language [..]; (2) a body of language [..], determinable and anatomizable; but what mainly draws cinephiles to cinema may be the instability and evanescence of its forms, rather than anything that ever becomes solid; (3) something objective [..]"

He oversimplifies and butchers the age-long scholar debate around text/language. Besides it is not what explains the "close analysis" nature of criticism... A responsible editor would have cut this part out.

He switches between what "cinephiles" or "critics" want from movies, to justify what defines film criticism.

F: "Not an object, but a process, and not the process as an object, but the process as what the critic, too, is inside. This is neither “textual analysis” nor “evaluation.”"

Is this what you call "good writing"??? Is it the best you can do to prove film criticism is a literary art?

F: "Auteurism, after spending much of the 1980s and 1990s in disrepute [..] As for cinephilia, its recent emergence as a legitimate object of academic study [..]"

...in the USA. See my commentary on Bordwell's article.

F: "Moreover, it’s not at all clear that cinephilia is necessary to film criticism."

LOL. So funny. You're shameless and funny: the royal road to populist success with uneducated crowds.

Just above, I noted he tried to mix up "cinephiles" with "critics" in order to define criticism. In the next paragraph he rejects the cinephile side of critics (using Kael as an evidence! lol)

F: "are we missing something valuable, in the absence of non-cinephile criticism?"

Read non-American criticism. I mean something else than weekly movie synopsizing, and you'll find out.

F: "If academia represents the professionalization of film culture, the Internet has become the site of the deprofessionalization of film culture"

Editors, reviewers, curators, essayists, screenwriters... are also professionals!

Why the only online writers repeatedly acclaimed by the various "let me tell you about what I know of the interwebs" articles are ex-professionals? Either retired academics with a blog, or fired film pages employees, or ex-paid-critics... and all the rest is lumped up in the unreadable "noise". If these guys developed a "professional" technique, writing style in professional jobs, they maintain this acquired education in their "personal" blog, obviously. Lack of salary (although some of them are actually paid!) does not mean lack of professional standards. Film culture is still in the hand of the establishment, paid or not.

F: "this very professionalization of film appreciation, the obligation to specialize"

Critics don't need to reject academe as a model, since the model of criticism is elsewhere! The conflict with academia is not that critics need to do everything as academics do it, or else we wouldn't have 2 words for the same job! The conflict between critics and academics is around the reading/acknowledgement of their respective work, the sharing of their ideas and the incompatible concepts they use.

Specialization is the identity of scholars. Generality is the superficial overview of weekly reviewers. That's why their jobs have different names!

And yes specialization is what could improve basic movie synopsizing, because believing that you can trust the same (generalist) person to write well about a Disney cartoon, a chick flick, a war movie, a Sci-Fi movie, an intellectual drama, a philosophical essay... is a huge delusion! And we can read every week in the press why, it's full of generalisations and stereotypes. Precisely because reviewers are shallow generalists who would write about ANYTHING they are tasked to, even if they are not qualified to, even if they are not inspired by the work, even if they have no ideas. I wish reviewers would only write about films that fall under their field of expertise... What we witness happening in the film section of the media is far from exemplary! You need to aim higher to define ideal criticism. Formatted blurbs are a poor, corrupt, lackluster aspect of film discourse. The illusion of generalist writers is a big problem of ground level film culture!

Richard Brody: "At newspapers and magazines, as here at The New Yorker, classical-music critics and pop-music critics are usually different people. With movies, things are different: David Denby and Anthony Lane write about “The Dilemma,” “Source Code,” and “Toy Story 3”; about “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” and “Meek’s Cutoff”; and about the life work of Robert Bresson and Abbas Kiarostami." (New Yorker, 3 May 2011)

F: "Criticism can only be writing: it may be writing in images and sounds, but it must be conscious of itself as writing — as being responsible (as Barthes said) to a symbolic dimension, as being capable of irony, and as being based on a certain insecurity, such that it is always coming out of and going toward a place that it knows can’t be filled. Not all critics are good writers; but at least the critic has to want to write and has to love writing. This love is more definitive for film criticism than the love of cinema."

WTH? Wishful thinking maybe?

Molière disait: "Il faut manger pour vivre et non vivre pour manger." When you write to make a living, instead of living to write criticism, you're more interested in the social statute of a writer, and in writing for the sake of style, than to be in it to traffic in cinema ideas. People who love writing more than cinema indulge in hollow stylistic and sophistic parlance without insights, absolutely interchangeable with the next review, with one written the previous year, with one written by someone else. Words. Words. Words.

Emmanuel Burdeau: "Insofar as concerns Cahiers, writing might be just as important as cinema. that is not to say that we consider ourselves writers, in the sense of genuine literary authors." (in "Writing on the Screen": An Interview with Emmanuel Burdeau by Andrew, Dudley; Framework, 2009)

And the literary quality, the insights we find in Cahiers are far superior than what Fujiwara and the others who dream themselves as literary artists are able to think up and to write up! At least the "good writers" have the humility not to compare themselves to actual literature.

F: "Now there is probably no professional sphere in which the lack of desire to write and the lack of interest in writing are more endemic than academia."

Baseless assumption for show (empty sophistic style).

F: "The system of “publish or perish”"

In academia just like for movie synopsizers (for different reasons and different intellectual ambitions).

F: "abundance of terrible academic writing, and though I can’t say for sure that, as a group, film-studies professors are worse writers than professors of art history or comparative literature, I suspect this may be the case"

Oh the irony. From what I've read of your musings, somehow I will not trust your judgement on this.

F: "I know it’s time to lay down my cards about what good critical writing is, so here’s a list of some texts that I’ve read many times with pleasure: Bazin on Renoir; Rivette on Rossellini, Preminger, and Lang; V. F. Perkins’s Film as Film; Robin Wood on Hitchcock; Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson’s pieces from the 1970s; Serge Daney’s Persévérance; Hasumi on Japanese cinema."

See Contra-contrarianism (IFFR) 2/Good critic-Bad critic. The best a "writer" can do to explain his understanding of the literary art is... a mere series of namedropping. Shouldn't a writer be able to evoke with poetic and insightful prose the beauty of literature in non-uncertain terms? That's what I'd expect from people who claim to be "writers".

F: "What may be missing in academic film studies is a recognition of aesthetics as a category worthy of scholarship."

You've never read academic studies on film aesthetics? Historical research is not all there is to academic studies.

See my comment : "I see Cultural Studies as being a subset of Sociology, using movies as a statistical sample, on the other hand I see Aesthetics as the only academic studies dealing with what makes cinema an art, treating films as artistic statements." (Mandarins vs Philistines)

F: "The goals of criticism are different: to respond to what is open, troubling, or self-contradictory in a film, to show why things in it that may not even be immediately noticeable are deeply interesting, to reinvent it, create new metaphors for it, to find more and more of the endlessness of the film (its refusal to finish), to follow it where it leads (with or without its own knowledge and regardless of the intentions of the filmmakers) and take it where it can go, perhaps to what it can open up and invent in other films (including those that may have preceded it)."

First, this is NOT great literature. I expect someone who claims that criticism is a literary art to feature admirable style and mastery. The art of words is something else... at least to me.

Second, these are not the goals of criticism. This is your pragmatic observation of what you like to read.

F: "Bordwell makes no acknowledgment of the underlying economic reality of the situation"

Impossible to discuss critical principles without its business model... Hopeless materialists. The media industry has been paying navel-gazing spectators to write blurbs of the weekly batch of movies selected by the studios for a century now! And when this model collapses, all you want is to preserve the undeserved privileges this corrupt position offered? When Bordwell talks about a rapprochement of academics and critics, it is a cultural consideration, not a mere economic solution, where fucking reviewers could tap into the tax-payer money dedicated to post-graduate researches! WTF? If all you care about is money, there is plenty to go around if you sold out to Hollywood and pander to your readership. Go ahead. Leave critics with integrity out of this circus though.

Source: Criticism and Film Studies: A Response to David Bordwell (23/05/2011)

A Separation (Farhadi)

جدایی نادر از سیمین

(Jodaeiye Nader az Simin )

A Separation (2011/Asghar Farhadi/Iran) 15 February 2011 - Berlinale 2011 [PDF]

Golden Bear (Best film)
Silver Bear (Best actresses ensemble : Sarina Farhadi, Sareh Bayat, Leila Hatami)
Silver Bear (Best actors ensemble : Shahab Hosseini, Peyman Moadi, Ali-Asghar Shahbazi, Babak Karimi)
Prize of the Ecumenical Jury

Press conference Berlinale 2011 [video 41'19"]

Release:

Iran (16 March 2011)
France (8 June 2011)
UK (1st July 2011)
Germany (14 July 2011)

A Separation opened commercially in France on 180 screens (208 screens on 2nd week=3.8% of total available screens! for comparison, Kung Fu Panda 2 opens on 800 screens = 14.5% of available screens), only 4 months after its world première. 180 screens (on a total of 5500 screens in France) is quite exceptional for a foreign film in Farsi, even in France. It was close second BO gross on first week. This said, Rafi Pitts' The Hunter only opened on 2 commercial screens (not in a museum though!) this same week, unfortunately.

Let's see on how many screens it will open in the UK (on a total of 3500 screens nationwide; for comparison Kung Fu Panda 2 opened on 400 screens = 12% of available screens) next month, and in the USA (on a total of 40000 screens nationwide; for comparison Kung Fu Panda 2 opened on 4000 screens = 10% of available screens)... if it ever comes out on a commercial screen. This will be an interesting test of cinephilia.

With his last 3 films (Fireworks Wednesday, 2006; About Elly, 2009; A Separation, 2011), Asghar Farhadi made 3 excellent films ranking each time in the best of the year. I didn't see his 2 first feature films preceding this trio. He installs himself as one of the best filmmakers working in the world today, and comes out of the shadow of Kiarostami, Makhmalbaf and Panahi, as a great of Persian cinema in his own right, for the western audience who recalls only the few celebrity names that define a national cinema.

Panahi : le cinéma au tribunal

14 juin 2011

Médiocrité courante (Deleuze)

« A quel point les grandes déclarations, d'Eisenstein, de Gance, sonnent étrange aujourd'hui : on les garde comme des déclarations de musée, tous les espoirs mis dans le cinéma, art des masses et nouvelle pensée. On peut toujours dire que le cinéma s’est noyé dans la nullité de ses productions. Que deviennent le suspense d'Hitchcock, le choc d'Eisenstein, le sublime de Gance, quand ils sont repris par des auteurs médiocres ? Quand la violence n’est plus celle de l’image et de ses vibrations, mais celle du représenté, on tombe dans un arbitraire sanguinolent, quand la grandeur n’est plus celle de composition mais un pur et simple gonflement du représenté, il n’y a plus d’excitation cérébrale et de naissance de la pensée. C’est plutôt une déficience généralisée chez l’auteur et les spectateurs ; pourtant la médiocrité courante n’a jamais empêché la grande peinture ; mais il n’est pas de même dans les conditions d’un art industriel, où la propagation des œuvres exécrables met directement en cause les buts et les capacités les plus essentielles. Le cinéma meurt donc de sa médiocrité quantitative »

Gilles Deleuze, Cinéma 2 : L'image-temps, 1985

* * *

« Le monde imbécile des images pris comme à la glu dans des myriades de rétines ne parfaira jamais l'image qu'on a pu se faire de lui. La poésie de ce qui peut se dégager de tout cela n'est qu'une poésie éventuelle, la poésie de ce qui pourrait être, et ce n'est pas du cinéma qu'il faut attendre... »

Antonin Artaud , La vieillesse précoce du cinéma, 1933

10 juin 2011

Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Sorbonne)

Les Ciné-débats de La Sorbonne : Jean-Pierre Jeunet
4 novembre 2010 (forumdesimages) 24'47"

Rencontre avec Jean-Pierre Jeunet et Hervé Schneid (son chef monteur habituel)
Lorsqu’il est appelé à Hollywood pour réaliser Alien, la résurrection (1997), Jean-Pierre Jeunet est déjà un cinéaste “culte” en Amérique, grâce aux films qu’il a cosignés avec Marc Caro, Delicatessen et La Cité des enfants perdus. De retour en France, il connaît un succès international avec Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001), suivi d’Un long dimanche de fiançailles (2004), coproduit par Warner Bros.

09 juin 2011

Film Festivals for dummies

NOT A FILM FESTIVAL:

A festival is not a marketing stunt / fair (not primarily designed to serve commerce)
A festival is not a commercial multiplex / repertoire arthouse (not designed to serve the audience)
A festival is not a cinémathèque / museum (not designed to preserve film history)

No matter what you want from a festival, their role is to offer a platform for NEW films (not all new films, some of them, la crème de la crème). Period. All the rest is cultivating the best appeal to promote these premières (more or less successful depending on the organisers).
If the local exhibition circuit fails to deliver non-commercial films to the general public, a festival shall not bear the burden to fill the gap.
A festival doesn't HAVE TO show retrospectives of old movies (if there are, fine, but their absence doesn't redefine the quality of that festival). There are other public venues for that.
So putting the blame on certain festivals for failing expectations in these domains is a petty and unwarranted complaint.

TYPES OF FILM FESTIVALS:
Bachmann distinguishes "wholesalers" (major festivals) from "retailers" (secondary venues on the festival circuit):

"These 11 "wholesalers" are the professional, global marketplaces for new product. The others are "retailers," bringing the films to end users outside of normal exhibition. But they, too, are a form of exhibition, a form with a growing importance and a growing financial potential."
Insight into the growing festival influence. Fest vet discusses 'wholesale' and 'retail' events (Gideon Bachmann; 27 Aug 2000)

In fact there are 4 types of events we call "festivals", which are not what we normally call a festival/fair (except for the third one):

Major International "Festivals" (World premiere artfilms) = primary showcase (opening of the festival circuit, only a few in the world)
National "Festivals" (Domestic production showcase, secondary venue on the festival circuit) = local retailer that publicize world cinema at domestic level for each country (at least one in each country/region)
Niche Festivals (seasonal thematic screenings) = minor film festivity, in the true sense of festival (as in celebration of a particular genre of films, or nationality, or time period, at a local level)
Marketplace (sell/buy for film industry professionals) = fair, market, but not a festival

Now let's make a quick distinction between the major international festivals (Cannes, Venice, Berlin) and the other wannabe-festivals with a much more local scope (National production, genre, documentary, short films...) and a very different function in film culture. They share the same denomination ("festival") and it's enough to confuse critics in thinking their function is equivalent, they expect the same achievements from both and assume they should scrutinize them with the same rigor. They must not.

There are film events open to the public (commercial distribution or one-off event) and those reserved for the professionals (for promotional purpose, business deals, not for box office returns)

PRIMARY ROLE OF A MAJOR FESTIVAL:

A major international festival is positioned outside of the commercial circuit (upstreams from sales), outside of the public interface (critics are the ones communicating to the public), and inside the present (pre-contemporary film culture). A professional festival is first and foremost a private go-between connecting artists and industrials, ahead of official distribution, in the hope to earn international reputation.

All the rest is optional (retrospectives, conferences, galas, photo-op, public screenings, off competition, national cinema showcase, film fund, film market...) !

This is basically a private meeting for insiders (professional from the film industry: producers, distributors, curators, critics). The only public face is eventually its awards, voted by an independent jury, publicized by the media. Critics are invited to evaluate the pre-selected nominees, and given a sneak-peek at the world production currency (which they don't get a chance to know about when they review the official distribution in their respective country).

A privileged audience may attend some of the screenings, but a professional festival is not meant to accommodate the general audience of an official public release. One or two local screenings at a festival only reach out to a very limited potential audience, this is nothing like a commercial release! Introducing a new film to the spectators is NOT the main concern of festivals. There are screen tests, promotional "premieres", and the commercial exhibition circuit for that.

To discover premium films before their official release and help to find international distributors for them. Basically the point is to connect orphan filmmakers who deserve worldwide attention to the industry people looking for films. That's why films selected in international competition are often unseen anywhere else (world premiere), and at least only released in their country of origin (which might be half of their career if it's the USA, but could be insignificant in comparison to their future international career if it's repressive/neglecting countries such as Iran or Thailand).

Filmmakers don't really need festivals to find producers and distributors... there are other channels for them to meet the right people directly where they work. Conversely, studios don't need festivals to scout for talents and purchase copyrights. In a perfect world, all these transactions could very well happen without festivals. And festivals don't do that for every films, only for the chosen few, the cream of the crop.

The existence of festivals, amidst the world marketplace of makers and buyers, merely adds emulation for the production to aim for the top of world standards. An ever evolving world standard, which needs to be reassessed regularly.

French critics legacy 5

"D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Sergei Eisenstein are artistic peers, regardless of the differences in their cultural heritage and context, and one of the great discoveries made by critics—the young French writers at Cahiers du Cinéma in the nineteen-fifties, the inventors and advocates of the politique des auteurs (or “auteur theory”) who are now better known as the filmmakers of the French New Wave—is the recognition that some of cinema’s most popular latter-day artists, such as Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks, are not merely skillful showmen but classical artists, akin to the writers and painters of the grand tradition, despite working in popular styles and genres in the employ of a mass-media industry. [..]
Here’s André Bazin, from one of his last articles, “Réflexions sur la critique” (Reflections on Criticism), from 1958 (he died in November of that year); as the editor of Cahiers du Cinéma, he was something of a godfather to the young auteurist critics, with whom he disagreed—in print; here, he once again voiced his disagreement with them, but now that they had begun to make their passage to filmmaking, he concluded with a grand tribute to their way of writing, praising them for “sketching in advance the image of the ideal cinema that they hope to realize one day”:

To be sure, their criticism is narrow, even unfair, but the narrowness of their angle of reflection often makes it penetrate farther into the intelligence of its object than does objective criticism…. Truth in criticism isn’t defined by who-knows-what measurable and objective exactness, but, first, by the intellectual excitement unleashed in the reader: its quality and its amplitude. The function of criticism isn’t to bear on a silver platter a truth that doesn’t exist, but to prolong, as far as possible, in the intelligence and the sensibility of those who read it, the shock of the work of art."
The Pleasure Principle, Richard Brody (The New Yorker, 3 May 2011)

Then he also wrote:

"For decades, the revival and repertory scene in Paris was something for even us New Yorkers to envy. I’m not sure it’s actually better anymore—depends on the week—but there’s an event underway there now, one that started at the Festival of Asian Cinema in Deauville and is continuing in Paris at the historical capital of cinephilia, the Cinémathèque Française, that movie-lovers around the world should be coveting for their home cities: a retrospective of the films of the Korean director Hong Sang-soo. To up the ante, it’s taking place in conjunction with the French release of his extraordinary new film, “Ha Ha Ha” (it screened once at the Museum of the Moving Image a few weeks ago)"
Hong Sang-soo in France, Richard Brody (The New Yorker, 17 March 2011)

As if a NewYorker was in a position to criticize the offering of Parisian screens (See: Pariscope 2009!), when Americans come to Paris to watch Classic Hollywood flicks that are no longer screened at home, when non-American art films get a pity one-off screening in NYC, for the entire population of America (i.e. Sokurov's The Sun, Alamar, Le Quattro volte... amongst many others) at the Lincoln Center or The Film Forum because commercial arthouses (let alone multiplexes) don't want them!

Come on, find something else to patronize France about. Paris (even regional France) is not so cheap with the best auteurs World cinema has to offer. At least we screen them to the public at large! not just in festival and cinemathèques, not just to press screenings, not just in our capital city.

French critics legacy 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Pariscope 2009

03 juin 2011

Online Postcards (Project:New Cinephilia)

"Epilogue '08 is the final chapter of the year 2008. An online roundtable looking back one last time on the past year in films, after 2008 came to a close and every year-end poll and commentary has been published. We have gathered here a panel of passionate film critics from around the world to feel the pulse of the cinephile life as it unfolded in half a dozen capital cities where cinema is lively and brewing. We get a chance to take a look at the global village of cinephilia, more than ever bound together by the communitarian feelings of the blogosphere and the communication between foreign film cultures, through films and also the international exchange allowed by film discourse in the English language." (HarryTuttle, ex-TheAuteurs.com, 25 Jan 2009)

2 ½ years later, Mubi finally follows up on the supposedly annual series I started in January 2009 under the name Epilogue ('08). Do you think Mubi would have the memory of what The Auteurs did, and pay homage to its inspirational predecessor event? No. There is no memory, regret or remorse in instant social media. I asked Andrew Grant to co-organise (because as he wrote, he had a similar concept), unfortunately he didn't provide more support (in the 1 or 2 months of preparation) than any other participants.
They ignored my debriefing when everything was done, and nobody made sure to meet again the next year. In fact I never heard again of the participants I had personally invited to this roundtable (except Nitesh and Edwin, but about other ongoing projects), through email or blog. Apparently the Twitter logorrhea has a (s)elective flow. This includes the paid editor of the website, who didn't even notice that the date had passed without the new installment taking place in January 2010. He didn't forget to cover the Year-end lists and the Oscars though. To each his own priorities. I also asked him for a dedicated page for the roundtable posts, aside from the cluttered flow of the "Notebook", and a publicity on the forum... I'm glad he found out how to get things done the right way this time around.

The moral of the story is that you should never believe all the over-ecstatic, hyperbolic mutual congratulations and promises that you read in these formal roundtable exchanges (you know, when they write that they love being there and that everything the others wrote was amazing) cause it's all fake and uncommitted. Why do we find the typical political pandering for publicity sake within the CRITICAL discourse?

The point of this Epilogue event was to meet with foreigners, cinephiles from outside our own culture. Here, Mubi only remembers the common language (English) and forgot about inviting non-English natives. There is one Frenchman at their table, but he lives in Australia... I guess anglophones are only interested in other fellow anglophones.

The host this year, Neil Young, who wears his French snobbery as ostentatiously as possible, admits not being up-to-date with world cinema, nonetheless he judges with confidence how festivals should function, he's stranger to social media but he will define nonetheless what "new cinephilia" should be. He made quite an impression at Rotterdam already (see Contra-contrarianism (IFFR) 2).
And to seal the deal, none of the roundtable participants stepped down from their pedestal to pay a visit to the Mubi forum users and engage in a conversation, social-media style. So much for "new cinephilia"... Beyond the facade of the word "social" in social media, it shows its true color : Me Me Me and my Followers (which is the exact top-down model of the magisterial dispense of institutional information in old print media!). That's what the new media are all about, not about conviviality, curiosity, diversity and interactivity.
It's a shame really, because the users who commented on the roundtable content (see here) have more interesting things (more critical distance, more scepticism, deeper implications, more pertinence) to say that the collection of commonplace and navel-gazing anecdotes published in these trivial postcards.

I wish I was encouraged by such project proposition, with a collegial format rather than a unilateral lecture, with a contemporary topic rather than conservative world views (see Film Crit summits 2008), and still, its core conception works against what it is supposed to achieve. It fails to provide true exchanges, interactivity, pertinent analysis of the symptoms, insights and solutions...

Educational cursory reading (in case you're amongst those who found this roundtable a-mazing):

1. Céci n’est pas un cinéphile (Neil Young)

Not just anyone can pull off a Magritte reference... you need apropos point to make!
WTF is a "New Cinephile Canon"??? You mix up "cinephilia" with academia. There is no consensual canon amongst cinephiles, it's critics who elect a common canon and a pantheon.
"My version of cinephilia" ME ME ME let's define that word according to my anecdotal life experience. An international roundtable is not the opportunity to reflect on universalisable standards, for everyone. I'm only here to tell everyone to model themselves after ME.
When he says "a genuine diversity of perspectives", he means : please let people with crap taste be included in the snob circle.
"Meek’s Cutoff is a waste of everyone’s time, effort and money" well let me break it to you right there, a CINEPHILE would NEVER make such a disrespectful statement! 1) if you didn't like it, it doesn't mean that NOBODY on Earth should watch it or love it, 2) It's not for you to decide whether a bad movie should be made or not. The person who made that film probably knows more about cinema than your little self, this film was selected by competent curators at VENICE, and even praised by some of your peers! So your little subjective, selfish desire for control over film production and cultural censorship has no bearing whatsoever on how the world develops.
"the majority of cinephiles don’t make a penny out of what they’d consider their private passion." Why don't you find a business model for shopping addicts, gastronomes or melomaniacs too? Are you talking about "cinéphiles" as in movie-goers, or film enthusiasts? Or are you talking about film prescription pages employees? You realize that only film critics could be paid (eventually)?
"I wonder if the “Frenchness” of the cinephilia concept is problematic" LMAO
Yeah your post clearly states a few evidences of your problems with cinephilia, but you obviously have bigger worries than Frenchness at this point. Clear up your own backyard first. One of them is dropping random French words, and insulting filmmakers while complaining that "cinephilia" is too high-faluting for you...
So basically, you don't want to be a "cinéphile" yourself, but you want every cinéphiles to become like you?

2. Of cinephilia(s) and fandom (Frances Morgan)

look up what "canon" means. It's exclusive by definition, the top most on the taste scale. It's not inclusive. If you have a problem with the elitism of canons, that's probably not the word you're looking for... Try "Zeitgeist" maybe, that's inclusive, that's pretty much the embodiment of "fan culture".
it starts rather bad, 2 postcards, 2 self-admitted newbies talking...
"fandom is not so different from that which drives cinephilia – to commit to either requires passion, amassed knowledge, long hours spent in an alternate world; increasingly it also inspires production: debate, DIY theory, formulation of ideas fresh from viewing, instant connections with others’ opinions." LMAO (see: Project: Validating Indulgent Movie Fandom, literally)
useless contribution overall to the "what is new cinephilia" debate, unless you're a fan of Frances Morgan, of course.

3. The zine from here (Mike Everleth)

3rd contributor to the roundtable, patronising us about cinephilia, is not a cinephile but a "fan". So basically "New Cinephilia" is people talking about things they don't know about?
So you're saying that film culture should thank fans for the comic books-inspired blockbusters???
"Pre-Internet, the main distinction between them was that cinephiles and critics were more apt to be able to make a living at being a fan." AGAIN! (See: Reality Check: Critics are NOT the Film Press) Trying to define a cultural activity by its business model. Damn Capitalists!
I guess this guy didn't read the curatorial statement about not going back to the "critic v. bloggers" debate...
"Can one be a cinephile and, you know, never go to the cinema?" NO. Can one be a canvas painting amateur and only look at paintings on paper postcards reproductions? Can one be oenologist and drink wine from a carton? Can one be an opera fan and only listen to MP3s? To understand that you would have to value the importance of a unique performance, as intended by the artist/maker, for an optimum experience. If you think any experience is equivalent, you probably don't know enough about that art.

4. Cinephilia as Activism (Mathieu Ravier)

"The diversity of what’s on our screens is under threat. And, due partly to ignorance about alternatives, it isn’t being demanded. This offers a tremendous opportunity to define new cinephilia as a form of activism or resistance." First sensible sentence in the debate so far.
"A cinephile activist is anyone who lets true cinephilia inform their actions." now you sound like a religious preacher.
"Cinephile activism is an inclusive, open-minded enthusiasm unshaped by dominant market forces, unburdened by self-censorship, unafraid of questioning itself, one which is informed by personal history and experience as much as by received wisdom, buoyed by critical thinking, sharpened by constructive discussion, curious of under-represented voices, aware of the underground, and which eventually dedicates itself to enhancing cinematic diversity, innovation and originality." Ditto

5. It’s about time (Andrew Grant)

"Thanks to the Internet everybody can be (and is) a critic" WRONG, critic implies values and integrity. Having opinions and showing off taste with a loud voice is not enough.
"the cinephile label is what separates writers and commenters on mubi.com from those at movies.com" Why did they change their elitist brand from TheAuteurs.com to WannaBeNetflix.com then???

6. Je suis un cinemaphile… (Neil Young)

use an accent on "cinéphile" and "cinémaphile" if you meant to write in French, or else you just look like an ass!
"cinemaphile" : let's try to coin a new hip phrase to show off! Even though "cinéphiles" already defined themselves for over 60 years as people who watch films on the big screen!
"apologies from narrowing the focus of the discussion from the inspiringly general to the solipsistically personal" You know it, but you still waste time and space of a public (and international) debate with your narcissistic anecdotes... Maybe that's all you can write about.
"[..] Tsai Ming-Liang, that his work can only be appreciated in a cinema setting (perhaps in his case, a cinema that’s crumbling and deteriorating even quicker than flimsy old celluloid…" Analogical mimetism. Yeah right. Because you can only read Eschyle if you wear a Greek toga, you can only listen to Mozart with a curly powdered wig and a lace shirt, you can only watch The Paths of Glory in a trench and Alien in outer space... LOL

7. Sound, vision, action (Frances Morgan)

"Might the increased ease of filmmaking and distribution afforded by digital technology have a significant effect on political filmmaking?" About as much as what the affordability of VHS homevideo did to 70ies political filmmaking...
nothing added to the conversation really...

8. Slow! Cinephiles writing! (Mike Everleth)

again confusion between "film writer" (producer of content) and "cinephile" (consumer of content)
"Certainly there’s a place in the world for slow criticism and oh-my-god-you-have-to-watch-this-right-now-!!!"
It's not because it has a right of representation that it is included in the narrow topic of "cinephilia". Not EVERYTHING in the world is cinephilia, not even EVERY FILM CONSUMPTION PRACTICES! Either you want to talk about "cinephilia" or you just survey random movie goers and their habits. If you talk about movie fans in general, then you don't need a special appellation for it, that means something else.
"Hey, I saw Thor … and I liked it!" Apologetic elite... if you're afraid to be a walking cliché, maybe what you do doesn't speak for itself.
"To me, cinephilia meant a removing of oneself from the human interaction of discussing cinema." WTF? Like if cinephiles are any less humans than Tweeter addicts glued to their iPhone and ignoring the people around them...

9. Reclaim The Screens! (Mathieu Ravier)

"worship" why the religiosity again?
"Reclaim The Screens!" He didn't mean "reclaim theatrical screens for underexposed art cinema relegated to DVDs and illegal downloads"... NO. He's another fatalist, who thinks that if exhibitors prefers to show blockbusters, there is nothing on Earth we can ever do about it... No. What he proposes is to reclaim mini-screens that are readily available and that nobody threatens to take away from you... That's his idea of "activism".

10. Programming, discussion and racing to the Tree (Andrew Grant)

"Though I’m not nearly as well versed in German online film coverage as I am in the US variety, my impression thus far is that critics and bloggers here aren’t in a mad dash to churn out content. But then again, cinema (and cinephilia) on a whole seems to be a far more serious affair over here. [..] That it’s possible to receive government funding to mount a film series is nothing short of mind-blowing [..] What impresses me the most are the post-screening discussions, which are usually quite intense, and often go on longer than the film itself. With virtually no softball questions, filmgoers here aren’t shy about holding their tongues and their directness has taken me a while to get used to." Welcome to the real world outside of the Hollywoodland bubble, where critical thinking is not just a myth!
Yeah, softball questions are not a problem for your roundtable there apparently...

11. Will the circle be unbroken? (Neil Young)

that's it? 2 articles each and you call that a "conversation"? If these were dense with well prepared ideas and perfectly focused problematics, maybe it'll do, like interventions at an academic symposium... but when all you have to say are anecdotes and half-baked improvised rambling, put together as you go, it's too slow coming for 2 rounds and goodbye. There is no hope to get anything meaningful debated other than a juxtaposition of unilateral declarations. If you just exchange trivial stream-of-consciousness without long term prospects, you don't need to extract it from the general noise and highlight it with a special tribune that intends to tackle problems and get to the bottom of it.
What did we learn? What did you bring up that wasn't already circulating amongst online film writers in the past couple of years?
There is an improvement in the choice of topics discussed (from past similar panels), but it remains purely declarative... listing issues without sorting them, without engaging with them, without thinking them through. This is how the general climate for the average film writer should sound like. But when you step up on an international soapbox to lecture the masses, you need to prepare something a little more reflective and productive! A tribune is for determined thinking (long term), not for aimless rambling of the moment (short term).

source: Online roundtable (Project : New Cinephilia)

* * *

Project: Validating Indulgent Movie Fandom

“Project: New Cinephilia” will be a unique gathering of diverse voices engaging in conversation about the current landscape for film appreciation and evaluation, taking place at the Edinburgh International Film Festival 2011.
Curatorial statement, projectcinephilia.mubi.com, 23 May 2011

The "Commonwealth Bubble" is done with the French Criticism legacy, and wants to impose an Anglophone-centric redefinition of "Film Culture", without obscur French words such as "cinéphilie". Let's redefine DVD consumerism as the new cinephilia, the American way! Typical Emersonian attitude, developing pragmatic individualism (because DVDs de facto replace lackluster distribution on American screens) to cut off from European tradition (where cinephilia is defined around the art of film, instead of its material ways of circulation). Good luck with that marketing campaign... as long as you only address your speeches to the anglophone world, nobody will care enough to dispute. You could indulge in such "geocentric" arguments in the pre-internet world maybe... but you can not possibly make such unsubstantiated claims in the XXIst century, outside of your motherland.

Contributors : 100% English-writting. 18 from USA, 6 from the UK, 3 from Australia (one of which is a French expat), 2 from Canada (not the Québec part!). See Contra-contrarianism (IFFR) 3. No need to explain how an anglophone-only debate is irrelevant to an interconnected world without borders.
Resource (Cinephilia studies) : 100% English; 6 USA, 1 Aussie
Resource (Discussions/Panels) : 100% English; 6 USA, 1 UK, 1 AU, 1 NL, 1 CH
Resource (Essential texts) : 100% English (40% translated); 3 USA; 1 FR, 1 DE
Resource (Manifesto/Positions) : 100% English; 15 USA, 1 CA, 1 AU, 1 Chile
Resource (Slow Criticism) : 100% English; 2 USA, 1 UK, 1 NL, 1 DK
Resource (Video essays) : 100% English; 11 USA
Resource (Originals) : 100% English; 2 USA
The website information is replete with American-centric references (H.D., Carl Sandburg, Graham Greene, James Agee, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael, Kent Jones, Harmony Korine, David Lynch, Spike Jonze, Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, Hollis Frampton, David Sterritt, Laura Mulvey, Chris Fujiwara, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Zach Campbell, Dudley Andrew, James Morrison, Annette Michelson, Acquarello, Jessica Winter, David Hudson, Gavin Smith, Richard Brody, Ed Halter, Andrew Sarris, J. Hoberman, Stanley Kauffmann, Dave Kehr...)

Since it takes place in the UK, you would think the natural bias would be with a majority of British residents, but no. 94 American references versus 8 British references. Just like the British screens are overwhelmed by Hollywood, their local film literature is also monopolized by the USA. Is it really a British summit? I wonder.
Did they actually try to seek out the MOST INTERESTING and COMPETENT people in the WORLD able to discuss this question, or did they just randomly spin their Rolodex of buddies and Twitter followers? They probably think that by ignoring the world around them and by quoting eachothers, it makes them more relevant internationally or even thus appropriate a (deceitful) dominating position in Film Discourse (as evidenced by this disingenuous lack of non-English references). The MPA would be proud of you for contributing to install American culture hegemony through cinema. It's just a little presumptuous to go to Scotlands and brainwash dumb festival goers : Let's forget about actual cinephilia, it takes too much efforts and commitment to attain, instead we'll indulge in our own laziness and redefine standards according to our own limitations... What a pity.

But then again, maybe the anglophone critics are the ones badly in need of such therapeutic consultation, AA support group-style.

To which reservation organiser Kate Taylor replies:

We have spoken a lot since the project’s inception about how to ensure a variety of perspectives feeds in to the project, and within the timeframe of pulling it all together, we have for our initial phase focused on Anglophone voices. [..]
We would not claim the project is currently representative of global voices (and there are also several non-Anglophone invitees who were not able to contribute due to time commitments), but hopefully within the ethos of the project we have suggested that we are up for discussion and open to suggestion.

Bollocks! If you haven't acquired a solid background in WORLDWIDE film studies by now (not just in preparation of this event), you maybe shouldn't be in charge of this supposedly "international" event, at EIFF. Find a better excuse next time, unless your intention was to confirm Anglophone Isolationism.

If you're looking for the NEW cinephilia... well, you failed to discover the CROSS-CULTURALITY of the WORLD WIDE WEB. We can be sure of that much at this point, and the thing hasn't started yet...

"NEW cinephilia"? really? Always this desperate obsession of the NEW World to steal concepts from the Old World, discredit them, and rebrand them by adding the adjective "new" or "neo" in front. What a subservient absence of creativity for words and for ideas! (See: Film Theory Branding)

An English-only bibliography had to overlook these (you're just 30 years late for the re-evaluation of the original cinéphilie):

Contre la Nouvelle Cinéphilie (Louis Skorecki, Cahiers du cinéma, n°293, octobre 1978)
L'Homme ordinaire du cinéma (Jean Louis Schefer, 1980)
La société du spectacle (Guy Debord, 1983)
Devant la recrudescence des vols de sacs à main, cinéma, télévision, information (Serge Daney, 1991)
Eléments pour une chronique de téléphilie (Louis Skorecki, Libération, 21 juillet 1992)
Retours de cinéphilie (Antoine de Baecque, Cahiers du cinéma, n°460, octobre 1992)
Le salaire du zappeur (Serge Daney, 1993)
Les dandys du câble (Thierry Jousse, Cahiers du cinéma, n°498, janvier 1996)
Le cinéma et l'éthique (Jean-Claude Biette, 1999; publié in Trafic, n°50, 2004)
Cinéfile et cinémonde (Jean-Luc Nancy, Trafic, n°50, 2004)
La DVDéothèque de Jean Douchet (Jean Douchet, 2006)
Pour une cinéphilie grand angle (Arnaud Guigue, 2009)
Bréviaire de cinéphilie dissidente (Ludovic Maubreuil, 2009)

* * *

Here is what the public relations promised for the upcoming event :

Premise :

How we write about cinema [that's gonna be fun!]
How we watch cinema [you need a symposium for this?]
How we teach cinema [yes please]
How we create cinema [WTH? so critics are artists now?]

Watching, Writing, Teaching, Creating... they obviously don't talk merely about "cinephiles" (passive audience), but about people who produce a work after viewing. Cinephile is a generic term which designates, when you qualify a demographic, its consumption of this cultural good that is cinema. Here you're talking about writers, educators and filmmakers. Only a slim proportion of cinephiles are active contributors to Film Discourse, Film Education and Film Making, in a serious way (if they even consider themselves cinephiles).

Sessions :

Provocations [I hope they'll be... thought-provoking, provocative and impertinent indeed]
Critical Approaches: How to Read a Film Today [here is an educational bit for a festival audience]
Passions: Getting Your Voice Heard, Starting a Film Publication [if you need help in this domain, you're not ready to be published, so work harder on your own!]
Critical Approaches II: Tools, Formats and Experiments [finally!]
Passions: What Does It Mean to Be a Cinephile Today? [welcome to the AA meeting]
Respondent: My God, What Have We Done? [that'll be interesting to see how self-critical they are]
Twitterthon: 140 Character Film Critic Deathmatch [WTF? This alone shows how careless and unserious they are about the whole thing. See Dim-Tweet]

* * *

"This is not about “the future” or “the death” of film criticism. This is not about print journalists versus bloggers. It is about how “cinephilia” informs and enriches film culture, from the inside out, and the outside in."

Grand. You're starting on productive basis. Though, if you're really honest about this, why link in the resource page to the "death of cinema" essays and the print v. bloggers panels of the last couple years? Perverse temptation or unfocused bibliography? Further they list the "future" as a recommended topic :

"Is the technique of film (3-D, immersive technologies, hyper-cut editing) developing ahead of the art? What is to be made today of André Bazin’s proclamation that “cinema has not yet been invented”? Are we headed toward non-photographic cinema in mass culture? And if so, how will our notions of the moving image change? How will such a shift change the future as well as the past?"

We're not starting on the right foot, are we? Did you not consult eachother before writing the pages of your presentation? If you're confused yourself about what you're doing, we cannot reasonably hope that you'll make your readers/audience less, but more confused after participating to the event. Organisers have the responsibility to clear out confusion and improve the level of film discourse, not to worsen it.

Reality and Representation (Bordwell)

When I say "blue" everyone can represent that very color in their head... but do we really picture the same color for this particular wavelength of light? Maybe some people see the sky and everything called "blue" like what I see everything called "yellow" without knowing the internal discrepancy because we are consistent in calling the color-a-like objects by a consensual name. Like in the case of color blindness (which is a disorder we can detect).

Human perception is limited by the very nature of our brains, because that's what we use to comprehend. But this is high-end theory. Cinema doesn't make use of such refined aspects of the perceptive process. In Plato's Cave, cinema is that 2-dimensional monochrome shadow on the wall, and real life human perception is what happens in the cave behind the fire, invisible to the prisoner-observer. Cognitive science strives to explain the universe of daylight outside the cave, which is of metaphysical interest, and do not really affect the understanding of cinema one way or another. The science of perception is infra-language : it comes ahead of any possible communication. A fully functioning eye-ear-brains apparatus enables the idea of language formation, perception and comprehension. Visual language comes afterward, developed by society with whatever the human brains could handle.

So says Bordwell :"But we don’t have to worry about whether it’s true; what matters is that filmmakers invoke it and film viewers follow their lead. Storytellers are practical psychologists, preying (usually in a good sense) on our habits of mind in order to produce experiences." after making numerous cases of such studies.

Cinema is made by flawed humans and watched by equally flawed humans. That's all film theory needs to know. If a camera could record images that we are unable to perceive or understand (eg. infra red or high-speed flickering), filmmakers wouldn't use them because of their inefficiency on the spectator experience.

Bordwell: "Film academics assume, along with most humanists, that once you set aside some uninteresting aspects of the human creature, usually summed up as “physiology,” culture goes all the way down. Beyond cell division and digestion, let’s say, everything is cultural, and to invoke any other explanations risks rejection."

Bordwell wrote an essay on "commonsense film theory" (there is at least a couple academics who could learn why "common sense" is not undesirable in film criticism!).

I wonder why he uses the likeness of images rather than their editing to interrogate the perception of spectators. The audience reacts to screen images just about the same way they react to reality. Only editing is really specific to film language and could eventually require a different process than in the real world.

The real world we live in is full of situations where mankind has evolved to perceive, interpret and infer incomplete images, like in the movies. Humans are perfectly able to understand a reflection on a mirroring surface, a shadow on a wall, a silhouette in the fog, a sound without image, a view without sound, an animal through blocking leaves, a visage behind a glass window or a translucent curtain... In this regard, cinema didn't pose a major problem to our perception that we didn't have to solve before.

Even the absence of stereoscopy (perception of depth), merely equates to looking through a keyhole in real life. We are not disconcerted by this situation. It's harder to make sense instantly of a perspective, but we manage. So a video image of a person is not so different from looking at someone in real life, behind a window, through a keyhole, with a peculiar texture on the glass that alters the resolution of the image (like the typical video resolution does).

You are sitting on a bench in a park, in real life, and you eavesdrop on a couple next to you having an argument. You don't know how it started, what succession of events led to this conflict, what is their past, their life, their background. But you can try to follow what is going on anyway, interpret the body language and the portions of sentences you catch, make your own speculations and infer what it is all about, little by little. They walk inside a building near enough to continue your observation, and you only see them and hear them each time they pass an open window. This is no different from what audience are subjected to on a cinema screen, and we are well equipped to fill in most of the blanks, and at least get a basic understanding of the action, even when the distillation of bits of informations and visual cues, the timing of their obstruction wasn't designed by a narrator.

I'm not saying that cinema narration is an innate language, but as far as cognitive process is concerned, it's not the imperfect nature of screen images or the timeline editing that could confuse spectators more than in real life. Not to mention the mental processes mankind used to develop and master for the transmission of oral traditions, such as memorization of a continuous timeline, at the scale of a day or a lifetime, or village history, and the manipulation of a discontinuous timeline to construct dramatised stories or lies. Cinema came after cave paintings, music, poetry, theatre and literature... and built a language largely based on previously acquired skills of perception, mental visualisation, communication and memory.

"Recognizing the contents of realistic images, I’ve suggested, depends heavily upon our everyday perceptual abilities. Similarly, filmic storytelling relies upon cognitive dispositions and habits we’ve developed in a real-world context."

I wish the examples of "cinema narration" were a little bit more medium-specific than what he cites to question our understanding of cinema conventions : a man running away from someone (easily identifiable in real life without any more context than on a screen), a red-tinted sexy scene with saxophone (real life cliché), Daffy Duck (similar to identifying mural stick figures or a sock puppet)...
In these cases, cognitive science only indicates how humans generally perceive real world situations, it doesn't explain what is specific to film language, or what poses a problem to usual cognition in filmic representation...

I wish "cognitive science based film studies" would look into problematics that are less about plotpoint stereotypes (reading emotions, intentions, causality, continuity, space orientation...) and more about the subtle quintessence of film language (frame composition, harmony, sense of duration, pauses, images collision, rhythmic edit, organic crowds, permanent landscapes...) because filmmakers need to learn to use richer cues, more elaborate, more indirect, delayed in time, secondary cues that are not operative in the plot advancement, cues for transient impressions that only qualify a shot or a moment.

"Further, Narrative in the Fiction Film argued that the conventions that guide our inferential extrapolation don’t simply float free in space. There were recurring clusters of favored choices for presenting causality, time, and space. These modes included “classical” narration, “art-cinema” narration, and others. The historical layout still seems valid to me, and they seem to have proven useful to other researchers."

I'd like to come back to this nebulous label of "art cinema" later, because I don't think it represents anything identifiable by a standard form like "classical narration" or "Hollywood" (by period) or "Mainstream" could. As for "Avant Garde", the concept of "art cinema" doesn't correspond to a definite format, or to any films in particular, except to cast them outside of the well known classicism. Mentioning "classical narration" refers to a set of codes and conventions that will match almost every film we file under this umbrella term. However, what you call "art-films" are practically all different from each other (except for certain trends and "schools"), aside from being also different from the classical format.

"Considering narrative comprehension as inferential led me to bring in the Russian Formalist distinction between fabula and syuzhet. These two terms have been used in several ways, but the most plausible way, it seemed to me then [Narrative in the Fiction Film, 1985] and seems still, is to see fabula as the chronological-causal string of events that may be presented by the syuzhet, the configuration of events in the narrative text as we have it."

Serge Daney was talking about "énoncé" (=fabula) and "énonciation" (=syuzhet) in 1974 (Cahiers du cinéma, n°248-249-250, janvier-mai 1974).

"But I now think that the inference-making takes place in a very narrow window of time, and it leaves few tangible traces. What is built up in our memory as we move through a film is something more approximate, more idiosyncratic, more distorted by strong moments, and more subject to error than the fabula that the analyst can draw up. [..] In assigning to the spectator the task of ongoing fabula construction, NiFF harmonized with one premise I consider central: a holistic sense of form. Even if we scan the entire narrative through a narrow slit, it’s important for the analyst and theorist to consider the overall design of the work, the more or less coherent principles that govern the unfolding tale. I’m thinking of such matters as smoothly cascading character goals, psychological motives and personality change, gradual development of knowledge, shifts in viewpoint, repeated and varied motifs, and finer-grained patterns of visual and sonic presentation."

That is an interesting aspect of human perception applied specifically to the cinema experience and how the limitations of this experience can be exploited, manipulated by the narrative design.

Even if we do not recall every element of a film by the end of the screening, or even during the film, our subconscious does. Often the film needs to use self-quoting flashback (of images already previously projected in the distant beginning of the film), to make a pointed reference, as if the audience had already forgotten what they saw a few minutes ago. And the emotional climate within which each scene or image is registered (in state of fear, or under the tone of suspicion, or in awe, or accompanied by a music cue...) attribute to each memorial image a distinct accent, that influences the way we store and retrieve such memory, in the long term memory (belonging to our personal history), or in the short term memory (for single-using within the duration of the film).

Source: Common Sense + Film Theory = Common-Sense Film Theory? (David Bordwell, May 2011)

Pawan Sinha details his groundbreaking research into how the brain's visual system develops (TED talk, Nov 2009)

18 juin 2011

Roundtable 2 (PNC)

La bétise et le philosophe

16 juin 2011

Mandarins vs Philistines 2

15 juin 2011

A Separation (Farhadi)

14 juin 2011

Médiocrité courante (Deleuze)

10 juin 2011

Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Sorbonne)

09 juin 2011

Film Festivals for dummies

08 juin 2011

French critics legacy 5

03 juin 2011

Online Postcards (Project:New Cinephilia)

02 juin 2011

Project: Validating Indulgent Movie Fandom

01 juin 2011

Reality and Representation (Bordwell)