Critical Fallacy 9 : Conflict of Interest

Critical Fallacy 9 : CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Unlike the interpersonal conflict between the critic and the film being judged, that was developed in the previous Critical Fallacy (Prejudice), this one is a prejudice at the macro level. But it's a moral constraint due to the underlying pressure imposed by the industry to voluntarily influence and limit the freedom of expression of the press and the total liberty of opinion of critics.

I heard "conflict of interest" is not as much an issue frowned upon in the USA as it is in France or in Europe. And this mentality reflects the practice of journalism too. What kind of independence can we expect from critics who are hired by a journal owned by a media-conglomerate including Movie Studios interests?
These media superstructures control the life of a movie from beginning to end, from production to distribution to advertising outlets and even its criticism. The audience might have the illusion to pick from a wide range of choice, to listen to the advice from diverse sides. But in the end the reason we hear and see the promotion for a movie everywhere is rather because of the favouritism of a single head than because it has been endorsed by several independent minds. We live in a media landscape segmented by the exclusive catalogue of a handful of tycoons. A film is nursed, shaped up, funded, bind by contract, cast, produced, edited, advertised, criticised, screened, then re-broadcast on TV, re-sold on DVD, appreciated in a book... by a single commercial interest, the media conglomerate seeking to make money out of it. It's reasonable to mistrust the amount of artistic input in this heavy industrial machine.

Examples of media conglomerates :

• Rupert Murdoch (Press, Cinema, TV, telecommunication) : The Sun, The Times, [EDIT]The New York Times, 20th Century Fox, Fox TV...
• Time Warner (Internet, Press, Cinema, TV, telecommunication) : Warner Bros., AOL, New Line Cinema, Time, HBO, Turner Classic Movies, CNN...
• Disney (Cinema, TV, telecommunication, Radio) : Walt Disney Studios, Touchstone Pictures, Miramax, Pixar, ABC, Disney Channel...
• Sony (TV, Cinema, Telecommunication, Music) : Sony Pictures, Columbia, TriStar Pictures, MGM, United Artists, Sony TV, Sony Music...
• Vivendi Universal (Cinema studio, Multiplex, Music, Press) : Universal Studios, MSNBC, Canal+, Universal Music, NBC, Pathé, Gaumont...
• Le Monde (Press, Book Publication, DVD) : Le Monde, Le Monde diplomatique, Courriers International, Les Cahiers du cinéma, Télérama, Editions de l'Etoile... (about to split under the current financial crisis!)

Where is the independent journalism? Which cinema publication or broadcasting program isn't in bed with Studio or TV interests?

Klaus Eder (April 2006, FIPRESCI roundtable at Undercurrent) :
"I'm always in favor of film magazines because I don't think that daily criticism can contribute a lot to real film criticism. It's too close to all the pressure of the editors, of the film industry, and you know that kind of tendency in film criticism in the mass media to give a service, to give it points, to say "yes, see it" or "no, don't see it." That's not film criticism."

Another side effect of this monopoly of the media industry is how movies are sold as packages to the theatres (i.e. "if you want to screen this blockbuster, you have to also play my other cheap movies"), and the exclusive contracts signed by stars with a certain studio (which explains why some actors are not allowed to play in a movie because it is produced by another conglomerate). Negociations can also become tricky when curating a retrospective, or compiling a DVD collection, or broadcasting a series on TV, as movies may belong to different companies who might veto their participation to annoy competitors.

AO Scott (NYT, July 18, 2006) : Avast, Me Critics! Ye Kill the Fun: Critics and the Masses Disagree About Film Choices :
"So why review them? Why not let the market do its work, let the audience have its fun and occupy ourselves with the arcana — the art — we critics ostensibly prefer? The obvious answer is that art, or at least the kind of pleasure, wonder and surprise we associate with art, often pops out of commerce, and we want to be around to celebrate when it does and to complain when it doesn’t. But the deeper answer is that our love of movies is sometimes expressed as a mistrust of the people who make and sell them, and even of the people who see them. We take entertainment very seriously, which is to say that we don’t go to the movies for fun. Or for money. We do it for you."

However the salary received from a Media conglomerate isn't the only pressure a critic can be subjected to. There is also the psychological pressure, the "off the record" confidences, the risk to jeopardize a long friendship, a mutual respect, a moral debt, loyalty to peers, editors, directors, stars, cover deals, junket favours, private screening access :

Adrian Martin : "To start compromising yourself in terms of the industry, to start worrying about that letter you're going to get from the filmmaker or from the distributors; that's the beginning of the end."

Klaus Eder : "I think this personality of the producer coming and saying, "you know I put my last money in this film and if you don't support it I'm going bankrupt," we know about it. We have it every day. We have also the opposite. We have some distributors coming to some critics and asking, "What do you think of that film?", and if the critic says "nothing particular," that film will not be distributed in that country. This happens as well, and I think this is extending the influence of the critic."
at the Undercurrent FIPRESCI roundtable (April 2006)

"Nonetheless, one must strive for an ethical standard in on-line publishing, and not let the moral slippery slide begin. That slippery slide is usually inaugurated, in the film magazine business, by one thing: money. And most particularly: advertising. The moment you allow advertising onto a site, you have bought into compromise. Can you be truly critical, any longer, of those distributors, exhibitors or publishers who are helping to subsidise your site? It is better – and certainly ethically easier – to ‘fudge’ one’s critical opinions, to keep powerful friends, to hold open the sources of precious revenue. Institutional support – such as might come from a government arts body, a university, a council, a cine-club association or a special public fund – can sometimes come with ‘necessary conditions’ (to promote a national or local cinema, for instance) which can be debated, deflected or subverted; advertising money, however, comes with the pulverising force of capital and its sole aim, which is to sell, to expand itself, and to win passive social consent. This is one of the most socially and politically responsible things that a publication can do: resist complicity with the system, the industry, the establishment. It is easy to be idealistic about this, but idealism often corrodes quickly in a difficult material world. There is so much pressure, one way or another, to conform to the film industry: to cover only those latest films which the commercial industry wants you to see; to engage only in the kind of discourse (pro or con) that ‘greases the wheels’ of the mass movie-going system; to overlook what the cinema of the past has been, or what truly ‘alternative’ cinema is today."

Adrian Martin interview on the "Responsibilities of Film Criticism" at cinemascope.it (PDF, issue #7, Jan-Apr 2007)

Related :

• Independencia capitulada (éthique fallacieuse)

Critical Fallacy 8 : Prejudice

Continuing with this series I've neglected for long enough, the current debate around the responsibility crisis among film critics is a perfect excuse for this new segment.

Critical Fallacy 8 : PREJUDICE

There are various sorts of prejudices that may hinder the expected proverbial "neutrality" of the critical distance required to judge a work of art.

It's a personal conflict where the particular position/background/acquaintance of a critic render his/her judgment less neutral, more suspicious. For example, certain aggravating circumpstances will color one's perception of the film in a distorting way.

An excessive familiarity/antipathy (emotional relationship) with one of the filmmaker/star (eg. David Thomson).
A generational/social class gap (sometimes belonging to a different milieu blinds you to certain subtle aspects of a film designed for another niche).
A political/religious incompatibility (we don't expect from radical bigots a fair appreciation of a film pamphlet).
If the film aesthetic belongs to an aesthetic movement in contradiction with the writer's own preferences (the review of a musical by a hardcore neorealist critic will most likely miss the entire point of the film).
If the critic used to be/is/will be a filmmaker his/her personal conception of cinema may conflict with the one defended and applied in the film reviewed (same aesthetical contradictions may lead to false expectations, as the critic reviews the film he wanted to make of it rather than the film that was made).

Dan Sallitt (Aug 23, 2006, on a_film_by), Theories of Disagreement :
"What occurred to me this morning is that maybe we underestimate: a) the incredible amount of data available in even the simplest work of art; and b) the mind's ability to find strong, coherent patterns in even a small collection of data. So, for instance, I come to Kubrick with a particular heightened aversion to a certain acting style which is connected to a certain personality trait. I identify this element, am ticked off by it, and calibrate my perceptive apparatus so that I start picking up any other element with some aspect in common. Because there is so much data in a movie, I have no trouble finding lots of support for my initial aversion, and in discarding the occasional data point that doesn't fit what I'm looking for. Within minutes, voila! I have constructed a coherent Kubrick-pattern that I call a sensibility. Meanwhile, other observers, without the same baseline aversion that I have, not only construct a different Kubrick-pattern, but also lack a slot in their Kubrick-pattern to help them identify the traits that look obvious to me."

hotlove666 (Aug 23, 2006, on a_film_by) :
"I don't attempt to construct a personality for an auteur. I'm looking for something else. When I look at North By North West, I am not thinking about Hitchcock's personality. I'm thinking about his art. And I know a lot about Hitchcock's personality! Ditto for Fuller and Boetticher, whom I knew well: When I watch China Gate or Seven Men from Now, I'm not thinking about Sam and Budd, except as artists, and strangely, I don't see much of the man in the artist. The films are always a surprising revelation to me of "who" the men I knew really were - a misleading way to put it, because that "who" isn't a person in any of the usual senses. Maybe I'm arguing for a theory of artistic impersonality? I'm not sure. The one case where this may not apply to how I saw the films in the early days is Hawks, where certain eccentricities I loved in the films did suggest a "person" behind them. But I wouldn't see them that way today."
"But I remember meeting the author of The Blue Iguana for a presskit interview and finding him terribly obnoxious -not a bad guy, just obnoxious. I still watch his films. I think he "has something." And I suspect his unfortunate personality has kept him from making a name for himself in the businss. It isn't what I watch his films for, however."

J. Rosenbaum (Oct 11, 2006, at The House Next Door) :
"The problem is that if and when these films [Welles' Don Quixotte & The Other Side of the Wind] see the light of day, they will not be received well by critics because they aren't what people are looking for from Welles. In fact, that was the genius of Welles. He never wanted to give people what they expected from him. They wanted “another Citizen Kane,” whatever that means. One always has to adjust one’s preconceptions and expectations and that's one of the great challenges of his work."

Cultural barrier, language barrier, historical rivalry may lead to misunderstanding, oversimplifying caricaturization, false characterisation, cultural blindness, missed in-joke humour, double-entendre, local cultural references, innuendos, regional accents... I know most of this is usually exploited by mainstream cinema as unmissable laughter signposts. But when serious criticism seeks to understand a film that doesn't functions on easy ropes like that, it become crucial to have a minimal understanding of the cultural context. To abstain from commenting such details might also be wise.

I'm not suggesting that every critic with a suspicious profile is unable to overcome the bias of a cultural/emotional frameset, but the idea to leave the review to someone more apt to neutrality should at least be considered in such case. Hard to believe for some, but a strong "subjective bias" is not a proof of greater insightful response for a film. It sure makes for a more entertaining read (people love animated polemics), but it doesn't give the film at hand the most adequate appreciation. If critics differ it should always be on aesthetical level, not because of preconception that exist in their worldview, outside of the film itself.

Then there are practical reasons why a critic should pass on the review to a colleague. Missing the begining or walking out before the end, might not be a big deal to the casual movie-goer, but if someone is asked to judge a film, a complete viewing of the work, under decent conditions (original aspect ratio, continuous projection without technical interruptions, quality soundtrack, eventually correct subtitle translation, close attention throughout...), is a mandatory requisite. Not everybody in the audience rate the film they saw, but those who do, shall know what they are talking about at least (not to mention being a competent critic).

Certain pre-screening information may also spoil your "virgin experience" of the film, or the conditioning by a partisan crowd...

Related:

• Random Factoid 2 : Apichatpong

Où va la critique française?

Unfortunately I also missed the French roundtable on the crisis of film criticism, on April 7th 2008, mirror to the NYU event of last month. Likewise, critics came to La Fémis, the parisian School of cinema, to discuss problematics of a changing practice with film students. Likewise I only read a second hand digest, posted by Damien at Château de Sable, so I'm only commenting myself based on partial assumptions. A few differences. This "ciné-club" debate was more modest, shorter, and didn't have the multinational character of NYU guests. However it's more interesting to form a panel with guests with a different job in film culture : in Paris there was Antoine de Baecque (critic, historian of cinema), Hervé Joubert-Laurencin (Cinema scholar), Nicolas Klotz (filmmaker), Sandrine Marques (blogueuse, Contrechamp-Media), and one who didn't make it (due to the financial crisis at Le Monde) Cyril Neyrat (Critic, Cahiers).

"Where is going cinema criticism? Situation and perspectives of a practice"

excerpts:

DE BAECQUE : There is an overload of films produced. And there is only 4 days to publish a review on a film, between Wednersday [weekly national release] and Saturday [first Box Office weekend]. Too short. And every critic publishes the same blurb.

(...)

JOUBERT-LAURENCIN : We need to define "Criticism". Art historian Adolfo Venturi used to say that criticism must define its object.

(...)

DE BAECQUE : We can read everywhere the phrases "Beauty", "a beautiful film". Beauty has been stolen by publicity. Against the shame of becoming a quote-whore critic, we used to make sure never to use such easily quotable phrases ever in our reviews.

(...)

JOUBERT-LAURENCIN : There is also a violent rhetoric that consist in declaring "this is cinema", "this isn't cinema".

(...)

KLOTZ : What is the role of cinema if it remains an autistic bubble, ignoring its power of "resistance" like Deleuze said. Cinema is also an archive.

Cultural Relativism

At Frieze Magazine (08/04/08), Ronald Jones argues around Sontag's notion of "cultural relativism" in funny ways I'm not sure to fully grasp... Anyway here are interesting excerpts :

The language of relativism projects power by raising doubt or casting uncertainty where none existed before. Its favoured targets are declarations of objective truth and ethical judgment.
(...)
Allergic to absolutism of any stripe, the art world overwhelmingly identifies with Sontag’s relativism, usually with good reason, and always with an open hand towards tolerance and inclusion. Just how tolerant and inclusive the art world has become – while eschewing objective certainties – can be measured by the howls over reviews or essays that draw fire as expressions of aesthetic imperialism.
(...)
Nevertheless, such uncritical relativism is the reigning lingua franca manufactured in universities, and art and design schools, where puréed ideas can be recycled for decades at a time. Once institutionalized, relativism became an acquirable skill like typing or riding a bicycle – transferable knowledge reproduced at will. Tolerance? Check. Inclusion? Check. Diversity? Check. And so it goes. These days it is possible to train someone at university in relativism or Abstract Expressionism, and to virtuoso levels, without critical judgment ever having to be engaged. But empty of critical judgment the fundamental condition of historical amnesia becomes epidemic.

Hoberman's 30 years sentence

In the anticipation of another great NYC event coming up soon (announced by Doug Cummings at Filmjourney), at the Museum of Moving Image, conducted by the New York Times Company Foundation : the Institute in Film Criticism and Feature Writing (from April 10 through 15, 2008)...

somehow I missed this other very interesting, yet inevitably nostalgic, discussion on criticism with J. Hoberman (The Village Voice) and A. O. Scott (NYT), that took place on January 5, 2008, in New York City, also at the Museum of Moving Image. More food for thoughts for the ongoing debate around the status of film criticism in the media and its responsibilities.



Here are some selected excerpts :

A.O. SCOTT opens with a quote from a famous Hoberman essay (I wish I could read it, if anybody knows where I can read it, please let me know) :

“That history [of cinema] will force those critics refusing the role of under-paid cheerleaders to themselves become historians, not to mention archivists, bricoleurs, spoilsports, pundits, entrepreneurs, anti-conglomerate guerilla fighters, and in general, masters of what is known in the Enchanted Palace as counter-programming.”
(J. Hoberman, The film critic of tomorrow, today, 1998)

J. HOBERMAN: there’s this thing called film culture. Not the magazine, but something that would be akin to literature, and without being unduly weighty about it, (...) that’s the entity that I feel that film critics and other interested parties serve. It’s making film culture. I think to do that, you have to be aware of what is coming at you, being propelled at you, by the studios and the market place; and also have a kind of context to counter that with and to make sense of it which is the history of film and also to a degree, the potential, the possibilities of it. So this is why I like the idea of double bills and programming films: because that automatically puts something in context.

(...)

SCOTT: when you arrived on the scene, there were some very imposing figures on the critical landscape, which are also looked back on now with a lot of sort of nostalgia, and fear and trembling.

HOBERMAN: I think that this was sort of the end, I would say ”the tail end, maybe the bitter end” of this mythologized period that began in the late fifties, and then petered out with the bicentennial, when so many things seemed to go wrong. So I came after that, and there were some things in the landscape that definitely were better. One, very simply, was that there were more venues (at least print venues) for people to write film criticism. And there also were in New York, more venues, I think, where movies could be shown; at least revival theaters and so on. But I also think, at that time, that there was (and I think that this is true today, although less so) that there were many things that were just not being written about.

(...)

HOBERMAN: I think that there’s a dynamic which existed from the very beginning, in which passé films were rediscovered, very often by artists or artistic types, you know, "aesthetes" and were valued. The French… reorganization of American cinema, or let’s say the rationalization of it, that the French engaged in in the fifties, and then which Andrew Sarris really brought to America in the sixties is part of an ongoing process.

(...)

SCOTT: You used the phrase “academic filmmaking” before, (...) I think about… you know, [art] in the sense that you would talk about academic painting of the nineteenth century; that is, a work in a received style that is content to stay within its own parameters. I mean, where do you see that?

HOBERMAN: Well, we don’t even need to talk about stuff that’s produced by the studios, because it’s a given that commercial films need formulas; and sometimes that can be great, depending on what people do with it. But you know, anything that made money once is just assumed to be able to be recycled to make money again, that’s sort of the principle of it. But a movie like (...) No Country for Old Men (2007), to me, is a very academic film that is constructed in such a way to bring the audience along, and deliver a certain amount of thrills and excitement and surprises on schedule, and has a very mechanical aspect. But I couldn’t deny that it’s an extremely well made movie, the way that French academic painting is expert.

(...)

HOBERMAN: One of the great things about movies, and one of the things that’s really fascinating and in some ways new about the motion picture medium is that, you know, movies are time capsules. Even the worst. Sometimes even the worst, best of all. (...) I also think that there’s a great precedent for this in the case of Siegfried Krakauer. I mean, a lot of his formulations in From Caligari to Hitler may seem naïve in some respects (although not in all). But for me, this was like a blinding insight, to come across this as a teenager: to say that movies really did intersect in such a basic way with the life of their times and with the whole collectivity. (...)

read the whole transcript or listen to the full MP3 recording at Museum of Moving Image.

The Belgrade Manifesto

Continuing the thread of Responsibilities in cinema and to contradict my recrimination against the apathetic American market, here is an interesting project initiated by two independent filmmakers, Nora Hoppe (USA) and Jon Sanders (UK), in an open forum at the Belgrade Festival of Auteur film, on Sunday 2nd December 2007: The Belgrade Manifesto. I never heard about it, and apparently I'm not alone (despite an article in the current issue of Vertigo.uk) , as the number of signatures is only 58 (Sokurov and Kaurismaki among them) in four months. So spread the word and sign up!

They accuse the (Hollywood) system of dumbing down the audience with low standards films and Machiavellian marketing schemes. They propose to exploit the liberty of Digital Cinema to make and show films to the public outside of the established commercial circuit. Which relates to what Pascale Ferran is talking about in France right now.

There is a crisis in cinema today, a deep malaise, a feeling of artistic exhaustion, of pointlessness. The evolution of cinematic language that is so vital to the continued well-being and relevance of the medium has pretty much come to a standstill. Good films are getting fewer, the informed and knowledgeable audience that is so important for their success has shrunk. The older generation don't go to the cinema any more because so many films are for young people, and the young people today have little idea of cinema's capacity for depth, excitement and complexity. The critics, who should be guiding and educating that audience, are mostly inadequate, and the distribution structures no longer work.

The growth of the globalised market and of Hollywood's extraordinary success in exploiting it, despite the fact that the films are getting worse, has not only depleted the alternative markets but, more disturbingly, has undermined alternative approaches to production by acting as a virus - its methods and philosophy are either taken on directly or internalised. Nobody pays attention to form, without which, as our predecessors understood, nothing worthwhile can possibly develop. The “story” is given exaggerated importance; the study of its crude mechanics has become an industry in itself with consultants and experts in every financing agency and production house, part of an ever growing and unproductive bureaucracy whose purpose is to sniff out the trends and fads of the day and to select and develop (and distort) productions in accordance with those predictions.

However, the landscape has shifted and we are now entering the era of “digital cinema”. (...) What is being ignored is (...) the long-term stagnation of cinematic language and form and the consequent lack of innovation and depth which are essential to keep cinema alive.

(...) At last, it is now possible, because of the huge reduction in costs, to bypass existing funding channels and make high quality films WITHOUT PERMISSION. In addition, we need to adapt and develop those models of distribution and exhibition that are already being pioneered and begin to identify new sources of minimal funding. It is time to take responsibility for our own future and establish a committed, interactive community that can share ideas and work together to find viable ways to make and show our films and build audiences that will want to see them.

(full manifesto on the official website)

So hopefully critics and filmmakers worldwide, a global community, could feel RESPONSIBLE and oppose the system to defend artistic liberty and cultural diversity. Even filmmakers working in America and why not from Hollywood. Time to speak up and shake the world to change the system!

Film Criticism Blogathon 2006 (backup)

Since I mentionned in my last post Andy Horbal's Film Criticism Blogathon (at No More Marriages!) on Dec 1st 2006, and that the blog was now deleted, I'll re-post the links here for future online reference and posterity.
Luckily a trace of the summary can be found copied at the end of in Noel Vera's own contribution
And thanks to the Wayback Machine, the original archive of this blogathon is not lost.


LIST OF CONTRIBUTIONS
(*) indicates discussion in the comments section

• *Film Criticism as Subfield (by Chris Cagle at Categorie D.)
• *The Film Critic Blog-a-thon Paul Schrader (by Peter Nelhaus at Coffee coffee and more coffee)
• *Critical Thinking (by Edward Copeland at Edward Copeland on Film)
• *Defining a critic (by HarryTuttle at Screenville)
• Film Criticism and Films, Criticized (by David Lowery at Drifting)
• *Blog-o-thon: Film Criticism (by Matt Riviera at Last Night with Riviera)
• *Pauline Kael: Great Critic, or Great Writer? (by Pacze Moj at Critical Culture)
• * Ricoeur's Three Stages (by Girish Shambu at Girish)
• *The contrarian fallacy: Armond White vs. the Hipsters (by Peet Gelderblom at Lost in Negative Space)
• *Our Films, Their Films by Satyajit Ray (by acquarello at Strictly Film School)
• *Daddy, when I grow up, can I be… a film critic? (at Burbanked)
• Butchers, Murderers, and a Whole Lotta Movie Criticism. (by Emma at All About My Movies)
• The Hollywoodization of Filipino films (by Noel Vera at Critic After Dark)
• Critic After Dark Being a Filipino film critic (by Noel Vera at Critic After Dark)
• *The Film Criticism Blog-A-Thon (by Flickhead)
• *Film is about to disappear over the historical horizon (by Annie Frisbie at Zoom in Online)
• Film Criticism on the Internet (by Annie Frisbie at Zoom in Online)
• Jay Sherman as Critic (by Dan Eisenberg at Cinemathematics)
• The Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon! (by Karl at KGB Productions, Inc.)
• On Blogs and Film Criticism (a personal take) (by Tyler Beane at I love Andrei Tarkovsky)
• On Criticism - What and Who are Near and Dear (by Weepingsam at The Listening ear)
• *Pearl of the South: A tale of two reviews (by Jim Emerson at Scanners)
• *Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon! (by Jim Emerson at Scanners)
• *FILM CRITICISM BLOGATHON—Phillip Lopate: Codys Bookstore Reading and Q&A (by Michael Guillen at The Evening Class)
• FILM CRITICISM BLOGATHON—Phillip Lopate: PFA Readings on Cinema Lecture and Q&A (by Michael Guillen at The Evening Class)
• Powell and... Dwyer? (by Gareth at gareth's movie diary)
• *Regarding Andy Horbals's Film Criticism Blog-a-Thon, much belated (by Ryland Walker Knight at Vinyl is Heavy)
• ROBERT ALTMAN, FILM CRITIC (by Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule)
• *FIVE IMPORTANT EVENTS IN MY HISTORY WITH FILM CRITICISM (by Dennis Cozzalio at Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule)
• Selling Out (by Josh Bell at Signal Bleed)
• The Burden of Opinions (by Bob at Forward to Yesterday)
• *The Critic On Your Corner (by Damian Corvallis at Windmills of My Mind)
• *Preface to A History of Narrative Film (by Damian Corvallis at Windmills of My Mind)
• The Devil Looks Over Your Shoulder: Film Criticism On the Run (by Chris Stangl at The Exploding Kinetoscope)
• *Your own worst critic (by Lucas McNelly at 100 films)
• For Film Criticism Blogathon (by Tim Lucas at Video Watchblog)
• 5 for the Day: Life-Changing Criticism at The House Next Door
  (with pages by Steven Boone; Dennis Cozzalio; Bilge Ebiri; Annie Frisbie; Kenji Fujishima; Dan Jardine; Ryland Walker Knight; Odienator; Sheila O’Malley; Matt Zoller Seitz; Girish Shambu; HarryTuttle; Keith Uhlich; Wagstaff)

And reminding us that the internet is not cast in stone and that blogposts and bloggers come and go :
R.I.P. offline pages
(please leave a link or a cached page to correct these missing contributions)

• As a Preface- Andy's Letters to the Young Turks 3-1 (Or something).
  by Andy Horbal at No More Marriages! (offline, Wayback Machine cache)
• A Humble Proposal and a Humble Opinion by Andy Horbal at No More Marriages! (offline)
• Harry Tuttle, Film Critic- An Appreciation. by Andy Horbal at No More Marriages! (offline)
• Dubious Moments in Film Criticism- Graham Greene vs. Shirley Temple. at The Screengraber (offline)
• Finding the Art That Dodges. by Campaspe at Self Styled Siren (offline)
• Talk To Me Harry Winston The Film Criticism Blog-a-thon (offline)
• Utopia- An Interview With Richard Porton. (offline)

Bonus Link :

A Roundtable Discussion "How Film Critics Work" at Undercurrent (FIPRESCI) with Klaus Eder, Julie Rigg, Richard Kuipers, Adrian Martin and Roslyn Petelin
This forum, presented by the Australian Film, Television and Radio School as part of the Brisbane International Film Festival 2005, invited four prominent film critics to discuss their profession and share ideas about perceptive and informative film criticism.

A French perspective (Responsibilities)

Sorry to compare to France again, but synchronicity strikes right here to give an example of the "critical responsibility against a perverse system".

The French cinema industry isn't doing poorly exactly (the latest French blockbuster, "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis", a lowbrow comedy, is beating all previous sales records and the yearly audience is growing especially thanks to recent popular French movies), but still there are people to stand up and complain about a lack of diversity, a lack of opportunity and the spoilage of the state subsidies (without which there would be no French cinema).

At last year's Césars (the French Oscars), indie filmmaker Pascale Ferran made her acceptance speech for Best Film of the year (Lady Chatterley) a severe accusation against the governmental policy and the extinction of the middle ground cinema (cited as exemples : Resnais, Chabrol, Rivette, Lelouch, Berri, Costa-Gavras,Téchiné,Tavernier, C. Serreau, Corneau, Miller, Jacquot, Breillat, Carax, Chéreau, Guédiguian, Jolivet, Assayas, C. Denis, Dupeyron,T. Marshall, N. Garcia, Jeunet, Klapisch, Desplechin, Beauvois, Corsini, Kahn, Ferran, Kassovitz, Audiard, Salvadori,Vernoux, Masson, Belvaux, Mazuy, Lvovsky, Podalydès, Jaoui, Ozon, Moll, Cantet, Kechiche) between big budget movies well supported by TV networks and the small budget art films supported by subsidies. She said the gap between these two poles was growing thin which tends to polarize the image we get of cinema into two clear cut alternatives : the entertainment and the "boring".

This lone call had a snowball effect and opened the mouths of everyone. Though quite slow, like with every bureaucratic system, the press relayed the criticism and began to think over the situation. And now an independent interdisciplinary group of filmmakers (Jacques Audiard, Pascale Ferran & Claude Miller), screenwriter (Cécile Vargaftig), producers (Denis Freyd, Arnaud Louvet, Patrick Sobelman & Édouard Weil), distributor (Fabienne Vonier), theatre owner (Stéphane Goudet, Claude-Éric Poiroux & Jean-Jacques Ruttner), international distributor (François Yon) got together (surprisingly no critics or scholars in there) and published a report to analyze the current system and propose some needed modifications (Le Club des 13).

So even if it was ballsy and ungrateful to shout at the academy that just gave her a prize in 2007, the milieu of cinema kinda agreed and opened up to bilateral talks.
Today the newspapers (Le Monde, Libération, Les inrocks, Télérama) mention the news in a supporting way. This becomes a public debate.
Cahiers published the Cesar2007 speech online after having questionned the quantity of films produced in France in the past issues (#618 and #619 notably) then suggested some proposition just before the presidential elections (#622) and interviewed each candidate regarding their cultural agenda (#622).

This is what I'd call "Responsibilities of criticism": socio-political awareness, moral integrity, self-examination, analytical scrutiny and altruism.

The system is benevolent and ultra-protectionist in France : quotas, subsidies, taxes... yet the domestic production only owns around 40% of the market, leaving 45% to Hollywood and more or less 15% to non-Hollywood foreign films (=60% of foreign films allowed on our screens! that's how "ultra-protectionist" we are, compared to the 5% in the USA). But still people working here and benefiting from this system raise awareness and call for more justice, more fairness for everyone, and less abuse of the aids by the prosperous parties who don't need it.


We see that Hollywood screenwriters can solidify around their union to beg for their cut of the internet profits and get a lot of media attention, but could the same thing happen for selfless interests to defend the cultural diversity in their country? I honestly don't know, I'm just asking the question.

Responsibilities of Criticism in NYC

On March 13 and 14, 2008, the New York University Department of Cinema Studies organised a seminar entitled "Responsibilities of Criticism"
The topic sounded promising :

"As the technologies of filmmaking and distribution continue to proliferate, criticism must also develop in ways that are commensurate with its object in order to effectively respond…
What is to be done?"

The panel of critics is of the highest standard : Jonathan Rosenbaum, Adrian Martin and Nicole Brenez. I'm really pissed I couldn't attend because it was probably a great event. There are a lot of great ideas there, and they are really good speakers on films and on cinema issues in general. Though my expectations were disappointed by the missed opportunity of what could have been such a summit (in NYC, highly cinephile city, with film students and seasoned critics/scholars, and such a deep subject as ethics in the practice of film criticism,which is an issue that particularly interests me), and I expected a much deeper topical development from these great minds.
So the problem is less that the event was "elitist", because its form was meant to be an academic seminar for film students at a film school. Though broadcasting it live or at least putting up videos or MP3 on their website would certainly help to democratize this kind of exclusive events that not doubt would interest/educate a much larger crowd outside of the academic environment. The problem I see is the level of discourse proposed by the guests to their audience on a subject that could spare facile clichés and generalizations.

Kevin Lee transcribed his notes live from the lecture hall (part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
Others talk about the event also : Girish and Zach Campell at Elusive Lucidity

I wanted to wait for an audio recording of the full talks, to avoid making uninformed comments based on a mere summary, but there doesn't seem anything will be uploaded online. So I offer here my random thoughts after Dave Kehr and Filmbrain already voiced out their criticism of the content of these discussions, and an interesting discussion unfolded in the comment section of their blog (check it out over there).

Nicole Brenez talks about "Lumpenproletariat" (?) and poverty on screen (not poor aesthetics, but the socio-political commitment of artists!). This is an interesting question to raise before film students at NYU of course, but what roles does it play in a seminar on film criticism I don't know). First it's the business of filmmakers who are in charge of what appears on screen or not, only them could change cinema. Secondly, the "class struggle" (which is Brenez' point) is not the only way to make movies, even great art.
Meanwhile, her 4 points manifesto to challenge the filmic representation (to criticise, to identify and to differentiate, to interrogate and to transform) is insightful and worth questioning for film students. But that's not immediately related to the topic of Responsibilities of Film Criticism. Or did she imply that filmmakers and critics operate a censorship at the same level? That if a social category is under-represented on screen, the critics should act responsibly and denounce it? Her contribution to the topic doesn't make it very clear, at least from the summary I've read.

Adrian Martin published an excellent article on the very topic of "Responsibilities for the film press", under the form of an interview for the Italian online journal cinemascope.it, so his concern for the topic at hand cannot be questioned. Though I wish he had brought up today the same kind of insights he had written on last year.

And Jonathan Rosenbaum has a long record being on the frontline attacking the perversity of the system and sporting an irreproachable responsibility when distancing himself from the auteur's naive talking points. It's a shame not to find anything of the sort here. As Kevin points out, he brings up old anecdotes that we've read already in his books and nothing new about the situation we live in.
Instead of the same unchanged prejudice against internet (from a decade ago) we'd maybe expect evolution of the blogosphere to receive a new critical perspective (updated as of 2008). Should we conclude that the situation hasn't changed? That critics don't bother to check if there has been any notable changes? That the blogosphere doesn't improve in such a short period of time? That all this is hopeless in regard to the far superior state of print criticism? In any case we'd like this print/internet, scholar/amateur debate to be addressed less superficially, with a more accurate perspective.

Didn't these film students in the audience know more about the blogosphere than these critics? Shouldn't the scrutiny of this new medium go beyond the ostracism of the infamous "average blogger" at the expense of the striving force of online cinephilia who tries to be responsible despite the a priori bad reputation they get?
There is a lot of shit on the internets! Thanks, we knew that already. Now could we move on to something a little more substantial? I don't know what they want to achieve with such negative, pessimistic, dismal comments but it's not getting us or them anywhere. Is there hope? Will the internet play a key role in the renewal of critical scrutiny? Shall academics be concerned by a medium that isn't theirs? Is the blogosphere just not part of film culture because it belongs to a specious medium?

Well even if the blogosphere is out of the picture (though seeing the dire situation of weekly reviewers and academic studies, I do think there is no other place at the moment where a true alternative voice, independent from corporate influence and populist taste could develop!), the topic of responsibilities of critics is big enough a concern to raise lots of burning questions. Why treat it so lightly? Why not mark its importance with serious debates?


What are the responsibilities of film critics anyway? I hope the audience of the seminar got a better idea because I didn't.

I'm French, so it's not my business to figure out what the responsibilities are for American critics, but I would think there are obvious issues worth debating with film students... A country where 95% of the market is monopolized by movies made strictly in Hollywood! 5% of admissions left to be shared by all foreign films (Non-American English films, Europeans films plus the rest of the world). Just like in Iran and India. Even China is more open to foreign films than the USA! Wouldn't that be a matter to be addressed by critics who worry a little about diversity and a multicultural landscape? Why should the USA be any different than every other industrialized nation producing a great amount of movies? Why such protectionism? Is it a fait accompli we should all learn to live with because it's OK and should not change?
An audience who can't stand reading subtitles, who don't see anything wrong with copying foreign films and remaking them "American-style", who consumes whatever multiplexes serve them without any critical distance whatsoever, without any idea what is going on in the world. And it's not the weekly reviewers who give them a reality check (except great critics like Rosenbaum, who didn't engage in this polemic for once here unfortunately).

Wouldn't the responsibilities of critics cover the check and balance of a nationalist industry before even thinking of an ideal cinema aware of poverty exposure? Why critics fail to educate their readers to watch non-Americanized films? Isn't there a bit of self-criticism to contemplate there? Why bother to theorize responsibilities if critics don't take their responsibilities when they get a chance to speak up at a forum dedicated to Responsibilities?

When I see the uniformity of the Hollywood production I think that the American film schools failed to educate their students... that the new filmmakers are all made from the same mould to become conformist, conventional, academic, success machines. They are trained to obtain (pre-formatted) results before even knowing what cinema is and cultivating a personal inspiration. So few true independent filmmakers try to develop a different cinema.

Again it's the responsibility of critics to denounce this gap and support the struggling artists who are not screened. The distribution on the American circuit alone could be debated for a week in a seminar on responsibilities! Responsibilities of the public, of the reviewers, of the studios, of the filmmakers, of the stars, of the TV networks... The responsibilities of critics toward a growingly neglected history, toward a criminally underexposed current creation, the absence of cross-examination among peers, the lowering standards of a decadent culture, the hegemony of financially and morally conservative lobbies...

What about the unheralded, undistributed filmmakers who can only be seen by the American audience through import DVDs or illegal downloads??? Who cares? Read Michael Atkinson's recent post on Exile Cinema. So the American market (the most prosperous in the world) can't afford to publish these titles that other countries think is worthwhile?
What about the continued series of professional critics (deemed not populist enough) laid off in many big titles of the American press? How about the incompetent editors in chief who care more about readership appeal than about critical responsibilities? So who is going to question this mentality?

When you invite famous foreign academics from Australia and France, don't you want to take this opportunity to discuss the differences between the American market and how it works elsewhere?

I could point to a few articles made by André Bazin (here and here), or by Serge Daney on La Fonction Critique, or by Maurice Blanchot on La Condition Critique, or by René Prédal (here), or by David Bordwell (Against Insight)...
Sadly Andy Horbal deleted his blog where he highlighted these kind of issues, notably at his blogathon "Defining a critic" (here was my contribution) EDIT: I've posted a backup page here.
And also the insightful roundtable in Brisbane published at Undercurrent.
But all this is old news. What is new today about the state of film criticism, I'd like to know? Who is going to tell us?


Finally, because my intention is not to criticize the event itself but the missed opportunity, I'll close with a constructive citation by one of the participant :

"Merely citing the absence of canons, apart from those put together by ill-informed studio publicits (who typiclly don't even have a clear sense of what could be found in the studio vaults), doesn't suffice to account for the problem, which has only been made worse by the decimation of state funding for the arts, the downgrading of film discourse in general (both within the journalistic sectors, which increasingly prefer promotion to criticism, and within the academic sectors, which increasingly prefer the social sciences to art), and the cheap nostalgia of the older film who refuse to examine or interrogate the current situation any further than arrogantly declaring their own generation and its canons superior to any of those succeeding them."

(Jonathan Rosenbaum, introduction to Essential Cinema, 2004)

La productivité du savoir théorique

"Teorie del cinema (1945-1990) /Les Théories du cinéma depuis 1945" Francesco Casetti (1993) :

"Ce livre se réfère à une idée de la théorie du cinéma aussi éloignée de l'abstraction (celle de ceux qui voudraient que cette théorie soit ce qu'elle n'a jamais été) que de la complaisance (celle de ceux qui en trouvent des traces dans tout discours intelligent). L'épistémologie contemporaine, dans ses efforts de redéfinition du concept de "théorie scientifique", nous aide à éviter ce double écueil. La "théorie" n'est plus uniquement envisagée comme un dispositif formel, fondé sur un nombre restreint de postulats, dans un cadre conceptuel bien défini, et avec des modalités rigoureuses d'acceptation des contenus empiriques (Nagel). Elle est plutôt pensée comme une conjecture qui permet de saisir la signification ou le fonctionnement de certains phénomènes (Popper), ou mieux encore comme une façon de voir partagée par une communauté de scientifiques et considérée efficace (Kuhn). Une théorie ne doit donc pas être nécessairement une construction axiomatique, elle doit cependant être au moins un savoir partagé au moyen duquel on tente d'expliquer le monde. (...) Une théorie est, au premier degré, la réunion d'une opinion, d'une croyance et d'un vocabulaire, permettant d'observer et de parler du réel. (...)

Suivant cette logique, nous caractériserons donc une théorie (du cinéma) comme un ensemble de thèses, plus ou moins organisé, plus ou moins explicite, plus ou moins contraignant, qui sert de référence à un groupe de chercheurs pour comprendre et expliquer en quoi consiste le phénomène en question."

Différent aspects de la théorie du cinéma :

• - l'indication de principe et l'illustration probante : "le cinéma est... "
• - la prise de position et le vœux pieux : "le cinéma devrait être... "
• - L'hypothèse de tendance et la défense d'école : "le cinéma ne peut être que... "
• - L'analyse globale et l'exploration systématique : "le cinéma semble être... "
• - la lecture personnelle et l'analyse méticuleuse : "le cinéma dit être... "
• etc

"Ce qui donne de la profondeur à ces discours, ce n'est pas toutefois telle ou telle forme qu'ils peuvent prendre, mais leur capacité à exprimer une hypothèse dotée d'une certaine cohérence, son évidence, sa nécessité, et surtout qui soit partagée ou puisse l'être par un groupe de chercheurs. (...)
Une thèse acquiert une dimension théorique si elle sert à la fois de point de rencontre et de motif de discussion. (...)
Les théories poétiques particulières, celles dans lesquelles un auteur théorise sa propre oeuvre, ne seront plus étudiées, sauf si elles proposent une image du cinéma qui s'étend au-delà de son objet de départ et dans laquelle d'autres peuvent se reconnaître, ou à partir de laquelle d'autres peuvent établir un programme de recherche (Bresson et Tarkovsky sont des cas controversés non résolus)"
(...)

"L'Histoire du cinéma n'est plus uniquement une histoire des films, évalués selon leur esthétique, confrontés au monde de leur auteur et reliés à leur contexte culturel. L'histoire du cinéma aujourd'hui est confrontée à un triple objet : la "machine industrielle qui régit la production et la distribution des films, la "machine" psychologique qui régit leur compréhension et leur consommation et la "machine" discursive qui régit leur mise en évidence et leur valorisation (Metz, 1977). (...)
La théorie est aussi un savoir social."

Contemplative Cinema blogathon 2008

Tuttle Awards 2007

• Best Film : INLAND EMPIRE (2006/LYNCH/USA)
  .
• Grand Prix : Still Life (2006/JIA Zhang-ke/China)
  .
• Best Debut Film : PVC-1 (2007/Spiros Stathoulopoulos/Colombia)
• Best Documentary : Useless (2007/JIA Zhang-ke/China)
• Best Short Film : Madame Tutli-Putli (2007/LAVIS/SZCZERBOWSKI/Canada)
  .
• Best Mise-en-scène : David Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE)
  - Other Contenders: Roy Andersson (You, the living), Tsai Ming-liang (I don't want to sleep alone), Jia Zhang-ke (Still Life), Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days), Garin Nugroho (Opera Jawa)
  .
• Best Screenwriting : Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days)
  - Other Contenders: INLAND EMPIRE, Secret Sunshine, Persepolis, The Band's Visit, Pingpong, Sehnsucht.
  .
• Best Character : He Fengming (Fengming: A Chinese Memoir)
  - Other Contenders: Nikki Grace/Susan Blue (INLAND EMPIRE), Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (The lives of others), Alexandra (Alexandra), Shin-ae (Secret Sunshine), Tewfiq (The Band's visit)
  .
• Best Performance : Do-yeon Jeon (Secret Sunshine)
  - Other Contenders: Lee Kang-sheng (I don't want to sleep alone), Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 Week and 2 days), Lu Huang (Blind Mountain), Galina Vishnevskaya (Alexandra), Yu Nan (Tuya's Marriage), Luisa Williams (Day Night Day Night)
  .
• Best Camerawork : Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Syndrome and a Century)
  - Other Contenders: David Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE), Gustav Danielsson (You, the Living), Liao Pen-jung & Tsai Ming-liang (I don't want to sleep alone), Alexis Zabe (Stellet Licht)
  .
• Best Image : Gustav Danielsson (You, the Living)
  - Other Contenders: Caroline Champetier (Mourning Forest), Satrapi/Parronnaud (Persepolis), Darius Khondji (My Blueberry Nights), David Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE),
  .
• Best Inspiration : David Lynch (INLAND EMPIRE)
  - Other Contenders: Roy Anderssson (You, the living), Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), Garin Nugroho (Opera Jawa)
  .
• Stronger Content : Fengming: A Chinese Memoir
  - Other Contenders: Elle s'appelle Sabine, Still Life, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 days, Blind Mountain

My blogosphere tracklist

My GoogleReader shared items list and its RSS feed :
A selection of blog posts from my RSS feeds aggregator. Enjoy!



And this page (always updated live) is accessible from the link menu on the side bar to the right.

Deleuze on singular frames

Continuation from my post on single-frame films, When do images turn into cinema?

Gilles Deleuze says it better than I could, in Cinéma 1 : L'Image-Mouvement (1983), on the origin of primitive cinema and the constitution of movement (Chapter 1 : thèse sur le mouvement, premier commentaire de Bergson) :

"Cette reconstitution [du mouvement avec des "coupes immobiles"], vous ne la faites qu'en joignant aux positions ou aux instants l'idée abstraite d'une succession, d'un temps mécanique, homogène, universel et décalé de l'espace, le même pour tous les mouvements. (...) chaque mouvement aura donc sa propre durée qualitative.
En 1907, dans L'évolution créatrice, Bergson baptise la mauvaise formule : c'est l'illusion cinématographique. Le cinéma en effet procède avec deux données complémentaires : des coupes instantannées qu'on appelle images; un mouvement ou un temps impersonnel, uniforme, abstrait, invisible ou imperceptible, qui est 'dans' l'appareil et 'avec' lequel on fait défiler les images. Le cinéma nous livre donc un faux mouvement, il est l'exemple même du faux mouvement."

"Et d'abord la reproduction de l'illusion n'est-elle pas aussi sa correction, d'une certaine manière? Peut-on conclure de l'artificialité des moyens à l'artificialité du résultat? Le cinéma procède avec des photogrammes, c'est-à-dire avec des coupes immobiles, 24 images/seconde (ou 18 au début). Mais ce qu'il nous donne, on l'a souvent remarqué, ce n'est pas le photogramme, c'est l'image moyenne à laquelle le mouvement ne s'ajoute pas, ne s'additionne pas : le mouvement appartient au contraire à l'image moyenne comme durée immédiate. On dira qu'il en est de même pour la perception naturelle. Mais, là, l'illusion est corrigée en amont de la perception, par les conditions qui rendent la perception possible dans le sujet. Tandis qu'au cinéma elle est corrigée en même temps que l'image apparait, pour un spectateur hors conditions. Bref, le cinéma ne nous donne pas une image à laquelle il ajouterait du mouvement, il nous donne immédiatement une image-mouvement."

"Le cinéma à ses début n'était-il pas forcé d'imiter la perception naturelle? Et, mieux encore, quelle était la situation du cinéma au début? D'une part la prise de vue était fixe, le plan était donc spatial et formellement immobile; d'autre part l'appareil de prise de vue était confondu avec l'appareil de projection, doué d'un temps uniforme abstrait. L'évolution du cinéma, la conquête de sa propre essence ou nouveauté, se fera par le montage, la caméra mobile, et l'émancipation de la prise de vue qui se sépare de la projection. Alors le plan cessera d'être une catégorie spatiale pour devenir temporel; et la coupe sera une coupe mobile et non plus immobile. Le cinéma retrouvera exactement l'image-mouvement du premier chapitre de Matière et mémoire. (...) Il y a d'autre part la critique du cinéma, dénoncé comme une de ces tentatives illusoires, comme la tenatative qui fait culminer l'illusion. Mais il y a aussi la thèse de Matière et mémoire [Bergson, 1896], les coupes mobiles, les plans temporels, et qui pressentait de manière prophétique l'avenir ou l'essence du cinéma."

"Or, justement, L'évolution créatrice présente une seconde thèse qui, au lieu de tout réduire à une même illusion sur le mouvement, distingue au moins deux illusions très différentes. L'erreur c'est toujours de reconstituer le mouvement avec des instants ou des positions, mais il y a deux façons de le faire, l'antique et la moderne."

"La révolution scientifique moderne a consisté à rapporter le mouvement, non plus à des instants privilégiés, mais à l'instant quelconque. Quitte à recomposer le mouvement, on ne le recomposait plus, à partir d'éléments formels transcendants (poses), mais à partir d'éléments matériels immanents (coupes). Au lieu de faire une synthèse intelligible du mouvement, on en menait une analyse sensible."

"Mais, en fait, les conditions déterminantes du cinéma sont les suivantes : non pas seulement la photo, mais la photo instantannée (la photo de pose appartient à l'autre lignée); l'équidistance des instantannés; le report de cette équidistance sur un support qui constitue le "film", un mécanisme d'entrainement des images. C'est en ce sens que le cinéma est le système qui reproduit le mouvement en fonction du moment quelconque, c'est-à-dire en focntion d'instants équidistants choisis de façon à donner l'impression de continuité. Tout autre système, qui reproduirait le mouvement par un ordre de poses projetées de manière à passer les unes dans les autres ou à se "transformer", est étranger au cinéma."

"Qu'Eisenstein sélectionne des instants remarquables n'empêche pas qu'il les tire d'une analyse immanente du mouvement, pas du tout d'une synthèse transcendante. L'instant remarquable ou singulier reste uninstant quelconque parmi d'autres. (...) Celle-ci est l'ordre des formes transcendantes qui s'actualisent dans un mouvvement, tandis que celle-là est la production et la confrontation des points singuliers immanents au mouvement. Or cette production de singularités (le saut qualitatif) se fait par accumulation d'ordinaires (processus quantitatif), si bien que le singulier est prélevé sur le quelconque, est lui-même un quelconque simplement non-ordinaire ou non-régulier."
"L'instant quelconque, c'est l'instant équidistant d'un autre. Nous définissons donc le cinéma comme le système qui reproduit le mouvement en le rapportant à l'instant quelconque."

"(...) la seconde thèse de Bergson rend possible un autre point de vue sur le cinéma, qui ne serait plus l'appareil perfectionné de la plus vielle illusion, mais au
contraire l'organe à perfectionner de la nouvelle réalité."

"Ce qui implique que le mouvement exprime quelque chose de plus profond, qui est le changement dans la durée ou le tout. Que la durée soit changement, fait partie de sa définition même : elle change et ne cesse pas de changer."

Gilles Deleuze, L'Image Mouvement, 1983

What I forgot to mention in my post, was what single-frame films negate. Deleuze says it. They negate duration, mouvement and time, because they refuse to follow the rules of the equidistant frames captured from the same live "movement", of the "ordinary instant" taken from reality during the camera recording (opposed to the posed, priviledged images taken by a photograph), and the abstract, uniform scale of time to which each frame should be refered to (opposed to still cuts, single frames, without duration, without an idea of time, without an impression of movement). We don't get "movement" with an anarchic succession of unrelated frames. This is not "cinematic". And Deleuze says it, it belongs to another branch of photography. Cinema, as he defines it, implies a respect for the rendering of motion.

Contemplative Blogathon 2

I hope that we haven't said everything that had to be said about "Contemplative Cinema" (C.C.) yet. Nearly a year since the experiment at Unspoken Cinema, to run a blogathon over a month on a team blog. It was a great success then. But was it too heavy that it burnt out already? I know I did burn out. But isn't it the spirit of a marathon to play on endurance, instead of a mass posting on a single day, like the traditional format used to be? Well, seeing that nobody else tried this event-blog experience on a long period, I assume it was not approved by the blogathon regulars...
I wish the interest for this perspective on cinema would have lasted beyond the timeframe of the blogathon event... or even have some repercussions in film reviewing, to reconsider the way we write about films that are difficult to put into words. Maybe I missed the examples of this new type of film writing, maybe I'm wrong in expecting this evolution. Anyway, this concept of C.C. needs more critical scrutiny, more deconstruction, more contrarianism, more elaboration, more sampling, more case studies, more participation...
I'm the first guilty, since I didn't pursue my investigations as planned on the blog. I'm lost in my scattered notes, and overwhelmed by the number of themes and films I'd like to explore at the same time. Result, I've postponed everything.


Hopefully this anniversary will be an opportunity to bring forth another series of ideas and posts to discuss this type of cinema. What are the new films since last year? What are the new developments?
I don't know what topic could refresh and inspire new contributions or if another blogathon is even desirable... Anybody out there wants to repeat on January 2008? (I know I'm not trying to be original, and find something completely different for my second blogathon...) ;)
Probably not a month-long event this time though. Maybe just a week-long deadline (Sunday 6th-Sunday 13th January 2008 would be ok?). Go to Unspoken Cinema

I would propose something like "narrative strategies in plotless films". To look at how C.C. films manage to tell a story without the traditional dramatic structure. To see if there is one alternative strategy or if there are various types of contemplative plotlessness in these films to compensate the lack of dialogue and suspense-drive.
Contrarians could even prefer to note how we can find traces of classic narration (or an altered form) in C.C. films.
Suggestions for a topic are welcome. If there are other ideas before January, we can always change it. Find the blogathon banners here.
Well, just to let you know that the Unspoken Cinema team-blog is still alive, or strives to be, and that you are welcome to participate.
What do you think?

Erice-Kiarostami Video-Lettres 2007 (2)

continuation from first video-letter post here (introduction of the exhibition here)

The unfolding of this diarist relationship is a fascinating glimpse at the psychology underlaying the confrontation to another creator. The first thing we notice is how each have understood the concept of the project and how they give their interpretation. The first four videos are already described and commented at Senses of Cinema.

• VIDEO-LETTRE #1 : El Jardin del Pintor (Erice/Spain) VE to AK, 22 april 2005, 9'30"

I don't know if they pulled a straw or if he was just the first to draw. Victor Erice (V.E.) sends the first video-lettre, thus setting the standard for the series. 9 1/2 minutes of handheld miniDV color documentary with basic editing, sober voice over commentary, and Persian subtitles. V.E.'s hand is seen literaly writing down "to Abbas Kiarostami" on an envelope.

He films a mini home-made family documentary. His proposition is surprisingly "non-professional" (formally I mean, not that it was a bad thing), contrary to what we would expect from a seasoned auteur. We could say he takes it easy, and enjoys a nostalgic retrospect on his career as well as looking in the present to update the premise of his film as seen by the new generation. In any case, he doesn't engage in a skill showdown with Abbas Kiarostami (A.K.), it is simply a spontaneous exchange of personal videos to him. Far from being detrimental, it is a refreshing and touching moment of intimacy, filmed with a loving attention. It's also showing complicity with his counterpart, Abbas, who loves El Sol Del Membrillo (1972).
V.E. returns to the house of his friend Antonio Lopez, 13 years after the shooting of his film. The quince tree is still there, painted now by the painter's grandchildren, each with an artistic representation corresponding to their age (variations of colors, details, realism, composition).

• VIDEO-LETTRE #2 : Mashhad/The Cow (Kiarostami/Iran) AK to VE, 5 Sept 2005, 10'

A.K.'s reply arrives 4 months later, after worrying everyone that this project would never take off. Was he disappointed by V.E.'s first video-lettre? Is he too busy to play the game? Is he victim of the creator's block, short of inspiration? Is he too impressed to know what to do next?

Unexpectedly, his first contribution has nothing to do with V.E.'s openning of the series. It is both disconcerting and exciting. Because it seems like A.K. is completely ignoring the collaborative project, but at the same time he affirms his freedom of expression and takes the project further, in a different direction. He seems to say they don't have to play ping-pong, they don't have to quote eachother, they don't have to make this project a self-referential conversation, but should instead open it to the world and explore surprising stylistic clashes.

A.K.'s hand is seen writing a postcard to Erice, all subtitled in Spanish. A brief voiceover introduces a memory from a recent drive in the country. This introduction appears to follow the model set up by Erice (coincidentally the running time is equivalent too), but what follows is totally unique. The title, he explained later, was a reference to an important milestone in Iranian cinema : Dariush Mehrjui's Gaav / The Cow (1969), an Iranian New Wave icon. Miguel Marías at Rouge pretends these video lettres (the first 4 at the time) are "definitely not major works", but when I see this piece I think this is one great cinematic achievement (my favorite of the series so far!), with the genial abstraction of the most basic material possible. All the more fascinating since it's so far from what Kiarostami usually does in his documentaristic and realistic filmography.

In successive stationary shots (extreme close up), A.K. presents us several views of some kind of a velvet drape, a gently waving flag with black and white patches. The shapes, animated curiously, are too abstracted to be recognized at first. And the soundtrack has a continuous ruminating noise, that should be a clue. A.K. actually maps the body of a cow in cautious detail, with artfully composed framing of certain parts. Each tableau is a living surface, with a furry texture, vibrating to a rhythmic pulse. This hilly skin covers organs and bones like a tensile fabric. Veins crawl right under the surface like snakes. The skin folds in the angles. Then we discover a section of tail, more agitated, and assume pudicaly the beginnning of pink tits with erotic sensuality. The video ends with a wider shot of the entire cow walking away surrounded by electric-green grass.

While V.E. cites his own film, A.K. cites the film of someone else. While V.E. comments on the past, A.K. proposes something new. While V.E. documents, A.K. creates.The antagonist and fertile polarities of the possibilities offered by this project are installed right there in only two videos.

• VIDEO-LETTRE #3 : Arroyo de la Luz (Erice/Spain) VE to AK, 22 Oct 2005, 20'18"

6 weeks later, V.E. overcomes his frustration and persits in the dialogue his own pragmatical way. Attached to generate reverberations between lettres, he includes a cow toy in the first shot of his new video, next to a picture of him in his childhood photographed in B&W next to a cow. The voice over comments what we see laying on his desk, as a first-person point of view.
He had the excellent idea to show A.K.'s Where is the friend's home (1987) to a first grader classroom and film the following debate directed by the teacher. Now V.E. establishes a direct relation with A.K., showing him how his film is received and understood by the kids from another country. He also uses a documentary technique A.K. is very familiar with, as he used to film kids a lot for the Kanoon. We assist to a session of ciné-club for kids, with all their spontaneous, naive, innocent responses. They comment the story, the dilemma of the young hero and the justification to lie and disobey to his parents and his teacher. They pounder on the preference to get into trouble rather than let a friend get punished. And we are reminded of A.K.'s great documentaries on kids like First Case, Second Case (1979) or Homework (1989).

• VIDEO-LETTRE #4 : The Quince (Kiarostami/Iran) AK to VE, dec 2005, 12'

One month later, A.K. replies with a less abstract piece, but still indulging in creative fiction rather than documentary. He's actually now responding to V.E.'s first video-lettre, like if he was catching up with the series. He uses images of the quince tree filmed by Erice to branch out his narrative to reality. Explaining a persian custom where the fruits hanging outside the property walls belong to the passer by, he says that Erice and Lopez didn't see one of the quince at the extremity of the branch, stretching out all the way to Iran, through a subtle transition. The quince is bombared by stones from the kids in the street trying to make it drop in their hands. But the quince rolls in the river, carried away by the stream. A jolly music accompanies the burelesque and naturalistic, wordless montage of close ups showing the quince tumbling down, swimming, diving and resurfacing. Until a shepherd picks it up, bite it and feed his sheep with. Last shot, wide open on a picturesque mountain landscape.

• VIDEO-LETTRE #5 : José (Erice/Spain) VE to AK, 18 Jun 2006, 7'19"

6 months later, V.E. follows up A.K.'s story, with his documentary insight, comparing again the culture of their respective countries. He mimics A.K.'s last shot and films in Spain a rural shepherd taking his sheep out in the fields with his dogs. Resting under a tree, the shepherd watches A.K.'s mini-film on a video-iPod and comments. First he finds the time long, but has a nice word for the music. Once he sees the sheep his face lights up, finally he feels more at home within this odd technology. He feels compelled to give his expert appreciation about sheep matters. Erice has to notify him where this takes place. According to him, the Iranian shepherd does everything wrong because he uses a rod to hit the stray sheep, instead of marching ahead, like himself, to lead the herd. Although the Iranian shepherd works alone, without dogs... "The movie is gone, it doesn't work anymore..." The confrontation between cultures stops there.

To be continued...

When do images turn into cinema?

"La photographie, c'est la vérité et le cinéma, c'est vingt-quatre fois la vérité par seconde"
(Godard, in Le Petit Soldat, 1961)

Everyone loves to cite this smartass moto even though it's all wrong. Photography is as fake as the shadows on the wall of Plato's cave. The realistic "ontology of the photographic image" Bazin defined was in comparison to paintings, within the realm of representational Arts, because the subjective interpretation of the artist disappeared in the capture of reality. Although nothing matches exactly with reality. Black&White (or approximated chemical colors), 2D, odorless. It's even inaccurate visually : proportions and perspective are determined by the type of lens. It is evidently an illusion of truth. An optical illusion, a delusion of the brains. It doesn't even have the 3D perception of human eyes (stereoscopy). The camera is a cyclops!

Moreover, the decomposition of a second in 24 still steps is an illusion of motion. It's all lies to exploit a loophole in the physiology of the human eye. We cannot perceive the flickering of quasi-identical frames when it goes over about 15fps. The retina remanency (eidetic memory) merges the frames together and only the subtle changes become obvious over time, creating an illusion of movement. But the cuts between unrelated frames at 24fps is always visible, we notice very well the changes from one shot to the next.

Cinema is the most realistic invention we have so far, but it's only a partial, approximated rendition of selective aspects of reality that only satisfies one of our five senses. It's an intellectualized vision-driven conception of "truth", but it's far from the subtle array of the most essential elements of reality. We tend to forget that this apparent "truth" requires the proverbial "suspension of disbelief".

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In his last post, Girish talks about "single-frame films" of Michael Snow and asks interesting theoretical questions about the viewer's perception :

"So the real subject of this film seems to be: How do single-frame images get apprehended, combined and synthesized into something new by an act of the viewer’s creative participation, via the workings of human perceptual processes?"

The challenge of human visual perception is a fascinating subject to study for an artist, but isn't it an antithesis of cinema?
More than just a boring conundrum for theorists to solve, this particular film modality questions the definition of cinema and its own limitations. There is a fundamental distinction to be made, that is not solely aesthetical but ontological, between the art form called "cinema" and other visual art forms that are developping a different cognitive process, and therefore define a new separate medium. The problematics differentiating these visual art forms are the coherence between the production of the film strip and its restitution on screen, as well as its type of apprehention by the audience. Exploring the bounderies of the medium helps us to refine what cinema is about as an art form.

Function alone, doesn't create form.

The usage of a camera and a film projector doesn't suppose the production of a result that should be automatically called "cinema". For example, a slide show is not proper cinema. The visual stimuli operated by an optician to test our vision aren't either, even though it projects images before our eyes.

The realm of performance art and conceptual art may use the technical apparatus usually employed for cinema, to study and critic the process of projection, audience perception, visual recognition and reaction to a spectacle. They may study the physiological or mental process of human vision. But it doesn't mean that everything dealing with eyes and images shall therefore be "cinema". Cinema is not just a product of a mechanism. There is an intimate relation between the technical illusion and the magic revealed to our eyes.

What makes cinema?

"On rendrait bien mal compte de la découverte du cinéma en partant des découvertes techniques qui l'ont permise. Au contraire une réalisation approximative et compliquée de l'idée précède presque toujours la découverte industrielle qui peut seule en ouvrir l'application pratique. (...)
Ce serait donc renverser, au moins du point de vue psychologique, l'ordre concret de la causalité que de placer les découvertes scientifiques ou les techniques industrielles, qui tiendront une si grande place dans le dévelopment du cinéma, au principe de son "invention"."
(André Bazin, in Le Mythe du cinéma total, 1946)

Bazin laid out fundamental notions to understand the ontogenic realism of the photographic image. He didn't say cinema was about a projector or about series of images at a 24fps (a mechanical device allowing to restitute a "movie"). The essence of cinema is somewhere else.
He said specifically that the precursors of cinema (like Niepce, Muybridge, Marey) worked on the "analysis" of motion (decomposition of a kinetic form into still steps), while cinema seeks the "synthesis" of motion (reconstitution of kinetic form from stillness) and its mechanical reproduction. "Cinema" is not a technical, industrial, optical or chemical medium.
That's why I brought up the Godard quote above. Could we say if the essence of cinema is in the single frame (elementary unit), or in the viewer's experience of a stream of frames magically born to life (combination of the whole)?

The ontological definition of the medium is independant from its practical projection, it is defined by what happens between what is recorded and what the spectator experiences, on a mental level. Cinema is like a dream, it's a dialogue between conscious memory and sight. Cinema is in the head, not in the projector.

When the single-frame film reduces the shot length to one "subliminal image", they in fact negate everything cinema intents to do. They kill the "suspension of disbelief". We are self-conscious about watching a light show, and are unable to be immersed in another world. So is it still making "cinema" to turn a film projector into a high-speed slide show? The difference between a silde show and cinema is the continuity that transcends the accumulation of images into a new medium with higher properties. That's when images get the chance to become more than the sum of their parts. The nature of still photographs vanishes and the optical illusion recreates a new art form, distinct from photography.

Single-frame films fail to do that, purposefully. That's the point the artist wants to work on. It is of course intentionnal and accomplished by design. But it operates outside the very nature of cinema, in contradiction to its process of transmission.
To clash with the "cinematic" purpose, they emphasize the cuts instead of the images. Cinema lets the images impress the retina, single-frame films deny this intimate relationship between the image and the eye. They frustrate the eye by spamming it with an overwhelming quantity of informations too fast to register. They frustrate the visual conscience, not on a narrative level, but on a basic cognitive level.
The image loses its content, its graphical quality, its meaning, to become a brief undetermined stimulus, part of an informal ensemble without perceptual cohesion. And the eye loses its ability to make sense of the stimulus, to trigger a phantasmatic universe in the mind. Single-frames by-pass almost entirely the conscience and directly connect with the subconscious, through undigested, uncensored, unchecked subliminal messages. We get a general impression difficult to appreciate and an intellectual rationalization of the conceptual process that has little to do with the images content...

Images only become "cinema" when there is no longer images but a life of its own, through invisible combination. Cinema happens when the illusion starts to make us forget the apparatus. The "24fps" aspect is a backstage secret for professionals. If the result of this illusion happened with a different mechanical invention (like with the electronic scan of a TV screen, with tricolor lines or pixels instead of frames), we'd still meet the ontological nature of cinema that speaks to the mind with its own language. The frames are only the practical means to a greater end.

Read also Deleuze on singular frames.

Erice-Kiarostami Video-Lettres 2007 (1)

Continuation from the introduction of the exhibition

An ongoing series of video-lettres between Victor Erice (V.E.) and Abbas Kiarostami (A.K.) comissionned by Alain Bergala and Jordi Ballo on the occasion of this
joint-exhibition that opened in Barcelona (February 2006) with 4 videos, then 6 in Madrid (july 2006), and now 10 and counting in Paris (Septembre 2007).

This one-on-one correspondence between two auteurs is a new form of production in cinema, at least to this extant (to my knowledge). Godard did some video-lettres, the group Dziga Vertov also made ciné-tracts... it would be interesting to compare with other similar experiences. Anyway, these two auteurs are rather solitary and introverted, so it's extraordinary they would agree to commit to this idea and want to collaborate on a common work. Looking at this collection of videos we can see the exchange wasn't easy, nor entirely spontaneous. We can feel tensions, expectations, frustrations, provocations... all through ellipsis without spelling out what they really wanted to happen, with an utmost respect for the other's whimsical personality. And they also mentionned this with amusement during the conference :

Alain Bergala calls it an epistolary romance, like sharing a private diary, communicating with a lover.

A.K. says this exchange fills him with happiness. It's a change to make a film for a single known viewer. It's also a responsability to produce a video for someone who is anticipating it. It's like a marriage contract, a pact to bound eachother to write back and forth. To him it was a love mail, the transcendence of romantic correspondence, where the lover is an abstract archetype for all lovers in the world, not just a mail between A.K. and V.E.
He was moved when he received the first video-lettre, which V.E. had made subtitled in farsi already (or was it an idea of the curators?). The night when he received it, he was so proud he showed it to his guests, announcing it was a letter sent by a Spanish filmmaker friend of his.

V.E. says this correspondence took more an more importance in his life. Everytime he would see or read something of interest he would immediately imagine how to include it in the next video-letter to A.K. He cites Jean Renoir : "Je suis citoyen du cinématographe", to emphasize how isolated filmmakers are in our contemporean world and how they can reach out beyond political frontiers too around the world because they are all part of the cinema family.
He says how disappointed he was by A.K.'s first reply (The Cow) because it seemed totally unrelated to his, without any feedback on his initial proposition of dialogue. Especially since it took A.K. over 4 months to respond. V.E. had a feeling of unrequited love, and the curators, Bergala and Ballo had to comfort him and encourage him to pursue anyway, to go past the apparent coldness, to play the game.

"On one hand, obviously, the first DV letter which Víctor addressed to Abbas, the latter’s surprising answer, and the ensuing real exchange is a modern version of messages in the bottle – sent not only to communicate, but also in the knowledge that they would be shown to strangers, those who wander now through the rooms and corridors of this new Marienbad which is the exhibition, and thus the virtual meeting point of two lonely and distant filmmakers struggling for the survival of cinema as a way of reaching knowledge."
Risks and Revelations, Erice-Kiarostami: Correspondences (Miguel Marías, Rouge #9, May 2006)

They have a mutual admiration for eachother's work. A.K. said he could stop making films if he had made one like El Sol Del Membrillo. Which could explain why they are intimidated to take part into this dual project that will call for further interpretative comparisons. There is a reason why La Politique des Auteurs credits a single person for the coherence and fullness of a work... art is rarely a collaborative project. The idea born in the mind of a person shall be carried out to the finished product under the direction of the same person, otherwise compromises along to way to incorporate other subjectivities and creativity will pervert the integrity and unique depth of the artwork. That's what we see in this improvised video project that was intentionnaly unconcerted, unplanned and unnegociated. Both filmmakers filmed whatever, wherever, whenever they wanted without any requirements (that I know of) or unifying directions. The result is a little patchwork of ideas that is less significant aesthetically as a whole than it is, narratively, as a cumulative process, step by step. And it is in fact an open ended project that may or may not continue, privately or publicaly, after the exhibition is over.

I assume they had total freedom of style, length, subject and frequency. Except maybe the fact they had to film with a mini-DV for practical and financial reasons. The series is indeed quite varied in shape and size, which makes it richer and more lively. The videos run from 2'1/2 to 20 minutes. With or without music. With or without narrator commentary or onscreen indications. With a plotline or an abstract concept. With people or none. And the postage is spaced out from a few days, up to 7 months. The common trait might be they always use non-professionnal actors, regular people playing their own "role".

"Here we see writing, literally, on the screen. Language becomes a salient feature right from the beginning, with the subtitles (in Castillian Spanish and Persian) considered as part of the creation of the author, not as a later addition. (When the installation moves to France, new subtitles will have to be added – in a language both directors understand but which is not their native language.) (...)
The filmed letters link but are far from symmetrical. They link one to the next but they also link within the world of the writer. Erice’s cartas focus on children and their reactions to nature and to film. Kiarostami’s, in contrast, play with perspective. The pleasant asymmetry of the cartas both reveals and conceals the writer."
Letters to the World, Erice-Kiarostami: Correspondences (Linda C. Ehrlich, Senses of Cinema, Oct–Dec 2006)

Oddly enough, the language barrier was not an issue in itself. The first two lettres are subtitled in the recipient's language, as a friendly gesture across the barrier, but the others aren't. Probably not to clutter the screen with multiple translations as the exhibition will travel in different countries. The distance seems to be properly cinematic, corresponding to their understanding and practice of the video medium. Erice uses it as a homemade documentary. Kiarostami uses it as an art form. But it's interesting to notice how their attitude towards the project evolves after receiving the videos made by the other. A connection builds up, and an effect of emulation and mimetism seem to prevail and reveal a true friendship of kindred spirits. Though this convergence is not without mystery.

To be continued... here

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These videos are available at the website of L'Institut de Recherche et d'Innovation du Centre Pompidou. (Click "Entrer" then click on "Films" at the top. The first 9 videos "Correspondance" are the series of video-letters, the number 8 combines 2 V.E. lettres, the second of which should be the 10th) I can't load them, I hope others can see them or that it will be fixed soon. The rest of this website is amazing too, featuring the project "Lignes de Temps", a new interactive analysis for visual medium.