Affection vs. Criticism (the incompatible dispute)

In a perfect world, this is how the role playing dialogue between AO Scott and David Carr should have undergone (full script included) :


S = AO Scott (16 years old reviewer, self-proclaimed "institutional weight" of American criticism, who doesn't know how to define criticism when asked to)
C = David Carr (11 years old hypothetical whiner unable to conciliate LIKE with evaluation, and wants ALL critics to AGREE with his whimsical crushes)

THE CHEAP SHOT (New York Fucking Times)

C : "Whoa! Welcome back to The Cheap Shot which is a show about the intersection between inculture and covert product placement for Diet Coke and iPad. If this was TV we wouldn't have to downgrade our discourse cause we already are at the widely accessible level of Fox News's cheapest controversies."

S : "THIS is obviously NOT TV. But this raises the questions : 'What is the press? What is the NYT? should we ape the worst TV makes to beg for attention? Are we dying out? Does it show we are desperate for advertising money?' "

C : "Whoa! Here is a pause from our sponsors offering this Public Service Announcement for those of our readers who might not have learnt basic English in school. Since The NYT is only read by children, let's bring the discourse level to the lowest common denominator. As Dubya said, no child left behind... "

---

PSA : 

TO LIKE : I like, you like, he, she likes, we like, you like, they like, EVERYONE likes. And it doesn't require ANY qualification. Regular verb of the English language referring to a SUBJECTIVE feeling a unique INDIVIDUAL experiences;  "to feel attraction toward or take pleasure in. Synonymous : to enjoy" (Merriam-Webster). Antonym : to dislike (same shit)

TO CRITICIZE : A person QUALIFIED to pass judgments on matters of cinema aesthetics and artistic achievements, through film studies and a considerable amount of film viewing, may deliver an EDUCATED OPINION on a work of art, after a thorough attention, enough reflection time and with the appropriate critical distance to the subject.
"to consider the merits and demerits of and judge accordingly. Synonymous : to evaluate" (Merriam-Webster)

These two verbs DO NOT signify the same thing, they are not interchangeable within the same argument. With one you speak of AFFECTION, with the other you speak of CRITICISM. It is impossible to mix them up.

When two persons argue over the SAME point, one says "I criticized this movie A" and the other rebukes "You said you didn't like this movie A". No, NO, NO! Evaluating a movie doesn't deal with audience feelings towards it, it doesn't judge people's personal reactions, it doesn't patronize people's affection. There is nothing personal in producing an artistic evaluation. And vice versa : one says "I like movie A" and the other retorts "Prove this is a masterpiece then!" No, NO, NO! It is possible to LIKE really bad movies without having to justify why, it is possible to LIKE mediocre movies without trying to shove it in any critically approved top10, it is possible to LIKE a blockbuster like a billion other spectators without making a statement about its timeless merits on a canonical scale.
Not everything you LIKE is or will ever be considered a MASTERPIECE. Nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean your feelings are wrong. It doesn't mean criticism is worthless. Get over it.

---

C : "Whoa! I had no idea. If I opened a dictionary before starting this mock-interview, I wouldn't look so stupid now..."

S : "Dead on, pal! And if my definition of criticism wasn't clouded by decades of anti-intellectualism, I would have said it myself"

C : "Whoa! Fancy-pantsy critics at the NYT don't watch TV and give a 'MIXED review' to critic-proof summer movies such as The Avengers. Why? Why am I making stuff up to overblow hypothetical controversies?"

S : "Yeah we are the lowbrow-hipsters. Walking paradox if there ever was."

C : "Whoa! So mister Critic, do you think it is possible to CRITICALLY pan a commercial blockbuster if it has too many fans? Or should you shit your pants and pretend it's the best film of the year just to pander to our artistically uneducated readership?"

S : "Dude, do you think there are people who read an intellectual paper like the NYT and don't know the difference between To Like and To Criticize? between a personal connection with a cultural product and the evaluation of an artistic achievement in cinema?"

C : "Whoa! Of course. If I didn't know and could still find a job here at The NYT, there must be tons of confused Americans out there. Just look at our political elections, our news channels... and that's the serious side of our society! Confusion is the new gold standard."

S : "So true dude, let's not misunderestimate [sic] the power of American anti-intellectualism. So basically, now I have to explain why it is OK to review a movie regardless for its mercantile exploitation and its fanatical following among consumers?"

C : "Whoa! Exactly. So tell us, what is the point of paying you for the job you do at the NYT?"

S : "Well, I'm only speaking for myself here, but I heard there was something called movie reviewing. Movies come out, you watch them before the general public, and if you can jot down a quick run down of what's going on during the movie, then you're a movie reviewer."

C : "Whoa! sounds pretty simple to me. Reverse engineering of a movie pitch. Why can't you DO your job then? Sam Jackson's tweet said so, therefore I believe it."

S : "I don't have to know how to do a decent job, didn't you see that the NYT publishes inane papers like Dan Kois's anti-vegetable diatribe or Rosenbaum's anti-Bergman obituary? It's not like we have any aspiration for intellectual standards here. You should know, you're a free loader too."

C : "Whoa! So I'll just shut up and listen then."

S : "Yeah, I'm the boss here, everybody bows to my critic's pick. Cause MY taste is supreme, and I'm never wrong. I don't even know why I'm not the only name signing the NYT reviews, they all should be my ghost writers."

C : "Whoa! But you're spoiling the fun for millions of fans... Why so mean?"

S : "Because fans are irrational, their depth of field only sees their object of desire and everyone attacking it. They have zero perspective in a more global scale for the rest of the offers available that could be compared to that movie, and they have a very short term imperative : to win all possible critical accolades that will justify their emotional admiration, regardless of all other films that might deserve it more."

C : "Whoa! You lost me there... Could we go back to the talking points on the Hollywood memo our CEO demanded we recitate? Let's remind our readers that here at the NYT we are open-minded about summer movies, which everybody knows are called 'critic-proof', and that we review them religiously, I mean, fairly."

S : "Oops. Lemme add that we worship, respect consumers. We know at the NYT how to pander to the largest demographics, namely blockbuster audiences. So, instead of saying upfront that a critic's choice has nothing to do with the popularity of a movie and that the general level of Hollywood offering is too mediocre to raise the attention of serious critics and cinephiles, I'll just muddle my way out and talk about how 'real critics' like movies big and small, serious and kiddie ones, great and shitty ones... Yeah, because justifying your open-minded taste means you MUST admit you think bad movies are good... or else you'll never be credible in the USA."

C : "Whoa! You're just defending your posse."

S : "If I was a critic I wouldn't answer to this moronic bait. But since we play-pretend, I'll just ignore the fact you try to dismiss the discipline of film criticism in general as a mere corporate clique only formed of acquaintances I have personal interest in protecting. Instead I'll just play along and validate your anti-intellectual side-stepping."

C : "Whoa! May I pronounce random words like 'warm' and 'cuddly' just to interrupt your tentative explanation of critical evaluation?"

S : "You just did, dude. Thanks for cutting up my sentences in manageable soundbytes, so I can never reach too deep a level of conversation."

C : "Whoa! No problem. I'm here for the punctuation. Wait a second. I need to suck up to you here. I love whatever you write in the NYT *awkward tap on the shoulder*, cause you're America's favorite critic for people who think weekly reviewers are the highest possible standards of critical discourse. And I don't understand anything to world cinema standards anyway."

S : *blushes*

C : "Whoa! Let's cut to a candid interview of another NYT staffer who doesn't know how to defend an intellectual discipline against the discredit of populists.

---

Random source who crashes art exhibition luncheons : "Everybody looking at arts seriously, in the bars, on the Tweeter, all vote. Art criticism is a mess. It's liberating."

---

C : "Whoa! Thanks for your 'insightful' contribution, random source. We'll just ignore it and move on."

S : "After spending all my time looking down on movies, on my peers, on online reviewers... now that I'm on TV, I'll fake humility and define my job as merely formulating and clarifying my own ideas, to enter in a discussion, to engage in a discussion  "

C : "Whoa! I've never seen you participating to an informal discussion with spectators, bloggers, other critics or even your own readers, outside of the NYT office..."

S : "Shuddup! We're pretending I'm Mr. Nice Guy."

C : "Whoa! Sorry to blow up your carefully adjusted cover dude. It was almost believable. Now. If you please, indulge my retarded analogy, where I equate negative criticism to destroying the artwork itself in halves. As if an external evaluation of one prevented everyone else from looking at the piece, whole and untouched."

S : "This is not a progressive kindergarten, douchebag! What critics pursue is excellence, truth, beauty... everything that characterizes my assembly-line industrial reviews at the NYT."

C : "Whoa! There is no such thing as OBJECTIVE excellence, OBJECTIVE truth, OBJECTIVE beauty. There is only YOUR SUBJECTIVE version of it."

S : "If I was a critic, I would kick your ass all the way to the MoMA... or to a decent Art School. There you would learn the reason we use the word ART, and ART CRITICISM. It is precisely because people thought some ancient artifacts deserved to be salvaged from the dereliction of passing time, careless handling, looting and destruction. Without OBJECTIVE canons of beauty, generations after generations of fads wouldn't keep a consistent deference for the same pieces of ART, and make sure to preserve them for future generations coming after them.
But since I'm a failed American reviewer, I will agree with you by fear of the Anti-American bureau, which protects our declaration of independence from Auld European Values. OBJECTIVITY does NOT exist."

C : "Whoa! Hobgoblin!"

S : "Right. Let's bow to Ralph Waldo Emerson together cause INDIVIDUALISM, and the supremacy of personal subjective impressions are more important to our lowbrow culture than any millennium-old canons."

C : "What is the 2500 years longevity of appreciation for Greek Antiquity arts (sculpture, architecture, tragedy, poetry) in comparison to MY irrational LOVE for The Avengers TODAY???? Phidias is a figment of subjectivity. There is no way that golden proportions, harmonious compositions, delicate gestures, sense of scale, mastery of the tools, trans-generational, transnational emotions for the same piece of art would amount to anything we could call a pretty good approximation to OBJECTIVE STANDARDS for what is great art and what isn't."

S : "No idea what you're talking about, or else I would present a case to legitimize the profession of art criticism. If Roger Ebert can't find the words to define what is art before ruling out videogames, why would I know any better? In America, we don't need to bother with technicalities, just blame objectivity and indulge your own navel-gazing fleeting taste. It's just as good. And the best thing is that nobody will ever expose your incompetency."

C : "Whoa! I admire your intellectual courage there. Not that my qualification in such matters gives much credit to yours. Sistine Chapel, The Strokes... same shit. So there must be... 'SOMETHING'. Since we're talking about ART, I'm trying to use undifferentiated words without obvious meanings, to show off that I never took a class in Art History vocabulary. Readers like to feel the writer is as dumb as them, to insure they will never LEARN anything from a newspaper."

S : "Instead of explicating this 'something' which would make our 'show' worthwhile, we'll just leave it at that, and feel good about moving the debate to this amazing cultural level of meaninglessness. Maybe it is impossible to define... who knows? If I was a critic, I'd know because the raison d'être of my job would depend on my understanding of this definition. Thankfully I'm not a critic, and I don't work for a reputable intellectual newspaper, so we're safe."

C : "Whoa! So it's not just because you say so?"

S : "I would hate to think that people formulate their opinion just based on what I say. I'm not interested in mind-control. I will just give a star rating to movies Hollywood distributors want me to see, bash major international film festival which make USA looks bad, and tell my readers what tickets to buy and which ones to boycott, and dumb down American culture as much as humanly possible. But other than that, if you ask me publicly, I will never admit enjoying controlling the mind of NYT readers..."

C : "Whoa! After failing to discuss intelligently about cultural concepts, let's just focus on OURSELVES, books WE wrote, OUR tiny little shameless PERSONAL lives, OUR SUBJECTIVE experiences, and we'll base our definition of what a critic should do or not on our frustrated feelings of being reviewed by others..."

S : "Yeah, doesn't sound any less professional and legit than anything we've babbled so far."

C : "Whoa! So have you, AO, -let me emphasize the condescending tone to childish levels - MELLOWED?"

S (pondering) : "... Maybe. But... but..."

C : "Sounds like a little."

S : "Again, if I was a critic I wouldn't feel my reputation of incorruptible ass-kicker threatened by such an inconsequential remark. But I'm not, so I feel I have to justify myself. And to do so, I'll summon my negative review of a CHILDREN distraction like The Lorax. It makes me mad. See! I ain't afraid of nobody, I can punch defenseless babies in their crib. I'm a tough guy. Look at me drum my alpha-male pecs over bashing superhero movies and children entertainment."

C : "Whoa! You're really making reading the NYT a waste of time."

S (cynically) : "Other than that I'm mellow."

C : "Whoa! Who are you to say you're mellow or not. Who appointed you emperor of all things good and horrible? You're a critic of the NYT, you've got a big box of lightning bolts on your desk. It takes a certain form of arrogance."

S : "Guilty as charged."

C : "Whoa! Now just repeat everything I spell out for you, so I get a testimony on camera of a critic who admits being a douche with an unbearable cynical tone in his voice, OK?"

S : "I'm totally oblivious of the way media can edit stuff and manipulate what an interviewee says, so  OK. If I was a critic I wouldn't play along, but, you know, I'm not."

C : "Whoa! that's perfect. Say : 'I'm arrogant. I over-intellectualize beyond reasonable.' "

S : "I'm arrogant. I over-intellectualize beyond reasonable."

C : "Whoa! Repeat this : 'My constituency is people who wants their fun spoiled by me, people insecure and masochistic, people who need their lives ruined.' "

S : "My constituency is people who wants their fun spoiled by me, people insecure and masochistic, people who need their lives ruined."

C : "Whoa! We now really discredited the profession of film journalist, movie reviewer and film critic, while conforting the anti-intellectual reputation of the NYT."

S : "You're welcome. A job well done indeed."

C : "Whoa! By the way, let's edit this video interview as if we had never seen a well edited movie."

S : "Yeah, great idea! So it will match how badly framed we are. How could anybody question the critical authority of the NYT film pages now? Not any children under the age of 5 at least, we got this segment covered for sure."

C : "Whoa! They are the ones who push parents to buy stuff anyway. Let's focus on them, the rest follow suit."


End............... scene.




Related :

• Repeat Whiner (David Carr) Season 2 Episode 5 
• Subjective Reviewing / Deficiant Subjectivity 
• Contra-contrarianism 4 
• Art Criticism (Wikipedia) / Aesthetics (Wikipedia) / The Concept of the Aesthetic (Stanford)  
• Dan Shaw, Film and Philosophy: Taking Movies Seriously (Wallflower Press, 2008)
• Thomas Wartenberg, Thinking on Screen (Blackwell, 2007)
• Call yourself a critic? (Sam Thorne; Frieze; March 2012)

Subjective Reviewing

Albert Dupontel reviews the movie "Rambo" (1990)

Voir aussi :

• Deficient Subjectivity 
• Servitude narcissique de l'écrivain (Frodon)
• Emancipation du jugement de goût (Kant)

Repeat Whiner (David Carr) Season 2 Episode 5

Is it that time of the year again? Like last year (Dan Kois), to the day, The New York Times publishes another anti-intellectual rant against film criticism...

• Who Cares about Critics? (The Sweet Spot) (NYT; 1 June 2012) [video 7'38"]

This is exactly this type of knee-jerk reaction by so-called institutional intellectuals (isn't what the NYT stands for?) that makes American reviewers scared shitless about being too "critical" (meaning panning the blockbusters "universally" embraced by the masses). They are afraid of the base consumer's backlash. They are afraid to alienate their readership. They are shy about expressing their true intuition and deliver the expected talking points instead.

David Carr is not any less infantile than Dan Kois, and just like him he desperately tries to dismantle the independence of the film criticism discipline to subvert it to the whims of the mass. If the populace disagrees then the critic should bend over and pander to the lowest common denominator. That's the level the film discourse is at in the USA, and of all places, at the New York Fucking Times! 

Fortunately some observers (Glenn Kenny, Jim Emerson) react to these kinds of attacks instead of being bullied by the Studios PR, the actors on Twitter, the "democratic" voice of the sacred audience who buys all the tickets. And for once, I won't be the first one and the only one to be offended by the dismissal of critical values. Is the sleeper slowly awakening?
Nonetheless, AO Scott doesn't know how to defend himself (or his profession), hasn't got the rhetorical tools, and if we are to believe CNN-grade body language analysts (folded arms, elbows on the table, glancing sideways, sitting strait, stuttering, while Carr is sloughing in his chair, facing him more directly in a confident and dominant posture, winking, smirking), he hasn't got the will to face off, he just dodges, rolls over and ultimately, in a cynical parody of himself, word out all the soundbytes Carr wanted him to say. We know it was a second degree parody of himself, in between air quotes, but to the inattentive listeners they hear what they want to hear, which is a critic admitting he is out there to spoil people's fun. This, instead of disqualifying any loaded question and laying down the simple answers explaining the language barrier between the critical discourse and the emotional expression. He did not do so. He played the game. Because in the USA, the self-indulgent consumers rule over the intellectual discourse. An "intellectual" must adapt to their level, never the other way round. That's why American cultural discourse is forever lame...

And AO Scott is hardly the role model to defend critical sovereignty... He poses here as the one who champions morality and impartiality, but that's not really what motivates his everyday papers. I came across his anti-intellectual rampages a few times in the past (Dan Kois half-assed rebuke; Neo-Neo; festival bashing; mini-balls, Disappearing Act I...). And I don't forget, contrary to his short-memory fans (who believe he represents the authoritative quality in American film criticism). In the kingdom of blind, the one-eyed is king! Or as I would put it : the teenager is king in the kindergarten.

Some desperately try to find a hidden value in this mockery of a "debate", as if Carr was playing dumb on purpose... Is that the full force of the NYT's mindpower at work there? A highschool student would be asked to bring a lot more than that to pass an essay. Why couldn't a NYT journalist get a better grade than a highschooler??? Serious lack of ambition there, for themselves and for their readership!
If it was a witty role playing to expose the cultural gap, then why isn't AO Scott better prepared to answer? Why is he struggling against a man made of straw? Why isn't he coming out on top in the end? Why the bogus positions are considered, respected, embraced if it was supposedly a pantomime to allow a critic to justify himself?
This is when you realize the least we could expect from people employed at the NYT would be to have graduated from a basic cultural school, like say, a highschool class on rhetorics and a film class 101. The reason this level of discourse is taught and acquired before 20 years old, is precisely so you can develop a deeper discourse when you read the NYT!!! Or so it should be. Apparently the target audience of the NYT is 14 yold (which is the average mental age of the entire country, when you skim through the media content available).
It's hard to believe AO Scott was considered for a Pulitzer prize in 2010... for doing what the worse reviewer is supposed to do : "For his incisive film reviews that, with aplomb, embrace a wide spectrum of movies and often explore their connection to larger issues in society or the arts." LMAO. And this year the Pulitzer goes to the first dude who can Tweet a subject, a verb and a complement! Yay! The Decline of the American Empire...

The USA is stuck in the 40ies when you had to justify yourself to publish serious film criticism. Their basic  consumer-guide reviewing didn't evolve beyond that yet. People are still asking whether art criticism is legit. What a waste of time debating silly readers insecurities... for over 100 years now. When will you decide to move on, leaving baby whiners behind, and address intellectual issues of the level of a cultural newspaper like the NYT?



Unrelated misleading quote brought on the table by bloggers :

Dave Eggers : "I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy."

Do not fall for it. Film Criticism isn't that. What he describes is bad practice by bad reviewers, people who do it for the wrong reasons. People who abuse their fantasied power to think of themselves as maker or breaker of works of art according to their whim. Replace his word of "critic" by the phrase "film-reviews-page employee who synopsizes everything (s)he's told to, movies (s)he enjoys as well as movies (s)he hates writing on" and you might give some meaning to this sentence (once the individual anecdote is dissociated from a universal definition of criticism in general). This is exactly the reason why the movie reviewing press is NOT the discipline of film criticism, it is only a perverted devolution of it, muffled by so many absurd mercantile constraints. (See Reality Check : Film Critics are NOT The Film Press)
This isn't in the NATURE of art criticism to proceed in this manner and attain such results. People's feelings being hurt is a collateral, not the main objective of a critic. Why should a debate on the function of criticism have to answer to this accusation? 

It's as if all reviewers in the USA perverted the original and proper role of criticism, produced ill-intentioned articles and that the entire population concluded this masquerade of "criticism" was all there was to it, thus dismissed it altogether. that's what happens when there aren't any exemplary role models to compare to.

Apparently the masses rejoice in bashing people they dislike, and act all offended when people they like are put into question... Likewise, the masses find it a duty to worship their favourites and find it outrageous that someone would praise something that is too far away from their comfort zone. WHY? 

To be continued here : Affection vs. Criticism (the incompatible dispute)

Related :

• Dan Kois Syndrome (Proud Boredom) - Dan Kois Syndrome 2 - Dan Kois Syndrome 3
• Project: Validating Indulgent Movie Fandom 1-2-3
• Contra-contrarianism (IFFR) 1-2-3-4-5
• Citations sur la critique / Anti-Curriculum Vitae / Deficient Subjectivity / Subjective Reviewing 
• Consensual criteria for a good critic / La Condition Critique / Defining a critic (blogathon)
• Bazin on Criticism - 1958 / Bazin on Criticism - 1943

Perception du cinéma (Merleau-Ponty)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty 1/4: Une perception du cinéma

Les nouveaux chemins de la conniassance, France Culture, 4 juin 2012 [MP3] 59'

Aujourd'hui, Adèle Van Reeth reçoit Stefan Kristensen (attaché de recherche dans l'unité d'Histoire de l'Art à l'Université de Genève) pour évoquer le cinéma chez Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Extraits :

• Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle de Jean-Luc Godard, 1967 
• A bout de souffle, Jean-Luc Godard, 1960  
• Pierrot le fou de Jean-Luc Godard
• Causeries de Merleau-Ponty, 6 novembre 1948 [PDF] [MP3]
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Résumés de cours, Collège de France, 1952-1960, Gallimard, 1968 
• Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sens et Non-Sens, "Le cinéma et la nouvelle psychologie", Gallimard, 1996

* * * 

Bibliographie complémentaire :

• Cinema 1 : Image-Mouvement / Cinema 2 : Image-Temps (Gilles Deleuze, 1983-85)

Lire aussi : 

• Perception de la beauté cinématographique (Merleau-Ponty)
• Reality and Representation (Bordwell) 
• Objets et Substance 
• When do images turn into cinema? / Deleuze on Singular Frames / Painting and Cinema
• Experiencing Self v. Remembering Self (D. Kanemann) / Temple Grandin : Thinking in Pictures
• Hypnoses, émotions, animalités (Bellour)

Filmer la sexualité (France Culture)

Le sexe sous tous ses rapports 2/4: Filmer la sexualité (France Culture) 29 mai 2012 [MP3] 59' 

Aujourd'hui, Adèle Van Reeth reçoit Claudine Le Pallec-Marand (enseignante en cinéma à l’Université Paris 8 – Saint-Denis) pour évoquer les films « Anatomie d’un rapport » de Luc Moullet – « À ma sœur » de Catherine Breillat et « Intimité » de Patrice Chéreau.

Extraits :

• Anatomie d'un rapport (1975/Luc Moullet et d'Antonietta Pizzorno/France)
• Archive Truffaut, extrait de "Mémoires du cinéaste", interviewé par Claude Jean-Philippe, 1977 
• When Harry Met Sally (1989/Rob Reiner/USA)
• Intimité  (2001/Patrice Chéreau/France)
• À ma soeur (2001/Catherine Breillat/France)
• Le Deuxième sexe, Simone de Beauvoir

Autres émissions de la série Les nouveaux chemins de la connaissance (France Culture) :

• Le sexe sous tous ses rapports 1/4: Lacan : "il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel"  [MP3] 59' 
• Le sexe sous tous ses rapports 3/4: L’œuvre érotique de Pierre Louÿs  [MP3] 59' 
• Le sexe sous tous ses rapports 4/4: L’émergence de la sexualité selon Michel Foucault  [MP3] 59' 

* * *

Filmographie complémentaire sur la sexualité :

• Blue Movie (1969/Andy Warhol/USA)
• WR: Mysteries Of The Organism (1971/Dusan Makavejev/Yugoslavie/RFA)
• The Last Tango in Paris (1972/Bertolucci/Italie)
• Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975/Pier Paolo Pasolini/Italie)
• The Empire of Senses (1976/Oshima/Japon)
• Une Sale Histoire (1977/Jean Eustache/France)
• Gojitmal (1999/Sun-Woo Jang/Corée du Sud)
• Romance (1999/Breillat/France)
• The Cremaster Cycle (1995-2002/Matthew Barney/USA)
• Ken Park (2002/Larry Clark/USA)
• Twintynine Palms (2003/Bruno Dumont/France)
• 9 songs (2004/Winterbottom/UK)
• Kinsey (2004/Bill Condon/USA)
• Destricted (2006/Marina Abramovic; Matthew Barney; Marco Brambilla; Larry Clark; Marilyn Minter; Gaspar Noé; Richard Prince; Sam Taylor-Wood/UK/USA)
• Dirty Diaries (2010/omnibus/Suède)

Lire aussi : 

• L'origine du monde : une sale histoire
• The Wayward Cloud 

Antichrist (Pacôme Thiellement)

"Antichrist" de Lars Von Trier analysé par...
27 avril 2012 (forumdesimages) 1h25'

Le cinéma de Lars von Trier est une expérience au cours de laquelle le spectateur passe par les pires tortures pour ressortir changé – encore faut-il qu’il tolère d’y passer et qu’il désire changer. Dans Antichrist, la forêt est le lieu de cette expérience, et le lieu de la rencontre avec l’élément diabolique, dans un espace où la réalité se fond avec le monde de l’âme. Pacôme Thiellement Critique, écrivain et réalisateur, Pacôme Thiellement a travaillé sur les Beatles, Frank Zappa, la B.D., Gérard de Nerval et David Lynch. Il a publié notamment “Les mêmes yeux que Lost” (Éd. Léo Scheer, 2011) et “Tous les chevaliers sauvages – un tombeau de l’humour et de la guerre” (Éd. Philippe Rey, 2012). Il collabore régulièrement aux magazines Rock & Folk et Chronic’art, et participe à l’émission “Mauvais Genres” sur France Culture. Il est coauteur avec Thomas Bertay de la collection de films Le Dispositif (prix AVIFF 2011 à Cannes). Ce Cours de cinéma a eu lieu le 27 avril 2012 dans le cadre du cycle "1001 Forêts" au Forum des images.

Global BO 2011 (partial)

source : The Great Slide (Film Comment; March 2012) / Despite The Avengers figures, the American box-office still looks stagnant (Phil Hoad; The Guardian; 8 May 2012) / CNC / OEA 

In red, the box office business earned by American distributors (the 6 majors + the main other smaller distributors). I believe the stat combines the business made by American movies both at home and internationally. 

In black, the domestic box office business for various countries other than the USA.
Understand that these two sets of figures overlap. The blacks are confined to a geographical area (and include some of the title distributed by the American studios). The reds are confined to a given distributor's property (some of its BO is earned in the black columns and other overseas territories).

The red figure on top is the number of films distributed by that studio. For the comparison, I wish I had the number of films distributed by the countries on their national market for 2011. Roughly this number goes between 1500 (India), to 300 for the smaller distribution markets (Malaysia, Russia). So we can appreciate the huge gap between the money a few Hollywood movies make (between 1 and 39 titles for each American studio) and the much lower business made by an entire country (including the dominant share of Hollywood movies on these markets). The 6 major American studios are all bigger in term of business than any full-scale country (about 40% of the BO in Japan comes from the sales of Hollywood imports). And the so-called "indie" studios (which are either a "specialty division" of a major studio or a fun-sized miniature of a Hollywood distibutor) stand on their own along the medium-sized countries. No wonder that the sum of all American studios/distributors coalesce into a Gulliver in Lilliput on a world-wide global market. How could non-American countries compete with Hollywood? One single American studio could take on alone any country (or several of them) on the planet and still win. 

Now for those who wish to champion and protect cultural diversity in the world couldn't do otherwise but to  demolish the isolationist wall in the USA and defend protectionist quotas outside of the USA, for as long as the survival of non-American films (specifically non-English, and non-European) is threatened by the indifferent emotionless hegemony of Hollywood across the world markets.

Number of distributed titles (both national films and foreign imports) on some domestic market  in 2009 or 2010 :

• India (2009) : 1571
• Japan (2010) : 716
• France (2009) : 588
• USA (2010) : 560
• Germany  (2009) : 513
• UK  (2009) : 503
• Taiwan  (2009) : 431
• South Korea (2010) : 388
• Italy  (2009) : 355
• Singapore  (2009) : 352
• Australia  (2009) : 349
• Malaysia  (2009) : 320

Note also on the graph the gap between the major studios and the so-called "indie" distributors in the USA. The vast majority of the movie business on the North-American market (USA+Canada) is ran by the major studios and their blockbusters (56 titles earn over m$500 each). The vast majority of the films made in the USA (550+ titles including imports earn less than m$50 each) are not blockbuster types and only generate an insignificant business in comparison. The American public doesn't support the production of alternative content... it's all about mainstream blockbusters. Mass demand / Mass supply. The "indie" offer is barely marginal, it's not even a substantial niche. There is a standardisation of a uniform taste on an industrial scale. 

Related :

• Despite The Avengers figures, the American box-office still looks stagnant (Phil Hoad; The Guardian; 8 May 2012) 

Philip Kaufman masterclass (Cannes 2012)

PHILIP KAUFMAN UNE LEÇON DE MISE EN SCÈNE

Director of the celebrated film The Right Stuff and the film adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Philip Kaufman has been a prominent figure in American cinema since the 1960s. Originally hailing from Chicago, he is now strongly associated with San Francisco where he has lived for the past 50 years.
His body of work includes both independent and studio films – “a wide-ranging body of work that draws on his unique elements of style and philosophy”, explains Annette Insdorf, who has just written a book about him.
Screenwriter (he co-wrote the original story for the script of Raiders of the Lost Ark with George Lucas) and director, Philip Kaufman will be interviewed by Michel Ciment about his work and his films and about developments in American cinema.

Cannes Film Festival 2012 (25th May 2012) 1h10' [Français] [English]

Autres masterclasses :

• NORMAN LLOYD UNE LEÇON D’HISTOIRE (24 mai 2012)  
• ALEXANDRE DESPLAT « UNE HISTOIRE PERSONNELLE DE LA MUSIQUE DE FILMS » (19 mai 2012) 

Alain Cavalier (France Culture)

Une semaine avec Alain Cavalier. Hôtel Claret, chambre 310, confidences d’un filmeur
Hors-champ (Laure Adler; France Culture)

Alain Cavalier, lors de la rétrospective qui lui a été consacrée à la Cinémathèque Française (26 avril - 9 mai 2012), a accepté que l’équipe de « Hors-Champs » puisse le rencontrer au début, en cours et à la fin de sa rétrospective.
Il voulait s’assurer par lui-même qu’il était capable pour la première fois de sa vie de voir ses propres films et de voir comment lui réagirait par rapport à son travail et comment les spectateurs réagiraient par rapport à des films qu’il n’a jamais eu le courage de revoir.
Cette série d’émissions est une série de conversations avec différents plans sonores, des confessions et une introspection : filmeur sachant filmer.

1. Alain Cavalier évoque sa méthode de travail (21 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]
2. Le filmeur et la confrérie des filmeurs et le désir de garder une trace  (21 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]
3. Alain Cavalier évoque les autres cinéastes, sa situation d'être sans famille, le son, l'image et l'inconscient (21 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]
4. Alain Cavalier évoque l'influence de la peinture et la littérature sur sa manière de filmer, la musique des mots et la voix (21 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]
5. Alain Cavalier rencontre son public et parle du rapport qu'il entretient avec les nouvelles technologies (21 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]

---

Projection Privée (Michel Ciment; France Culture) 28 avril 2012 [MP3]

Alain Cavalier au sujet de la rétrospective qui lui est consacrée à la Cinémathèque française du 26 avril au 9 mai 2012.

---

Conversation avec Alain Cavalier (La cinémathèque française; 26 avril - 9 mai 2012) programme PDF

Inattendue, expérimentale, autobiographique, surprenante, telle est l'inclassable carrière d'Alain Cavalier. Il débute dans les années 60 avec L'Insoumis et Le Combat dans l'île. Il adapte brillamment Sagan (La Chamade). Le Plein de super est un étonnant road movie masculin. Ce répondeur ne prend pas de messages en 1978 est une expérience formelle surprenante où il aborde sa propre vie sentimentale. Thérèse, portrait distancié de Sainte Thérèse de Lisieux est salué quasi unanimement par la critique. Les nouveaux supports du cinéma lui permettent de tenter diverses expériences pointillistes, intimes et biographiques.
Plutôt qu'une « rétrospective », le cinéaste a souhaité présenter sa programmation sous la forme d'une conversation. Au sens littéral du terme : Alain Cavalier n'a accepté cet hommage, qu'à la condition d'être présent chaque jour pour converser avec le public. Être là, à côté de ses films, pour veiller sur eux. À moins que ce ne soit l'inverse : eux qui veillent sur lui. Pari incroyablement excitant. 

Vidéos d'Alain Cavalier filmées sur le vif pour sa rétrospective :

• Dernier jour : "Il me reste un petit coin encore à arpenter..." (9 mai 2012) 3'07"
  Sortie de champ
• Jour 12 : "J'ai présenté 17 de mes films à la Cinémathèque, deux par jour, et je crois que je ne me suiciderai pas !" (7 mai 2012) 2'49"
  Retour sur la projection de Mise à sac
• Jour 11 : " Chaque plan que j'ai tourné, j'étais vraiment dedans !" (6 mai 2012) 11'26"
  Zoé Chantre, Thérèse et Giacometti
• Jour 10 : "Pendant l'heure quarante du film, j'ai vécu plus fort que jamais dans ma vie" (5 mai 2012) 7'32"
  Description d'une projection : Un étrange voyage
• Jour 10 : "Il est sorti du cinéma... et il a vu que le monde était en volume" (5 mai 2012) 4'50"
  Alain Cavalier s'adresse directement aux internautes
• Jour 11 : "Je crois que j'aurais fait un très bon voleur..." (6 mai 2012) 2'57''
  Mise à sac 
• Jour 9 : "Je n'en crois pas mes yeux" (4 mai 2012) 1'31''
  Rue de la honte
• Jour 7 : "Je suis un appareil de projection à l'ancienne" (2 mai 2012) 6'12''
  Le royaume de la Colchicine
• Jour 6 - 1ère partie : "Je suis autant rassuré qu'effrayé" (1er mai 2012) 3'32''
• Jour 6 - 2ème partie : "J'ai toujours été fusillé dans mes rêves" (1er mai 2012) 13'26''
• Jour 5 : "Un couple de spectateurs que je connais m'a apporté un cadeau" (30 avril 2012) 4'58''
  Libera me  
• Jour 4 - 1ère partie : "Je me fie simplement à la légère émotion de mon souvenir"  (29 avril 2012) 4'39''
  L'Insoumis
• Jour 4 - 2ème partie : "Il regarde la mer, il ne sait pas qu'il est filmé" (29 avril 2012) 4'07''
  Le filmeur
• Jour 2 : "On fait comme si on était très tranquille" (27 avril 2012) 5'30''
  Retour sur la soirée d'ouverture du 26 avril
• Jour 1 : "J'aime beaucoup ces polas de l'époque, il y a quelque chose de fatal quand on les regarde" (26 avril 2012) 3'29''
  Commentaires sur Martin et Léa et La rencontre
• "Le premier jour de tournage, je ne savais rien. Je n'avais jamais demandé à un acteur d'aller vers une porte et de l'ouvrir" (17 avril 2012) 14'21"
  Une semaine avant le début de la programmation qui lui est consacrée, Alain Cavalier, dans un bureau de la Cinémathèque, commente les photos de tournage du Combat dans l'île présentes dans nos collections.
• "Ca me concerne très directement vous savez" (9 juin 2005) 1'36''
  Premier regard sur la salle Langlois par Alain Cavalier, le 9 juin 2005

---

Filmographie d'Alain Cavalier :

• Pater (2011) 
• Irène (2009) 
• Le filmeur (2005) 
• René (2002)
• Vies (2000)  
• La rencontre (1996) 
• Libera me (1993) 
• Thérèse (1986) 
• Un étrange voyage (1981) 
• Ce répondeur ne prend pas de messages (1979) 
• Martin et Léa (1979) 
• Le plein de super (1976) 
• La chamade (1968) 
• Mise à sac (1967) 
• L'insoumis (1964) 
• Le combat dans l'île (1962)

Voir aussi :

• Palme d'Or de la meilleure conférence de presse (Cannes 2011) 

Repeat Whiner (Cannes) Season 2 Episode 4

Cannes Roundtable II: On Carax, Resnais, Kiarostami, Lee Daniels, and more (FilmLinc; 25 May 2012)
With : Joumane Chahine (Profil), Stefan Grissemann (Profil), Marco Grosoli (La Furia Umana), Amy Taubin (Film Comment), Gavin Smith (Film Comment), Scott Foundas (Film Comment)


The second part is a little better, but there are still unforgiveable B.S. that professional journalists (let alone critics) should never utter...

Scott Foundas: "People who have been coming to Cannes much longer than I have seem to be saying this Cannes is the most this, or the least this. But this is my ninth or tenth time here, and I’ve rarely felt that one year is so dramatically different from another, and once five or six months go by, you still usually see the major films of the year at Cannes."

He's got a momentary surge of wisdom!

Amy Taubin : "But this is just a terrible Cannes. There are a handful of films that are very good, but I can’t make a list of 10 films that I want to report about. That’s never been the case."

Do you need me to dig up all the garbage you review all year long, when the American distribution system dictates what approved titles you're allowed to talk about? Hypocrit !

"never" I like how definite and assertive she is... never room for nuance. See Foundas's comment above.

Then she speculates on why a film was lined up on this section rather than that section, and based on these allegations blames the festival for not satisfying her dictatorial whims... Yeah sure, Amy's feeling of a perfect festival is what EVERYONE must agree the festival must be like.

So you will only be remotely happy with the achievement of a Cannes selection when 10 out of 10 films on your year-end top10 are from Cannes? Thus, Cannes would have ALL the world's best films, consequently Venice, Berlin, Toronto and all the others would have none, and fill in with below-par material? You need to stop whining like an amnesiac baby at every festivals and start considering the material constraints and limitations of a festival on the festival circuit, in the world industry, on the yearly calendar... incorporating the fact that some masters prefer to premiere at other festivals, or didn't finish their films in time... and of course, the human fallibility of the curatorial team... We don't expect the Cannes team to get it right 100% of the time, not in a world where taste is so diverse and antagonistic! There will always be a whiner to find the "perfect selection" not to his/her taste... Live with it!

Joumane Chahine : "[..] I think Hong Sang-soo is bringing meaninglessness to a new level. People around me seemed to enjoy it but I saw no whimsicality, only emptiness."
Gavin Smith : I feel as if Hong is committing himself to being a minor filmmaker and staying in a narrow field.

Wow. Thanksfully, there are actual critics who disagree with that. Hong Sang-soo is one of the greatest fiction maker working today. The inability to sense the subtlety of his cinema is proof that todays journalists are stuck in the XXth century. La critique de Papa... The problem is not that I disagree with your uninspired taste, dude, it's how disrespectful and condescending is the expression of your misunderstanding of an art form you're unable to grasp.

Scott Foundas : "I agree on the Hong, but I quite like Kiarostami’s In Another Country."

Let's ignore the fact he mismatched Hong's film title with Kiarostami's, and that nobody EDITED this on the website... Oh the irony of the superiority of print journalism editors... But it doesn't matter, American readers don't process whatever is published in the American press, they just swallow undiscriminatively, uncritically... and film writers abuse this blissful complacency by publishing bullshit.

Scott Foundas : "This to me is Reygadas’s Tree of Life or 2001. [..] I don’t think something like Uncle Boonmee is minor—in his way, that’s his Tree of Life or 2001."

Compare Mexican or Thai cinema to American-centric models, the only thinkable model possible... right? why do you have to compare Reygadas to Kubick or Malick's experimental one-off masterpiece? It's not like if Reygadas made conventional films in the past...

Amy Taubin : "I’m suffering from digital depression at this festival—one digital film after another in which there is a total absence of light."

Why don't you fight the digital conversion in your country then? Hollywood pushes for an ALL-DIGITAL by the end of 2012 (and sets the world standards in the industry worldwide, unfortunately), and the ridiculous number of 250 arthouses in the USA will shrink even more because of the Digital conversion necessary investments, instead of building up to a more healthy number. I didn't see Film Comment do ANYTHING, so don't complain all of the sudden when you're outside of your country... this is hypocritical. 

Amy Taubin : "I don’t care about those films either because they’re minor. Do I want to sit through a language of that? I don’t at all."

See roundtable part 1. She's got only one catchphrase... lol

Amy Taubin : "You can take a grand subject and still make a minor film. He’s still a minor filmmaker and he’s only interesting to people who have not grown up with the avant-garde. And that’s what’s happening here. People who have no knowledge of the first avant-garde or even the second avant-garde think these films are fantastically experimental and they aren’t."

Wait. I was agreeing with you when I thought you meant Réalisme Poétique (French Impressionism), Cinéma Pur, Dadaïsm and Surréalism (which were the First and Second Avant Garde of Silent Cinema in the 20ies). But if you believe you've "grown up with the AG"... you obviously mean New American Cinema (Structural-Materialism, Underground) of the 60ies, unless you're 100 years old... So your attempt to be condescending to the new generation of "ignorant" viewers is a fail and comes back biting you in the ass! Silent Impressionism was a better aesthetic reference for this Reygadas film.

Besides, there is nothing wrong with actualizing formal experiments made in the past, with a totally contemporary touch to it. There is really no point to reject a film proposition based on such a superficial aspect. If anything, there isn't enough truly creative formal experiments (ground-breaking or not) in today's cinema.

After bitching about world cinema's more narratively inventive, more formally experimental... they gush blissful praises to the American films in competition... which most of the press agrees are failures and don't deserve to be in competition. So I guess people don't judge films based on merits but based on fanatical irrational patriotism... which is sad. They are unnecessarily nitpicky (petty, superficial, knee-jerk) with world cinema, and overpraising mediocre American movies (again based on superficial whimsical feelings)... this is not film criticism, this is not fairness, this is not impartiality.

Scott Foundas : "I think everything you say is the intention of the film [The Paperboy] —and it was rendered slapdash without any guiding principle of style or tone."
Stefan: "I think it’s all style and no story."

Self-contradictory comment on the SAME film. Either it's all style or no style... Because they don't know what they're talking about, and use words with their own idiosyncratic/contradictory definitions of them.

Joumane Chahine : "No Latin Americans."

WTF? Walter Salles and Carlos Reygadas are in competition. And a dozen others in the parallel sections (Benjamín Ávila; Yulene Olaizola; William Vega; Pablo Stoll Ward; Pablo Larraín; the cuban omnibus; Michel Franco; Pablo Trapero; Juan Andrés Arango, Raul Ruiz; Juliana Rojas, Natalia Garagiola)

See : Les nouveaux noms du cinéma latino-américain (Débats de la Quinzaine 2012)

Marco Grosoli : "Aida Begic’s Children of Sarajevo is a medium but good film. Why not put that in. It seems like a statement to have no women."

Sure! Last year Cannes puts 4 women in competition and gets praised for it. This year, there's none and now the festival has a known agenda to suppress women... Oh the convenience of short-term memory...! Get real dude! Are you a critic who thinks critically or just a fucking pundit out there to spew random talking points to fire up your readership??? Giving opinions about a synopsis is rather easy for anybody to do... But if you want to tackle grand political subjects, make sure to KNOW how CRITICISM works.

Scott Foundas : "Last year there were quite a few women, so it’s quite random. It’s not unique to Cannes. People invent trends or scandals that are quite banal, and it’s a way of avoiding actually engaging with the films and the content. It’s just smoke and hype."

Words of wisdom. I wonder how he wisened up... See Roundtable 1 and The log in the eye of the beholder

Gavin Smith : "Oddly enough, France, which is one of the most sexist countries in the world, has more active female directors than others."

Yeah right. It's up there along Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, China, India, Malaysia... French women can't vote, drive, marry freely or divorce, live alone, wear flesh-revealing clothes, get an education, vote, get a job, hold political offices... LOL Gavin Smith has no clue what female discrimination amounts to in the world, and surely wouldn't pass on an occasion to pull random libel out of his ass... I wonder if the USA is any less culturally sexist than France (which it is, because we live in a patriarchal/fallocrat WORLD, in almost every country as a matter of fact, unfortunately). 

Amy Taubin (follow up): "That’s because of the state support for filmmaking [in France], like in Australia."

Sure smartass. All you have to do is to pour money and women will change overnight from being a suppressed demographic to a creative artist community. As if there was less money available in Hollywood than in the French industry to justify the lower number of prominent female directors... Go tell Alice Guy, Germaine Dulac, Marguerite Duras, Agnès Varda, Claire Denis, Pascale Ferran, Ariane Michel, Catherine Breillat, Julie Bertuccelli, Sandrine Veysset, Zabou Breitman, Agnès Jaoui, Emmanuelle Bercot, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Dominique Cabrera, Catherine Corsini, Julie Delpy, Virginie Despentes, Lola Doillon, Nicole Garcia, Delphine Gleize, Brigitte Roüan, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Jeanne Labrune, Isild Le Besco, Maïwenn, Céline Sciamma, Ounie Lecomte, Noémie Lvovsky, Laetitia Masson, Danièle Thompson Isabelle Mergault, Coline Serreau... that they only got famous because of subsidies and not thanks to their own talents and the feminism of French society. LOL

What a bunch of clueless talking heads! How do they get an accreditation at Cannes is mystery to me... Cannes must be really desperate to get broad press coverage in the USA! That's what I find outrageous in the making of this festival, not whether the yearly film batch is a little better or little worse than the previous year... To each his own priorities.

I don't think it should be this easy for me to make fun of their ignorance, clumsy ideas and uncalled-for insults. Not for people who call themselves "critics". You're a critic when you are able to manage rhetoric to serve grand ideas, not to manipulate your dumb readers and get away with it because you're too lazy or too deceptive to seek truth instead of facile sensationalist controversies... so-called "seasoned reviewers" should aim for higher standards than that.

There are so many ways honest, competent critics can and should debate over contrasted taste, argumentative views, valid opinions... to nurture a rich and profound film discourse about serious things and credible thoughts. That we could do without all the worthless shit that careless pundits put out, like the Fox News of film criticism... disparaging films and critics you disagree with, with total disregard for objective understanding of reality and the limits of decent educated taste...

I don't write these counter-reviews, or meta-criticism, to convince the writers in question, cause they're probably too far up their own asses to even consider being wrong or too proud to accept having to make amends. But I'm writing this in the hope that some people on the interwebs will read this in 100 years and think for themselves whether I am being utterly subjective and gratuitously aggressive or if I'm making sense and pointing at unacceptable mistakes. Maybe a few readers will stop swallowing this shit blindly and take what they find in the press with a grain of salt and not put these journalists on an undeserved pedestal... Only then general culture will improve and useless reviewers will have a harder time getting prominent positions in the institutional press to dumb down the masses. Because, contrary to them, I believe in higher cultural aspirations and higher standards for the film press. 

Related:

• Repeat Whiner (Cannes) Season 2 Episode 3

Débat de la Quinzaine (Cannes 2012)

La parole aux cinéastes (Quinzaine des Réalisateurs) 

4 débats présentés par Edouard Waintrop, en présence de cinéastes de la sélection, de cinéastes français de la SRF et de nombreux autres invités. Ouverts au public, sur le parvis de la Malmaison.
Tout au long de son histoire, et aujourd’hui plus que jamais, la Quinzaine des Réalisateurs a été et demeure à Cannes un lieu de découvertes, d’expérimentations, d’échanges et de rencontres entre les artistes, les professionnels, et les cinéphiles.
Notre projet s'inscrit dans une volonté de remettre l'auteur au centre des débats, de réinventer la Quinzaine comme un lieu d'échange et de convivialité, mais aussi de pérenniser et de développer les rencontres entre tous les réalisateurs, qu’ils soient sélectionnés à la Quinzaine, ou dans une autre section.
Les auteurs des films sélectionnés seront accueillis par des réalisateurs confirmés (en 2012, Christophe Blanc, Eric Guirado, Pierre Salvadori et Pierre Schoeller) tout au long de leur passage à la Quinzaine. Chaque cinéaste accueillera les réalisateurs et les accompagnera lors des différentes étapes de la présentation du film à la Quinzaine.
Ces orientations se matérialisent également à travers des débats, articulés autour de plusieurs films de la sélection ; les auteurs seront conviés à développer certaines problématiques en compagnie d’un critique et de leurs hôtes cinéastes.

---

Le cinéma des pays arabe aujourd'hui 
(20 mai 2012) audio 57' [MOV] FRANÇAIS
Avec : Merzak Allouach (Algérie), Yousri Nasrallah (Egypte) et Nabil Ayouch (Maroc)

Les invités ont parlé des défis du cinéma arabe dans un contexte de changements sociaux et politiques. Ils ont décrit les difficultés qu'ils rencontrent dans leur pays pour produire et diffuser leurs films.
Ils ont souligné la vitalité d'une jeunesse qui invente des moyens alternatifs de faire et de montrer des films. Tous trois ont insisté sur l'importance de défendre une place pour la liberté de création face aux interdits institutionnels et moraux et à l'émergence d'un nouveau pôle de financement du cinéma arabe dans les pays du Golfe.

Autres interviews vidéo à voir :

• Rachid Djaïdani  [ vidéo 12' ]  
• Massoud Bakhshi et Babok Hamidian  [ vidéo 5'47" ]
• Merzak Allouache  [ vidéo 4'16" ]
• Elie Wajeman [ vidéo 2'28" ] / Questions du public [ vidéo 11'30" ] 
• Leçon de cinéma de Nuri Bilge Ceylan [ vidéo 4'47" ] Prix du Carosse d'Or 

* * *

Les nouveaux noms du cinéma latino-américain
(21 mai 2012) audio 1h03'39" [M4A] ESPAÑOL+FRANÇAIS
Avec : Benjamín Ávila (réalisateur d'Infancia clandestina), Yulene Olaizola (réalisatrice de Fogo), William Vega (réalisateur de La Sirga), Pablo Stoll Ward (réalisateur de 3), Pablo Larraín (réalisateur de No), Christophe Blanc (SRF) et John Hopewell (Variety)

Autres interviews vidéo à voir :

• Pablo Stoll Ward [ vidéo 6'38" ] 
• Benjamín Ávila  [ vidéo 5'53" ]
• William Vega et Joghis Seudin Arias [ vidéo 6'23" ] 
• Pablo Larraìn [ vidéo 4'39" ]

* * *

Nouvelles audaces du cinéma français
(22 mai 2012) audio 51' [MOV]
Avec : Rachid Djaïdani (réalisateur de Rengaine), Elie Wajeman (réalisateur d’Alyah), Eric Guirado (SRF), Boyd Van Hoeij (Variety) et Catherine Corsini (SRF)

Autres interviews vidéo à voir :

• Elie Wajeman [ vidéo 2'28" ] / Questions du public [ vidéo 11'30" ] 
• Noémie Lvovsky [ vidéo 4'40" ] 
• Vincent Courtois & Pauline Brunner [ vidéo 5' ] 
• Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar, Benjamin Renner [ vidéo 4'45" ] 

 * * *

Multiplicités des cinémas indiens - Bollywood : l’arbre qui cache la forêt?
(23 mai 2012) audio 41'43" (25min manquent au début) [M4A] ENGLISH+FRANÇAIS
Avec : Anurag Kashyap (réalisateur de Gangs of Wasseypur), Pierre Salvadori (SRF), Hubert Niogret, (critique et producteur), Patrick Frater (Film Business Asia), Sunil Doshi (producteur), Sudhir Mishra (scénariste, réalisateur)

Autres interviews vidéo à voir :

• Anurag Kashyap [ vidéo 6'30" ] / Post-projection [ vidéo 10'06" ] 

* * *

Autres interviews :

• Leçon de cinéma de Nuri Bilge Ceylan [ extrait vidéo 4'47" ] Prix du Carosse d'Or 

---

Voir aussi :

• Cultural Diversity Awareness (series)
• Iranian Dissidence in Real Life Peril 
• Regional industries in India / India languages - World Cinema Stats (24)  

Repeat Whiner (Cannes) Season 2 Episode 3

Cannes English-language Roundtable (23 May 2012): Amy Taubin (Film Comment), Gavin Smith (Film Comment), Todd McCarthy (The Hollywood Reporter), Scott Foundas (Film Comment) :

Gavin Smith : "I wasn’t in the Lumière, but was there a standing ovation at the end of the Michael Haneke press screening? [..]  I mean, was there a lot of applause?"

Yeah, Cannes is all about the standing ovations... LOL That's the kind of trivial detail shallow people remember of important events. If the film is shown at an eldery retirement home, or to paralytics, will you tell your friends the film sucked because nobody stood up for 20 minutes to applaud it? It's all about showing off and appearances...

Todd McCarthy : "Because you have to say it was a downer film. It wasn’t one of those exhilarated “whoopee”–type screenings."

"downer" and "whoopee" is the vocabulary of a film critic talking about films selected at the most prestigious festival in the world? wow you must feel so much superior to cinema's best... Maybe you can print this in THR about fucking Hollywood flicks... but you could show a bit of respect and deference for proper films made by people who care for their work (informal conversation or not).

Scott Foundas : "if this movie [Matteo Garrone's Reality] had just shown up here and it wasn’t this film that Matteo Garrone had made right after Gomorrah, and it wasn’t shown in the official competition, people would like it a lot more. [..]"
Gavin Smith : "You’re basically saying that it suffers from the burden of expectation, which always seems to apply in Cannes when somebody’s had a big success."

Guilt by association. You realise that most of the "problems" with Cannes are what the public brings in, right? An actual critic should be able to ignore the pre-screening gossips and concentrate on judging the work on its in-film merits. What's all this B.S. talk? Not only you play the expectation/anticipation game like the random moviegoer, but it becomes an evidence to demolish a film now? WTF?

Yes films in competition are judged more harshly, that's the point of a competition! that's the price to pay to get the privileged platform, as opposed to "off-competition" or screening else where in the world.

Scott Foundas : "I think it’s sometimes easy to take those guys for granted a little bit and not take them as seriously as some of the more capital-A Auteurs."

I hope you're not one of the whiners who complain that Cannes only invite the same Auteurs over and over then... What do you want in Cannes, quality auteurs or new faces? Fucking flip-floppers who use whatever talking-point is more convenient to always have something to whine about in every context! And never put forth a stance because they believe in it and held a coherent history supporting that stance for ever. 

Amy Taubin : "That doesn’t mean I thought it [Reality] was good, or that I wanted to be sitting there for the length of it, which I certainly didn’t."

Nevermind your job is to attend EVERY screening you're supposed to cover, back-to-back, regardless for its quality... because you're a fucking REVIEWER, not a self-indulgent moviegoer! But thanks for sharing this incredibly banal (consumer-grade) thought... is that how articulate is a reviewer compare to anyone else? If you had given a few thought to the responsibility of your job, you would never utter such B.S. in public, much less when it's recorded for later publication... Fucking pathetic. See Slow films, easy life (Sight&Sound) 

Amy Taubin : "And it [Beasts of the Southern Wild] had a standing ovation in a mixed screening. Press was there, students were there—the students loved it—and normal people, whoever they are, were there, so it was that kind of mixed thing, and it was fantastic."

Aspiration for the average... She goes to an elite festival (specialized in showing challenging art-oriented non-commercial films that have a hard time getting distributed in the world in general and in the USA in particular) and what she looks for is the populist confirmation of the all-sorts crowd... You can stay in Sundance if you only care for feel-good movies!

Todd McCarthy : "It’s one of the most deliberately vulgar and unattractive casts that’s ever been assembled. No doubt, absolutely on purpose."

WTF? This is just plain insulting. Even for a mere spectacle consumer it would be libelous. But for a "critic", this is embarassingly unprofessional. Some people don't even filter random ideas popping up in their head... You'd think a "trained reviewer" would know better...

 

Gavin Smith : "Fair enough, but basically what that means is that Michael Haneke refuses to leave his comfort zone as a filmmaker, and I think that it’s really time that he did that. [..] Well, that’s not what I mean by comfort zone. What I mean is that Michael Haneke is very comfortable making films in a certain milieu. This film was fine in that milieu. In effect, I came full circle and I wasn’t questioning it, but I do think that going forward in his career he needs to look elsewhere. [..] I do think that Ken Loach should start making films about other classes of people in England."

I'm glad there was someone to speak up against such B.S.
Amy Taubin, Todd McCarthy and Scott Foundas dare to stand up to their editor and pound some sense into him. See Comfort Zone in Contra-Contrarianism (IFFR) 4 

One mentions the suicide of Haneke's aunt, another his family of musicians, and Gavin Smith mischaracterizes as a mere "comfort zone" what is the basic autobiographical input any writer, any artist, any filmmaker uses to nourish his/her fictional stories. Total "authorism" fail. You don't have to abid to the Auteur Theory to know that an author uses personal life experiences first and foremost, whether it ends up obvious or in a concealed/criptic way. Besides it's not a reviewer's prerogative to decide the content chosen by an author. And we only appreciate the diversity of themes, social classes, milieux, historical periods on a comprehensive scale encompassing all authors of a certain country or globally worldwide. You can't blame one given author for not making a film about that theme you want, or for repeating familiar themes. The community of films balance out eachothers. One completes the lacks of others and vice-versa, in terms of representative diversity.

You may examine the content, contextualize, criticize it, but if you reject it altogether (as if someone wasn't allowed to make a film about that, or had made too many films that way) you cross the line of critical duty and step down into the average consumer selfish demands. In Hollywood, studios supply whatever the audience asks for. But in real life, filmmakers make films because they have something to say, from within, not to pander to a potential audience, or petty reviewers...

That's a lot of bullshit that refuses to die out... Until USA deals with film culture education, American reviewers will remain this shallow, petty and whining like babies until they get what they want, exactly the way they asked for, and right now.

But wait, this isn't over. In the same roundtable, Gavin Smith makes a 180° turn and start defending the "comfort zone" of Beyond the Hills, after Scott Foundas blamed Romanian directors for sticking to their "New Wave" comfort zone and Amy Taubin complained about The Hunt  :

Gavin Smith : "On the contrary, I couldn’t disagree with you more [Beyond The Hills]. There’s a small core of filmmakers in Romania who are making most of the important films, and all of these films enter into an intense dialogue with each other from film to film, and I think that’s fascinating. There’s not enough of that going on in the world, it seems to me. [..] You had a visceral reaction to just having that story retold [The Hunt]. It’s not a new story. There’s nothing new in this film."

B.S. ! Reviewers who just throw random disorganised ideas don't mind for long term coherence of a consistent line.
Finally, everyone agrees about the evil of the "comfort zone" when it comes to Hong Sang-soo. WTF? They have no clue what they are talking about, and are not qualified to talk about artfilms. And then :

Scott Foundas : "Yes, one of the great body filmmakers. David Cronenberg, a guy whose whole career has been about body horror." 

So is it a "comfort zone" to be identified as the "filmmaker of body horror" or is it something to be praised for? I think you need to sort yourself out before coming up with contradictory bullshit theories about what art should or should not be...

Todd McCarthy : "There were bold aspects to it [De rouille et d'os], too, but the very same story, treated a different way, could have been a very conventional, middle-of-the-road Hollywood movie. So in that sense it wasn’t as exciting as some other works of his. But I thought it was a very good film, quite credible—fine."

Hypothetical straw man! Yeah, if you tweak this and that, and take out all the good elements, the great performances, the skills, the inspiration, the style... you end up with crap. Oh really? That was a very informative statement. If you cared about the Hollywood sub-standard formulaic stories, maybe you'd be a bit more vocal about the absence of artfilms in your country dude! And it's not about WHAT you film (it could be the most banal or cliché story) but HOW a filmmaker translates it, what he does with it.

Scott Foundas : "I could have counted down to the minute that shot was going to cut to black. I found it very mannered, very self-conscious. [..] And then when the camera started to track, I thought, OK, we’ve got about 30 seconds until it’s going to cut off on a shot of just these two guys, everyone else framed out, and a conversation that doesn’t have anything to do with the movie."

LOL. Yeah dude, being able to predict cuts to the second makes you a better "critic"... Brag away! Is this film criticism or weather forecast???

Amy Taubin : "I think the Vinterberg is a terrible film. I think it’s dumb. I can’t even talk about why it’s terrible."

Then don't speak up! Wow you don't need to be an employed reviewer to utter such useless shit...

Scott Foundas : "The only thing I want to say beyond what we’ve talked about is that people are always hot to talk about trends in Cannes, and I feel like trends are usually the invention of — [..] Magazine editors and people who are looking for some kind of an angle rather than just talking about the films. So I’m glad we mostly talked about the films. But, really culminating with the Haneke this morning, I have been struck by the intense physical quality of the films here in the competition. [..] This has really struck me as being a throughline through the films. The films themselves are quite visceral. [..] Also, I never buy the idea that there’s any theory to the programming of the festival. In Cannes, so much of how films are scheduled is about talent availability"

LOL. He's glad the conversation didn't fall into the topoi of Cannes coverage, BUT he makes sure to drag it there himself now. Yeah let's find a simplifying talking point to sum up the overall flavour of the competition, so we have something easy for our readers to digest, and we can later accuse some films for not respecting the annual trend or conversely to blame the festival for being a cardboard caricature of itself. Finally he declares that what he just said didn't make sense.




I notice that except for the cinematography in particular scenes (an opening scene in a bad film...), what they talk about is whether they like the subject matter chosen by the author, about the actors performances and plot points... And then they heckle the director, virtually screaming at the screen in their head. They argue with what is realist, how social behaviours should be in real life... as if these fictions were documentaries. That's a bit disappointing for art critics. They don't really talk about CINEMA, about the art of filmmaking, about depth and inspiration. That's what distinguishes the critics from reviewers, or "the men from the boys" (no offense intended to feminists, it's the saying).
I know it's only a stream-of-consciousness conversation, before the end of the festival... Fine. But these are seasoned reviewers... shouldn't we expect higher-standards from their "first impressions", just like they expect such "high standards" from this festival? Their nitpicking would be more credible if they held themselves to the same level of critical standards...

They are disappointed by these films... well, I'm disappointed by the level of their discourse.



Related :

• Festival pundits (spoiled brats)
• Film Festivals for Dummies / Clueless anti-festival clichés / Without festivals / Sans Cannes / Maronniers cannois

Editorial for dummies

Cahiers editorial by Stéphane Delorme (Mai 2012) :

Faire une revue de cinéma n’est pas très éloigné du travail de programmateur. [..]
Défendre cinq ou six films par semaine, comme le font les quotidiens et les hebdomadaires, revient à annuler ce travail de programmation. Les films sont tous dans le même tas, tout se vaut. On se demande bien comment un lecteur peut s’y retrouver ! La mission de la critique est au contraire de choisir, de trancher, de conseiller ce qu’il faut voir en premier, ce qu’il ne faut pas rater. On vit un étrange moment, où à la peur de perdre de l’espace dans la presse (il faut bien justifier le nombre de pages pour sauver les pages cinéma) s’ajoute la peur de perdre le large public (il faut donc aimer les gros films) et la peur de « tuer » les petits films (qu’il faut forcément défendre…). La situation depuis le début de l’année devient dramatique : on a le sentiment que, sauf navet, tous les films sont défendus. Les Cahiers, par contraste, paraissent bien sévères. Cinq ou six films aimés par mois ! [..]
Le privilège du mensuel est d’arriver en premier sur les films et de proposer donc la première programmation. [..] Trop de films sortent, la situation devient absurde. À l’heure où les films restent deux semaines à l’affiche, il faut que la critique frappe fort et juste et assume son rôle de guide. Sinon les films importants ne seront pas vus. [..]
Cette politique, puisque c’en est une, va de pair, aux Cahiers, depuis trois ans, avec le refus de suivre la loi perverse de « faire écrire celui qui aime le plus le film ». La générosité excessive de cet axiome fait que, sauf navet, on trouve toujours quelqu’un ! Aujourd’hui, le rédacteur en chef décide, après discussion de la rédaction sur les films, comment ceux-ci seront « traités » et programmés dans la revue. Lorsqu’un film divise (comme le Hong Sang-soo d’ailleurs ce mois-ci), il faut trancher. Et s’il n’y a pas de film, il n’y en a pas. [..]

Editors at Film Comment ("We will put every films in a random top10, one way or another") and Sight and Sound ("EVERY film of month reviewed") should read this and learn what is the role of the editor of a niche film magazine! (Maybe that's why Cahiers publishes online its editorial every month, and these other two English-languages magazines don't, because they aren't proud of them)

And Cahiers is a niche magazine in a country where the market is NOT dominated by Hollywood products at a level of 80 to 95%... 

Now,  I don't necessarily agree with Delorme's position for the month of may, but the principle he highlights is undeniable when you want to generate high standards in film culture and higher aspirations for your readers.
I even welcome his discarding of the old "Cahiers tradition" to let the one who likes the film the most write up the blissfully blind positive review. Because this isn't criticism, it's more like turning film reviewing into a subservient branch of film marketing.

The cliché is that the weeks before Cannes, the distribution is lackluster because all the critics are in Cannes. Is it always true?
I agree with singling out Hong Sang-soo's The Day He Arrives, which is of course one of the best film of the year (or last year in première timeline). But there are others, enough to fill up the highlight pages of a monthly magazine.

Notable titles for May 2012 distribution in France (from a total of 58 films) :

• The Day He Arrives (Hong Sang-soo)
• Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)
• Barbara (Christian Petzold)
• Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo)
• 11 flowers (Wang Xiaoshuai)
• Walk away Renée (Jonathan Caouette)
• La Rizière (Xiaoling Zhu)

Lire aussi :

• Festival pundits (spoiled brats) 

Female Glass Ceiling in Hollywood (CUFF)

CUFF Panel: What Glass Ceiling? The Remarkable Success of Columbia's Women Filmmakers

9 May 2012 (15 May 2012) 1h18'

HIDDEN PIONEERS: WOMEN IN THE FILM INDUSTRY As part of the 25th Columbia University Film Festival at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, filmmakers Lisa Cholodenko ("The Kids Are All Right"), Nicole Holofcener ("Please Give"), Shari Springer Berman ("American Splendor") and Cherien Dabis ("Amreeka") sat down together for a panel about women in the film industry moderated by Columbia professor and filmmaker Bette Gordon.

On May 9, as part of the 25th Columbia University Film Festival held at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a panel came together to discuss the disparity between the number of films being made by women today and the number of women graduating from film school. Only five percent of films today are made by women (10 percent of screenplays written by women), yet women make up 50 percent of U.S. film schools (and more than 50 percent at Columbia). Women are slightly more represented in the Indie film movement, but a large disparity remains.

Related:

• Repeat Whiner (Koehler) Season 2 Episode 2

Jean Douchet fait son cinéma

Laure Adler présente Jean Douchet fait son cinéma 
(Hors champs; France Culture)

Jean Douchet, l’un des plus grands passeurs de l’Histoire du cinéma a accepté de nous livrer ses manières de voir un film et d’expliquer les raisons pour lesquelles le cinéma est un art qui met en branle l’imaginaire du spectateur en faisant appel à son esprit de rêverie et à son sens de la beauté.
Co-fondateur des Cahiers du cinéma,  Jean Douchet, ami de Rivette, Godard, Rohmer, est aussi réalisateur et acteur dans de nombreux films de jeunes cinéastes dont il a éveillé la vocation. Socrate de la Cinémathèque de Langlois puis de la rue d' Ulm, il est aussi en ce moment même professeur à la Cinémathèque où il vaut mieux arriver très en avance pour pouvoir l’écouter tant son esprit critique, sa profondeur d'argumentation et son éloge du désir et du plaisir font des émules auprès des jeunes de vingt ans, nos futurs cinéastes.

1. Ma vie mes films et Jean Luc Godard (14 mai 2012) 44'  [MP3]
2. Que signifie être acteur ? (15 mai 2012) 44'  [MP3]
   Conversation avec Bulle Ogier 
3. Comment on devient cinéaste et comment le demeurer ? (16 mai 2012) 44'  [MP3]
   Avec Benoit Jacquot
4. Réel et imaginaire, le hors-champ, la 3D, une catastrophe pour le cinéma (17 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]
   avec Jean-Louis Comolli 
5. Voir un film c’est vivre sa vie et imaginer celles des autres (18 mai 2012) 44' [MP3]

Filmographie citée :

• La salamandre (1971/Alain Tanner)
• Les adieux à la reine (2012/Benoît Jacquot)
• Les faux-monnayeurs (Benoît Jacquot)
• Au fond des bois (Benoît Jacquot)
• Werther (Benoît Jacquot)
• Le Cinéma Comolli (2011/Jean-Louis Comolli) DOC

Bibliographie :

• La DVDéothèque de Jean Douchet (Jean Douchet; 2006)
• Nouvelle vague (Jean Douchet; 2004)
• L'art d'aimer (Jean Douchet; 2003)
• Corps et cadre : cinéma, éthique, politique (Jean-Louis Comolli; 2012)
• Cinéma contre spectacle (Jean-Louis Comolli; 2009)
• Voir et pouvoir - L'innocence perdue : cinéma, télévision, fiction, documentaire (Jean-Louis Comolli; 2004)

* * *

Ciné club de Jean Douchet :

• La cinémathèque française, Paris (tous les jeudis 19h) [vidéos]
• Ciné club l'art d'aimer. Cinéma le Panthéon, Paris 
• Stage Jean Douchet à l'Institut Lumière; Lyon
• Centre des arts d'Enghien-les-bains 
• Cinémathèque de Bourgogne - Fonds Jean Douchet 

Voir aussi :

• L'arche russe (Centre des arts d'Enghien; mars 2012) 29'11"
• Stage Jean Douchet sur Andreï Tarkovski (Institut Lumière: Lyon; 9-10 mars 2012)
• Brigadoon (Centre des arts d'Enghien; 15 février 2012) 21'30"
• Jean Douchet analyse « Vivre sa vie » de Jean-Luc Godard (cinéma Devosge de Dijon; 15 nov 2011) video 51'27"  
• Cinéastes de notre temps: Alexandre Astruc (Centre Georges Pompidou; 16 mai 2011) 36'50" 
• Stage Jean Douchet sur Alfred Hitchcock (Institut Lumière; Lyon; 11-12 mars 2011) Blackmail 42'46" / North by Nortwest 59'40" / Une femme disparait 25' / Family Plot 39'58" 
• Le mouvement de la pensée : conférence de Jean Douchet (cinéma Le France; Saint-Etienne; 11 avril 2011) 1h14'
• Le signe du lion d'Eric Rohmer (Cinémathèque de Grenoble; 1er octobre 2010) 19'29"
• Vanités : L'affaire Cincéron 24'25"
• Qui fût Murnau ? 12'21"
• Ingmar Bergman (2007) 13'08"
• Robert Bresson (2007) 16'28"
• Ma nuit chez Maud avec Jean Douchet, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Pierre Cottrell (Télécinéma) 13'40"