Two statements on the state of cinema

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djross
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Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by djross »

“Cinema is gone. The cinema I grew up with and that I'm making, it's gone. The theater will always be there for that communal experience, there's no doubt. But what kind of experience is it going to be? Is it always going to be a theme-park movie? I sound like an old man, which I am. The big screen for us in the '50s, you go from Westerns to Lawrence of Arabia to the special experience of 2001 in 1968. The experience of seeing Vertigo and The Searchers in VistaVision. It should matter to your life.” Martin Scorsese.


“…certain celebrated compatriots operate in a genre called Cannes.” Sion Sono.


Between these two recent statements, much of what ails contemporary cinema can be gleaned. The first may seem (and is) pretty obvious, but sometimes what is staring one most in the face is what people find most difficult to see, or wish least to perceive. But the fact is that we have now lived through two generations, or forty years, in which the blockbuster has ever increasingly dominated film production and consumption, a period that has also seen the rise of the suburban cineplex, the growth of merchandising and the increasing infantilisation of filmgoers, film critics and the films themselves (note: the infantile is opposed, not to the intellectual, but to the adult). Sorry to say, but if you’re spending money to see superhero movies at the local mall, you’re contributing to the death of cinema.

Even before reading to the end of the above words, I am certain, the riposte is already on the way to being formulated: surely arthouse cinema persists, or even thrives, and are there not indeed more films of this type being produced now than ever before? But “arthouse” is a word that has become almost as pitiful as “indie” (usually a lie) in describing a kind of movie that, today, can succeed in finding a niche. This is why the second of the quotations above is just as significant as the first, even if it is perhaps not quite as obvious. That Cannes has become a genre means that it is inherently conventional, that movies are produced according to rules, hidden or acknowledged, generic signs that mark the boundaries within which it is safe for filmmakers to swim. It may be entirely understandable that in a world where mass entertainment spectacles produced by a few gigantic corporations dominate global aesthetic production, those who have not been brought on board one of the giant studio franchises cling to whatever strategy seems to promise the possibility of at least staying afloat. Yet however much the triumphs of Cannes or Venice or a hundred other festivals are celebrated, hyped, discussed and analysed, mostly the insights are familiar, the themes are conventional, the artistry is pedestrian and the films are, ultimately, forgettable; well-crafted, perhaps, but of of little lasting significance. They don’t matter to your life.

Two hopes have flickered to counter these regressive tendencies. One is that television will rise to the level of art, and so fill the cinematic void. Scorsese has himself tried his hand in this direction, but he seems less than enthusiastic about its prospects, and with good reason. Leaving documentary and non-fiction formats to one side, what masterpieces has television delivered, really? For me there is only Scenes from a Marriage, Hitler: A Film from Germany, Fanny and Alexander and, perhaps, P’tit Quinquin, three out of four being at least 35 years old. That there are more good quality television series today than in previous times is probably true: that TV can deliver works of art to rival the great works of cinema is a far more dubious proposition.

The other (and in some ways opposite) hope seemed to lie, for a time, and perhaps still does (if it lies anywhere), in the rise of digital cinema production. It was quite reasonably thought that, by greatly reducing production costs and making the editing process far more accessible and efficient, this new technology contained the potential to enable a kind of democratization of cinematic production, where the consumer can become the producer, just as Chris Marker helped to bring filmmaking to the factory workers of Besançon and Sochaux with the Medvedkin groups. In this way, the consumers of cinema could also get behind the camera, and know filmmaking from the inside, thus becoming an audience educated in a new kind of cinematic understanding. Hence for example we have The Gleaners and I, made with an affordable but adequate digital camera, an example, perhaps, of a new kind of personal documentary production enabled by this revolutionary technology. But Varda is, of course, not herself part of this new generation but rather of the French New Wave, themselves mostly highly educated critics who wanted to get behind the camera, and wanted to educate audiences along with them on a new cinematic journey informed by analysis, interpretation and critique. But what new Agnes Vardas or Jean-Luc Godards or Eric Rohmers or Jacques Rivettes or Robert Bressons or Alains Resnaises (hah!) have emerged from digital film production? Perhaps the most prominent effect of this new technology is the rise of so-called “fan fiction”, a symptom, one can only presume, of the second generation of infantilised filmgoers. The reasons for the disappointment of this digital hope are undoubtedly complex, extending far beyond the specific milieu of film production, or even “art”, but it seems that this tendency, if one cannot say that it has run its course, nevertheless does not seem to be flourishing, and does not seem to be producing new great filmmakers, at least thus far.

The craft of cinema continues to progress, but the art evaporates as cinema retreats into new industrial conditions, whether of the "blockbuster" or of the "arthouse". Cinema may not be totally gone, but the desert grows. To counter this desertification, something genuinely new must again be invented. The question is under what conditions this inventiveness can be fostered, and whether what is invented will still be called by the name "cinema".

Stewball
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by Stewball »

You acknowledge both sides of the argument (vast wasteland vs. still vibrant cinematic art), but then despair. First, there are still a few gems holding court within the mobs, and the fact that the second exists speaks for itself.

Speaking of Scorsese, how are we to reconcile his statement with the current release of Silence. To which category would he have us relegate it? A $50 mil budget puts it something way over being an Indie but certainly less than a blockbuster. Is he playing both sides against the middle? I have high hopes for it, and will have seen it by the end of the day, hopefully without being influenced by any of the self-flagellation and angst about the state of modern cinema, which I consider to be the Golden Age--for now anyway. And maybe they need to pay more attention to marketing. Silence opened here this weekend, but IMDb still shows it isn't set to open until next weekend, and there's no link for tickets or showtimes on a title search. You have to check the individual theater where it's playing, on the other side of town to find it. Amazing.

The split between quality and the current crop of films being favored for awards this year is more divergent than usual, and the first official movie of 2017 I've seen, Hidden Figures, is so poor it has me doubting everything I've said here. But I'll soldier on, cherishing the hope that gems will continue to surface. After all, it's only been 3 months since my second favorite movie of all time, and most perfect movie ever, The Accountant, was released, and that, as so often happens, came out of nowhere and to critical disdain.

djross
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by djross »

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frederic_g54
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by frederic_g54 »

I had stumbled upon Scorsese's comment after reading Ridley Scott's similar statement on the current state of cinema:

It's not just Marvel and DC dismaying Sir Ridley, though - he thinks "cinema mainly is pretty bad" and admitted he's "concerned" for its future prospects.


As much as I'd like to echo their sentiments, I take comfort in the fact there's still plenty of titles, movements and auteurs left for me to enthusiastically explore. Moreover, the occasional fresh batch of promising young talents - whose films manage to instill me with a renewed appreciation of the artform - render the current state of affairs somewhat tolerable. So while admittedly "pretty bad", it could be way worse.

djross
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by djross »

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frederic_g54
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by frederic_g54 »

As I've written in the past, I think good ol' Ridley is a competent director whose films have often been plagued by studio interference and some pretty lousy scripts. So while his movies have mostly sucked for over a decade, I think his opinion is worthy of scrutiny.

I haven't seen La La Land either, but Whiplash is one of the best films of the decade, so I'm curious as to what Chazelle has in store next.

CosmicMonkey
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by CosmicMonkey »

I disagree with the assertion that "cinema is dead." Rather, I'd argue that it is middle-brow cinema that is dying, in other words the sort of films that fimmakers like Scorsese make, (or Spielberg when he wants to be serious, or even Scott sometimes, on a good day) the films that usually (with exceptions) tend to dominate awards season. There was an article on 538 a year or two to ago analyzing the Oscars, and one of their findings was that the actual number of films that get nominated across all categories has decreased substantially over the years, from over 30 films each year back in the 80s to around 15 to 18 in the past five years, and while part of this can be attributed to the ever-increasing commercialization of the awards and the ever-increasing marketing budgets producers spend each season diluting the number of films that can get noticed by awards-voters each year, part of it is also simply because there are just fewer films like that being made. The trend of the past 20 years has been a polarization of films: towards either being designed to please everyone or being designed specifically for a niche viewing demographic (e.g. arthouse, genre-specific, cult etc.) There will always be big crowd-pleasing blockbusters, and there will always be small arthouse films, and there will always be both good and bad films within both categories, but it's that middle-ground that is slowly becoming a dying breed.

paulofilmo
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by paulofilmo »

who are these people going to the cinema?? for the price of a movie ticket i can get a bottle of merlot and get fucked while watching power rangers movies. who are these infantile morons?



djross
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by djross »

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paulofilmo
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Re: Two statements on the state of cinema

Post by paulofilmo »

and yet you think you're in a position to discuss the state of cinema.

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