Movies Thread

[breepf]

That’s an interesting call-out because I’ve had The Rain People on my list forever and was recently thinking about it after Megalopolis, but hadn’t heard of Filmmaker. I’ll see if I can track them down.

You can usually find both films on YouTube. I wouldn't exactly call either film fun or entertaining.

The Rain People is a sort of allegory for what American Zoetrope can do as a lean, anti-bureaucratic organization operating according to a different type of ethos.

Filmmaker is an addendum to that argument, but also Lucas's own contribution to the question of why directors, and not studio producers, should have control of the making of a film.

 

[breepf]

For a film to be great, every scene should engage the viewer and "fit" into the puzzle. Wasted scenes annoy the hell out of me. Doesn't matter whether the film is 1 1/2 hours or 4 hours, there has to be a compelling reason for every scene. In essence, the scene is a little short movie unto itself.

I don't agree with everything in this video essay, but I think it offers some counterpoints to your idea about how film narrative should work:

 

[duluoz]

You can usually find both films on YouTube. I wouldn't exactly call either film fun or entertaining.

The Rain People is a sort of allegory for what American Zoetrope can do as a lean, anti-bureaucratic organization operating according to a different type of ethos.

Filmmaker is an addendum to that argument, but also Lucas's own contribution to the question of why directors, and not studio producers, should have control of the making of a film.

It wasn’t until Megalopolis that I even realized American Zoetrope was still active. But I guess Sofia’s films have been most of that activity.

 

[breepf]

It wasn’t until Megalopolis that I even realized American Zoetrope was still active. But I guess Sofia’s films have been most of that activity.

I think it's been shuttered a few times only to rise again.

 

[hedge]

Their headquarters is one of the coolest buildings in San Francisco...

 

[duluoz]

Their headquarters is one of the coolest buildings in San Francisco...

It’s like our Flatiron in NYC but cooler and greener.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

I don't agree with everything in this video essay, but I think it offers some counterpoints to your idea about how film narrative should work:

There is a degree of tomate-toe/toma-toe to this. BOTH can be cinema. Both approaches can move a narrative along. One with more regard given to tone and ambiance. The other with less. Don't get me wrong. Both can work and both can fail, depending on the effect on the story.

Unless the intent of the artists is for the work to be performed only for themselves, consideration must given to a potential audience. I would argue that without an audience, is there art, or in this case, CINEMA?

 

[hedge]

No argument from me. Star Wars quite clearly shaped our derivative, IP-driven media culture and exhibition patterns in more significant ways than Herbert's novel or any of its adaptations.

I recommend watching Jodorowsky's Dune, a documentary about legendary cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempt to get Dune made in the mid 70's. According to their plans, it was going to be everything that Star Wars was not (check out the cast, they had Salvador Dali inked to play the emporer) but alas, the production fell apart (supposedly the run time on the finished product was going to be over 10 hours and Jodorowsky wouldn't budge on that, although wasn't the only reason the production fizzled). It's intriguing to think what the future of sci-fi would've looked like if Jodorowsky's version of Dune had been produced and screened before Star Wars. At any rate, some (many?) of Jodorowsky's ideas certainly influenced Lucas and many sci-fi directors after him..

 

[breepf]

I recommend watching Jodorowsky's Dune, a documentary about legendary cult director Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempt to get Dune made in the mid 70's. According to their plans, it was going to be everything that Star Wars was not (check out the cast, they had Salvador Dali inked to play the emporer) but alas, the production fell apart (supposedly the run time on the finished product was going to be over 10 hours and Jodorowsky wouldn't budge on that, although wasn't the only reason the production fizzled). It's intriguing to think what the future of sci-fi would've looked like if Jodorowsky's version of Dune had been produced and screened before Star Wars. At any rate, some (many?) of Jodorowsky's ideas certainly influenced Lucas and many sci-fi directors after him..

Maybe Jodorowsky influenced other SF directors, but I'd need more evidence to be convinced that his aborted Dune (and the Moebius's art direction) influenced Lucas in any appreciable fashion. As far as I can tell, Lucas does not have a surrealist bone in his body. His avant-gardism is less psychological than physical/visual, which is why he hired abstract animators like Jordan Belson to work on SFX.

 

[breepf]

There is a degree of tomate-toe/toma-toe to this. BOTH can be cinema. Both approaches can move a narrative along. One with more regard given to tone and ambiance. The other with less. Don't get me wrong. Both can work and both can fail, depending on the effect on the story.

Unless the intent of the artists is for the work to be performed only for themselves, consideration must given to a potential audience. I would argue that without an audience, is there art, or in this case, CINEMA?

I think this reply misunderstands what art cinema generally purports to do. The point of a lingering shot in De Sica's Terminal Station is precisely to not move the narrative along, but to de-center the goal-oriented protagonist at the center of Hollywood storytelling. You can call that "tone," but I think that identification underestimates the realist impetus behind the decision: Hollywood stories are not akin to real life. Contra classical Hollywood narrative, we do not proceed in our lives in lockstep fashion towards the achievement of some goal. Duh, one might respond. But more clearly recognizing how Hollywood narratives work helps us to recognize the limits on how they might "move us."

Granted, De Sica is not the best example of this--if I had to pick an Italian filmmaker, I'd go with Antonioni, whose films like L'Avventura more clearly abandon the pretenses of goal orientation and the strictures, one might say, that such narration place on storytelling.

As for potential audiences, I agree--we're seldom going to ignore audiences altogether. But these films often presume different audience segments with different educations and capabilities, and different sense of what a film should accomplish: should it entertain? is it art?

 

[UNCMSinLS]

I think this reply misunderstands what art cinema generally purports to do. The point of a lingering shot in De Sica's Terminal Station is precisely to not move the narrative along, but to de-center the goal-oriented protagonist at the center of Hollywood storytelling. You can call that "tone," but I think that identification underestimates the realist impetus behind the decision: Hollywood stories are not akin to real life. Contra classical Hollywood narrative, we do not proceed in our lives in lockstep fashion towards the achievement of some goal. Duh, one might respond. But more clearly recognizing how Hollywood narratives work helps us to recognize the limits on how they might "move us."

Granted, De Sica is not the best example of this--if I had to pick an Italian filmmaker, I'd go with Antonioni, whose films like L'Avventura more clearly abandon the pretenses of goal orientation and the strictures, one might say, that such narration place on storytelling.

As for potential audiences, I agree--we're seldom going to ignore audiences altogether. But these films often presume different audience segments with different educations and capabilities, and different sense of what a film should accomplish: should it entertain? is it art?

So, the blue canvas IS art?

I agree - different strokes for different folks. But sometimes pretentious masturbation is simply ... well ... pretentious masturbation. I suppose it may be fun to watch and even more fun to do. But is it art? I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder.

I'm reminded of those YouTube videos where they film themselves in the mirror each day for five years. Think how much better the completed project would be if they filmed each sequence for two hours instead of five seconds. Sorry, breepf, I'd rather feel or learn something from the art I consume. Call me provincial if you wish but there's only so much tooth-brushing that I care to do in a day.

 

[breepf]

So, the blue canvas IS art?

I agree - different strokes for different folks. But sometimes pretentious masturbation is simply ... well ... pretentious masturbation. I suppose it may be fun to watch and even more fun to do. But is it art? I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder.

I'm reminded of those YouTube videos where they film themselves in the mirror each day for five years. Think how much better the completed project would be if they filmed each sequence for two hours instead of five seconds. Sorry, breepf, I'd rather feel or learn something from the art I consume. Call me provincial if you wish but there's only so much tooth-brushing that I care to do in a day.

I'm not arguing that art cinema is better or worse than classical Hollywood narrative. When it comes to art, I'm a pluralist, which is why I do think it is provincial to insist that classical Hollywood narrative has some unique purchase on human emotion and feeling. Moreover, art cinema is generally closer to Hollywood classical narrative than it is to a blue canvas. If you want a blue canvas in film, there's always Jarman's Blue:



Part of what potentially makes your position provincial is that it insists--to use painterly language--that art should be a picture, not a painting. Put another way, you've suggested that the great virtue of Hollywood cinema is the window it provides unto human existence, from which we can glean therapeutic benefits. But what would it mean to be forced to confront a painting as a painting (or film as a film)? For one, it would require that we concede the presence and existence of the other thing, which is an important gesture in a world that prizes social media, selfies, influencer culture--in a world, in short, that views other people as instruments for our own prestige and hustle, as so many windows unto ourselves.

 

[superrific]

So, the blue canvas IS art?

I agree - different strokes for different folks. But sometimes pretentious masturbation is simply ... well ... pretentious masturbation. I suppose it may be fun to watch and even more fun to do. But is it art? I suppose it's in the eye of the beholder.

I'm reminded of those YouTube videos where they film themselves in the mirror each day for five years. Think how much better the completed project would be if they filmed each sequence for two hours instead of five seconds. Sorry, breepf, I'd rather feel or learn something from the art I consume. Call me provincial if you wish but there's only so much tooth-brushing that I care to do in a day.

I'm sort of in the middle between you two. Whether the blue canvas is art strikes me as not a particularly interesting question. I find minimalism in painting to be quite boring and none of the justifications or defenses of it strike me as convincing. At the same time, I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say that every scene in a film must "fit" and not be "wasted." What counts? Does it have to fit the plot?

This is one of my favorite scenes in movies (though the duel scene following it is even better, this is more easily digestible). It's unnecessary. We don't need to follow Bullingdon on his sojourn through an aristocratic gentlemen's club. What is necessary is for Bullingdon to challenge Barry to a duel. But I'm very very glad that Kubrick decided to do it like this:

 

[superrific]

Part of what potentially makes your position provincial is that it insists--to use painterly language--that art should be a picture, not a painting . . . But what would it mean to be forced to confront a painting as a painting (or film as a film)? For one, it would require that we concede the presence and existence of the other thing

I can't get on board with a) calling other positions provincial while b) espousing meaningless tautology and reveling in vagueness. The last sentence in no way follows from the one before, and none of it even tries to be persuasive. It's just critical diktat.

I would argue the opposite: that the measure you've espoused is actually provincial. Whether that blue painting is art is a question of concern, perhaps, to a tiny community of artists who revel in self-referentiality (whether they admit it or not). It has nothing to say to anyone else. What's more, these types of productions have little to say even on their own terms. I am so tired of reading about art that "invites the viewer to question whether art must be . . . " The problem here is:

a. It's never a question. Marcel Duchamp wasn't inviting viewers to question whether a toilet on a museum wall is art. He was asserting that it is. That's why he did it. Sometimes the art community is more or less upfront about this: sometimes we see artists described as pushing the boundaries of what is art (thus obviating the formality of the audience's agreement). That's more honest but revealing. The easiest way to achieve creativity without actually being creative is to slap some ugly thing on a canvas and say you're exploring the nature of art.

b. Duchamp made the point over a century ago. One hundred years of dada and post-dada art and what insight have we achieved? That blue painting is a toilet on the wall. It's the same idea. The blue canvas is a toilet on the wall. It's all so fucking BORING -- and not just because the artworks themselves are uninteresting. The entire discourse is uninteresting. Even the stock response to "I could have done that" (which I don't consider to be a useful consideration) or "well, you didn't" is boring.

 

[UNCMSinLS]

I'm not arguing that art cinema is better or worse than classical Hollywood narrative. When it comes to art, I'm a pluralist, which is why I do think it is provincial to insist that classical Hollywood narrative has some unique purchase on human emotion and feeling. Moreover, art cinema is generally closer to Hollywood classical narrative than it is to a blue canvas. If you want a blue canvas in film, there's always Jarman's Blue:



Part of what potentially makes your position provincial is that it insists--to use painterly language--that art should be a picture, not a painting. Put another way, you've suggested that the great virtue of Hollywood cinema is the window it provides unto human existence, from which we can glean therapeutic benefits. But what would it mean to be forced to confront a painting as a painting (or film as a film)? For one, it would require that we concede the presence and existence of the other thing, which is an important gesture in a world that prizes social media, selfies, influencer culture--in a world, in short, that views other people as instruments for our own prestige and hustle, as so many windows unto ourselves.

No, that cinematic blue canvas is MUCH more interesting than the one I saw. The one I witnessed more resembled the segments they used to have on the Oscars where they'd show, "What does this scene look like without sound editing?"

I generally stay off of social media. I've never taken a selfie. I don't even possess a cell phone. Guilty - as provincial as you can get. I see little value in calling a blank canvas a painting for the sake of "art". Now, if status as a tastemaker or a hot chick or some other social bean can be collected for such a concession, perhaps I could be persuaded to call a blank canvas a painting. But isn't that what you criticize in those who have not been elevated to an unknown (and perhaps, unknowable) level of awareness of anti-classical Hollywood cinema? Sometimes the beautiful clothes that the Emperor appears to be wearing are simply a birthday suit. Admittedly, some birthday suits are appealing, even must-see according to some haughty aficionados, but basically, they are still just birthday suits.

 

[superrific]

No, that cinematic blue canvas is MUCH more interesting than the one I saw. The one I witnessed more resembled the segments they used to have on the Oscars where they'd show, "What does this scene look like without sound editing?"

I generally stay off of social media. I've never taken a selfie. I don't even possess a cell phone. Guilty - as provincial as you can get. I see little value in calling a blank canvas a painting for the sake of "art". Now, if status as a tastemaker or a hot chick or some other social bean can be collected for such a concession, perhaps I could be persuaded to call a blank canvas a painting. But isn't that what you criticize in those who have not been elevated to an unknown (and perhaps, unknowable) level of awareness of anti-classical Hollywood cinema? Sometimes the beautiful clothes that the Emperor appears to be wearing are simply a birthday suit. Admittedly, some birthday suits are appealing, even must-see according to some haughty aficionados, but basically, they are still just birthday suits.

By the way, I'm guessing the artist who painted the blue canvas was Yves Klein. He had a whole series of blue canvases. There's one at MOMA in NYC IIRC.

Yves Klein - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[breepf]

I can't get on board with a) calling other positions provincial while b) espousing meaningless tautology and reveling in vagueness. The last sentence in no way follows from the one before, and none of it even tries to be persuasive. It's just critical diktat.

I would argue the opposite: that the measure you've espoused is actually provincial. Whether that blue painting is art is a question of concern, perhaps, to a tiny community of artists who revel in self-referentiality (whether they admit it or not). It has nothing to say to anyone else. What's more, these types of productions have little to say even on their own terms. I am so tired of reading about art that "invites the viewer to question whether art must be . . . " The problem here is:

a. It's never a question. Marcel Duchamp wasn't inviting viewers to question whether a toilet on a museum wall is art. He was asserting that it is. That's why he did it. Sometimes the art community is more or less upfront about this: sometimes we see artists described as pushing the boundaries of what is art (thus obviating the formality of the audience's agreement). That's more honest but revealing. The easiest way to achieve creativity without actually being creative is to slap some ugly thing on a canvas and say you're exploring the nature of art.

b. Duchamp made the point over a century ago. One hundred years of dada and post-dada art and what insight have we achieved? That blue painting is a toilet on the wall. It's the same idea. The blue canvas is a toilet on the wall. It's all so fucking BORING -- and not just because the artworks themselves are uninteresting. The entire discourse is uninteresting. Even the stock response to "I could have done that" (which I don't consider to be a useful consideration) or "well, you didn't" is boring.

When it comes to my case for the value of this hypothetical blue canvas, the point of self-referentiality isn't to revel in it or to police the boundaries of art and non-art.

Take a real painting or two: Jasper Johns's Flag or Three Flags. To use the distinction conveyed above, those paintings are paintings, not pictures. Three Flags fucks with perspective through its arrangement of smaller flags on top of bigger ones. Johns made the paint gloopy and textural--we don't forget it's paint and that Three Flags is a painting itself, not just a window for thinking about some verisimilar flag. So, yeah, it is an artwork that presumes to discipline--successfully or not--the type of attention that we give to paintings.

So my point is about attention. I guess that could be shifted into an argument about art/non-art, but it feels sufficiently distinct to me.

And, to return to the conversation about film, Hollywood films--for all the variety of one genre versus another--discipline attention in very particular and, ultimately, narrow ways.

 

[superrific]

When it comes to my case for the value of this hypothetical blue canvas, the point of self-referentiality isn't to revel in it or to police the boundaries of art and non-art.

Take a real painting or two: Jasper Johns's Flag or Three Flags. To use the distinction conveyed above, those paintings are paintings, not pictures. Three Flags fucks with perspective through its arrangement of smaller flags on top of bigger ones. Johns made the paint gloopy and textural--we don't forget it's paint and that Three Flags is a painting itself, not just a window for thinking about some verisimilar flag. So, yeah, it is an artwork that presumes to discipline--successfully or not--the type of attention that we give to paintings.

So my point is about attention. I guess that could be shifted into an argument about art/non-art, but it feels sufficiently distinct to me.

And, to return to the conversation about film, Hollywood films--for all the variety of one genre versus another--discipline attention in very particular and, ultimately, narrow ways.

The supposed distinction between painting and picture is very much the issue here. Are you saying that pictures are a subset of paintings? That some art is representational and some art isn't? I love non-representational art (well, if it's good). Is picture merely a pejorative word? This are the answers I never get from the art community. My sense is that they like their diktat much more than they like explaining what they are talking about.

I for one never forget that I'm looking at paint. And fucking with perspective was really stale when Jasper Johns was painting. I don't get why the flag paintings are famous. Again, they are . . . so boring.

Is your film worldview limited to Hollywood versus post-war European films? I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Hollywood" films, especially those predating the 60s. I find them trite, phony and oversimplistic. I'm also not a big fan of the French New Wave. Here are some other films that I like very much, that are not Hollywood but aren't the things you're discussing here:

City of God
At least four Zhang Yimou films (most notably Hero, Shadow and To Live)
Aguirre, Wrath Of God
Underground (Kusterica) and other films out of the Balkans following the conflict
Heavy
Badlands/Days of Heaven (don't know if those count as Hollywood)

That's not to mention more surreal productions like Greenaway or Fellini

 

[breepf]

The supposed distinction between painting and picture is very much the issue here. Are you saying that pictures are a subset of paintings? That some art is representational and some art isn't? I love non-representational art (well, if it's good). Is picture merely a pejorative word? This are the answers I never get from the art community. My sense is that they like their diktat much more than they like explaining what they are talking about.

I for one never forget that I'm looking at paint. And fucking with perspective was really stale when Jasper Johns was painting. I don't get why the flag paintings are famous. Again, they are . . . so boring.

Is your film worldview limited to Hollywood versus post-war European films? I'm not necessarily a big fan of "Hollywood" films, especially those predating the 60s. I find them trite, phony and oversimplistic. I'm also not a big fan of the French New Wave. Here are some other films that I like very much, that are not Hollywood but aren't the things you're discussing here:

City of God
At least four Zhang Yimou films (most notably Hero, Shadow and To Live)
Aguirre, Wrath Of God
Underground (Kusterica) and other films out of the Balkans following the conflict
Heavy
Badlands/Days of Heaven (don't know if those count as Hollywood)

That's not to mention more surreal productions like Greenaway or Fellini

No, my perspective is not limited to Hollywood and post-war European art cinema (Fellini included), though I would say that understanding the relationship between those two "styles" can make sense of about 95% of the films discussed in this thread or anywhere else.

I am more familiar with Herzog's documentaries than with his fiction films--it has been 20 years or more since I've seen any of the latter. I likewise haven't watched City of God in a very long time.

Badlands and Days of Heaven are most certainly Hollywood films, if only because Warner Bros. put them out (I think).

Depending on how one counts early French shut, my knowledge of experimental film sticks more closely to the US and Canada. I’ve had a copy of The Draughtsman’s Contract staring me in the face for years, but I’ve yet to watch it.

As for paintings and pictures, the significance of the distinction isn’t necessarily to prize one over the other, or subordinate one to the other, but to regard them as two different ways for plopping paint on a canvas.

I love Hollywood cinema—pictures, let us say. But I don’t for a second mistake that product for the entire spectrum of filmmaking or as the sole standard for film achievement.

 

[superrific]

No, my perspective is not limited to Hollywood and post-war European art cinema (Fellini included), though I would say that understanding the relationship between those two "styles" can make sense of about 95% of the films discussed in this thread or anywhere else.

I am more familiar with Herzog's documentaries than with his fiction films--it has been 20 years or more since I've seen any of the latter. I likewise haven't watched City of God in a very long time.

Badlands and Days of Heaven are most certainly Hollywood films, if only because Warner Bros. put them out (I think).

Depending on how one counts early French shut, my knowledge of experimental film sticks more closely to the US and Canada. I’ve had a copy of The Draughtsman’s Contract staring me in the face for years, but I’ve yet to watch it.

As for paintings and pictures, the significance of the distinction isn’t necessarily to prize one over the other, or subordinate one to the other, but to regard them as two different ways for plopping paint on a canvas.

I love Hollywood cinema—pictures, let us say. But I don’t for a second mistake that product for the entire spectrum of filmmaking or as the sole standard for film achievement.

WB distributed Badlands, but it was produced, written and directed by Malick. 300K budget. Days of Heaven was produced by Paramount, though Malick had complete control I think.