Comments on: The end of cinema is (only the) beginning http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/ A steady feed of all things Peet Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:04:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Peter http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-208 Peter Fri, 12 Jan 2007 14:45:24 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-208 Brilliant Website. Please take a look at my website. Let me know what you think. Maybe you will link to it...Thank You. Brilliant Website. Please take a look at my website. Let me know what you think.
Maybe you will link to it…Thank You.

]]> By: Bryan http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-215 Bryan Thu, 14 Dec 2006 20:20:03 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-215 I wasn't just commenting on YouTube but the independent digital cinema in general pace <a HREF="http://www.digitalfilmmaker.net/dv/features/PerspectiveI.html" rel="nofollow">Steinman</a>. I wasn’t just commenting on YouTube but the independent digital cinema in general pace Steinman.

]]> By: Peet http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-216 Peet Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:01:41 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-216 <i>"The YouTube and independently home grown stuff is too mainstreamish, and really, I don’t think anyone takes it seriously anymore."</i> No one takes it seriously <i>anymore?!?</i> The site barely even started! YouTube's official debut was in November 2005 - that's right, last year - and the video iPod was released only a month earlier. This really is just the beginning... “The YouTube and independently home grown stuff is too mainstreamish, and really, I don’t think anyone takes it seriously anymore.”

No one takes it seriously anymore?!? The site barely even started! YouTube’s official debut was in November 2005 – that’s right, last year – and the video iPod was released only a month earlier. This really is just the beginning…

]]> By: Bryan http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-210 Bryan Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:08:47 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-210 Yeah, it's not a new earth-shattering revelation, but maybe this is the real death, or numbing, of the cinema we have all come to know and love. (I have Barney the Purple Dinosaur bedsheets.) The YouTube and independently home grown stuff is too mainstreamish, and really, I don't think anyone takes it seriously anymore. All this "entertainment" exists for ridicule and mockery. The visual medium is less rigorous and more "that's so silly!" Yeah, it’s not a new earth-shattering revelation, but maybe this is the real death, or numbing, of the cinema we have all come to know and love. (I have Barney the Purple Dinosaur bedsheets.) The YouTube and independently home grown stuff is too mainstreamish, and really, I don’t think anyone takes it seriously anymore. All this “entertainment” exists for ridicule and mockery. The visual medium is less rigorous and more “that’s so silly!”

]]> By: Peet http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-211 Peet Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:23:48 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-211 <i>"This new cinema will be so multi-faceted and will change so rapidly that the day of the film critic who can confidently state “This is the year’s best film” is going to fall away."</i> That was never my idea of interesting film criticism anyway... :-) But don't get me wrong, Andy: I sympathize with those who are concerned, too. The kind of cinema I adore is linear, lyrical and intoxicating: pretty old-fashioned in terms of viewing experience. It has always been my impulse to really submit myself to the screen, but the modern viewer longs to interact with it. A big part of <em>Nighthawks</em> is about the filmmaker and dedicated cinephile in me, coming to terms with the extend to which the relevance of cinema depends on the whims of spectatorship. The realization that "cinema only exists when it is seen" - a key sentence in the essay - convinces the movie characters (who are representatives of their own medium) to pick up where they left off, basically, and be open to new ways of drawing audiences. I see potential in the medium's evolution, but fortunately enough I also keep seeing examples of "traditional" films that still seem to matter. Thanks for stopping by, Flickhead! You're quite right: This is not a new discussion, but the topic seems especially relevant today. “This new cinema will be so multi-faceted and will change so rapidly that the day of the film critic who can confidently state “This is the year’s best film” is going to fall away.”

That was never my idea of interesting film criticism anyway… :-)

But don’t get me wrong, Andy: I sympathize with those who are concerned, too. The kind of cinema I adore is linear, lyrical and intoxicating: pretty old-fashioned in terms of viewing experience. It has always been my impulse to really submit myself to the screen, but the modern viewer longs to interact with it. A big part of Nighthawks is about the filmmaker and dedicated cinephile in me, coming to terms with the extend to which the relevance of cinema depends on the whims of spectatorship. The realization that “cinema only exists when it is seen” – a key sentence in the essay – convinces the movie characters (who are representatives of their own medium) to pick up where they left off, basically, and be open to new ways of drawing audiences. I see potential in the medium’s evolution, but fortunately enough I also keep seeing examples of “traditional” films that still seem to matter.

Thanks for stopping by, Flickhead! You’re quite right: This is not a new discussion, but the topic seems especially relevant today.

]]> By: Flickhead http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-217 Flickhead Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:17:26 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-217 Good post. If it's any consolation, people were moaning about the death of cinema in the late 1960s and the first half of the 70s. The mainstream initially resisted changes in forms and conventions, but released unconventional pictures (by Altman, Scorsese, Bogdanovich, etc.) in a state of surrender. (Otherwise, attendance may have dried up entirely.) A recently released DVD of the Dick Cavett Show from 1972 offers a panel of Altman, Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks and Frank Capra (!) discussing the "death of Hollywood," even though that decade's l'age d'or of American film was unfolding right under their noses. Ironically, by the end of the 70s, mega-budget fluff, fantasy and action fare had eclipsed the innovative, intellectual and personal cinema of Coppola, Altman, Scorsese, Polanski, Rafelson, et al...and the mainstream touted the "comeback" of The Movies. Recent years are an entirely different matter, and though I once went to see movies in a theatre two, three, or occasionally four times a week, it grew increasingly obvious that society in general had shifted its values and that there were too many people in the audience who simply did not know how to behave in public. When cell phones became de rigueur is around the time when I started subscribing to Netflix and staying home. Given the precarious state of my mind, it wouldn't take much for me to have a complete meltdown and send some loud mouth bore in the next row straight to hell. Good post. If it’s any consolation, people were moaning about the death of cinema in the late 1960s and the first half of the 70s. The mainstream initially resisted changes in forms and conventions, but released unconventional pictures (by Altman, Scorsese, Bogdanovich, etc.) in a state of surrender. (Otherwise, attendance may have dried up entirely.) A recently released DVD of the Dick Cavett Show from 1972 offers a panel of Altman, Bogdanovich, Mel Brooks and Frank Capra (!) discussing the “death of Hollywood,” even though that decade’s l’age d’or of American film was unfolding right under their noses.

Ironically, by the end of the 70s, mega-budget fluff, fantasy and action fare had eclipsed the innovative, intellectual and personal cinema of Coppola, Altman, Scorsese, Polanski, Rafelson, et al…and the mainstream touted the “comeback” of The Movies.

Recent years are an entirely different matter, and though I once went to see movies in a theatre two, three, or occasionally four times a week, it grew increasingly obvious that society in general had shifted its values and that there were too many people in the audience who simply did not know how to behave in public. When cell phones became de rigueur is around the time when I started subscribing to Netflix and staying home. Given the precarious state of my mind, it wouldn’t take much for me to have a complete meltdown and send some loud mouth bore in the next row straight to hell.

]]> By: Annie Frisbie http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-214 Annie Frisbie Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:07:17 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-214 Definitely not stating that literature is on a higher level than painting or music... just saying that the three forms are very different. Conventional cinema used to straddle all three (at least from a theoretical perspective), but user-generated content is more like music or video art (what is that anymore, anyway?) and nothing at all like literature. Is it even anything like conventional narrative cinema? In other words, narrative film shares certain attributes with literature (a story told over time), painting (it's a visual medium), and music (the performer, not the audience, controls the pacing and delivery). In the same way, user-generated content shares certain attributes with narrative film, but it's not quite the same thing. Definitely not stating that literature is on a higher level than painting or music… just saying that the three forms are very different. Conventional cinema used to straddle all three (at least from a theoretical perspective), but user-generated content is more like music or video art (what is that anymore, anyway?) and nothing at all like literature. Is it even anything like conventional narrative cinema?

In other words, narrative film shares certain attributes with literature (a story told over time), painting (it’s a visual medium), and music (the performer, not the audience, controls the pacing and delivery). In the same way, user-generated content shares certain attributes with narrative film, but it’s not quite the same thing.

]]> By: Andy H. http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-213 Andy H. Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:47:45 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-213 "is practicing." My kingdom for a spell checker... “is practicing.” My kingdom for a spell checker…

]]> By: Andy H. http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-212 Andy H. Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:47:18 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-212 A thought: The good people at <a HREF="http://www.thedailyreel.com/" rel="nofollow">The Daily Reel</a> is practicing a form of film criticism when they select the day's best/most interesting online media. Will this be, to a substantial extent, the role of the film critic of tomorrow? <em>Selecting</em> from an unimaginably vast menu, the specials <em>du jour</em>? And if so, so what? A thought: The good people at The Daily Reel is practicing a form of film criticism when they select the day’s best/most interesting online media. Will this be, to a substantial extent, the role of the film critic of tomorrow? Selecting from an unimaginably vast menu, the specials du jour? And if so, so what?

]]> By: Peet http://www.directorama.net/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/comment-page-1/#comment-219 Peet Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:38:49 +0000 http://peet.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/the-end-of-cinema-is-only-the-beginning/#comment-219 Annie: I agree that user-generated work is generally awful, but it's a fertile ground for new talent to arise. Blogs are user-generated too, aren't they? Are you saying that literature is a "higher" art than painting and music? That would be QUITE a statement! I won't go there. Annie:

I agree that user-generated work is generally awful, but it’s a fertile ground for new talent to arise. Blogs are user-generated too, aren’t they? Are you saying that literature is a “higher” art than painting and music? That would be QUITE a statement! I won’t go there.

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