The Dawn of a New Era: Part Two (TFR Article)

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Part Two: A Time for Rebirth

By Meseret Haddis

In this three-part examination, I will look at the cinema as both an industry and as an art form. In Part One, I examined the dying industry; in Part Two, I will examine the industry’s rebirth; in Part Three, I will examine how to sustain it.

How will we know it’s dead?

When an art form suffers financially and artistically, the result is often death. Unlike a recession, this death is noticed after it occurs. But since an art form can’t be lost forever, it has the opportunity for rebirth. This rebirth is actually the first sign of death. Only when the change from death to rebirth happens will we be able to identify unproductive and stagnant periods. When François Truffaut’s A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema appeared in Cahiers du Cinéma, it was the beginning of a rebirth. Published in 1954, the piece describe what Truffaut identified as “Tradition of Quality” films, which featured uninspired scenarios of adapted novels (typical of commercial French cinema at the time) and a need to champion directors who were already proving that French cinema didn’t have to sell it’s soul to make a great film. He described filmmakers like Bresson and Renoir as early, exemplary figures of an artistic sensibility that Andre Bazin, Godard, and the other Cahiers critics were heralding as auteur cinema. “I do not believe in the peaceful co-existence of the ‘Tradition of Quality’ and auteur’s cinema,” Truffaut wrote. These critics and filmmakers saw the stagnation of uninspired films and decided to change it. Our goal shouldn’t be to wait for the cinema’s death, but to start the rebirth before the effects of its death can cripple us.

Rebirth or Revolution?

There are many similarities to an artistic rebirth and a political revolution. Sometimes an artistic rebirth and a political revolution happen simultaneously (i.e. French Revolution, American Civil War, etc). Art is one of the best ways to think about and acknowledge cultural problems without having to set off a bomb; the effect, however, can be just as catastrophic. Some fight wars with guns and some fight wars with words, paint, music, and images. Jean-Luc Godard’s “political” era, for instance, was an effort to bring about a revolution in France. Although one person cannot start a revolution alone, Godard provided the political ideas and circumstances symptomatic of revolutionary thinking. Brecht, like Godard, wanted to involve his audience intellectually. In Two American Audiences (a Pennebaker documentary about Godard at NYU in April 1968) Godard takes questions about his new film, La Chinoise, and is asked if he thinks Brecht is “someone who does philosophy by means of art and if that applied to him and the film.” Godard agreed with the student about Brecht, but said La Chinoise “was art by means of philosophy.” Both of these men changed the way we look at art in their respective fields. Both of these men also used politics and philosophy in their work to examine the culture of the time. Not all works of art have to be analytical or steeped in philosophical theory to be revolutionary, however. Plays like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children were both period pieces that told stories with implications for the cultural and political climates within which they were preformed. In an indirect way, these were political works.

Re-education: From the bottom up.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara says, “You can’t start a revolution from the top down.” It can also be said that cinema can’t be reborn from the top down. Education is the most important part of any revolution and that’s precisely what a rebirth in cinema is: a revolution.

Let’s take a look at past cinematic revolutions. From silent films to the first talkies, early filmmakers created the bedrock of cinema. Whether it was Eisenstein’s montage, or Griffith’s close ups (or genres like Ford’s Westerns, or the Marx Brother’s farce comedies), cinema was being reborn over and over again, without ever dying. A post-World War II world brought about a sharp distinction in films. On the one hand were films imbued with abject realism (i.e. Italian Neorealism) and, on the other, were films that generated for the war effort (i.e. American war pictures). This was an important separation between a narrow reality and a grand delusion (something that still exists with contemporary cinema). These were all revolutions, educating filmmakers and audience members alike to make a choice about how they view films. Do I recognize cinema’s importance in expressing a reality, or do I enjoy something that doesn’t remind me of my experiences outside of the theater?

Once the studio system started to collapse, the idea that films could be shot on location with a low budget became a reality. However, these new films also experienced periods of stagnation, and the urge to create new works and examine new places dwindled. David Lynch still made surreal films, Scorsese still made gangster films and, as audience members, we became O.K. with that. When a director was good at something, he stuck to it. When he ventured from it, he suffered financially. In a climate where taking chances and creating new, risky work prevents an artist from taking those chances again, could ultimately stifle the artist’s creativity forever. Even Chaplin had to leave the tramp; it cost him an audience (Monsieur Verdoux was a box office flop and ruined Chaplin’s reputation in the United States). Chaplin, however, felt it was time to move on.

Cinema is a two way street. Filmmakers have to take chances and progress and, as audiences, we have to progress with them. Some consider cinema simply a medium of entertainment – and that’s fine. However, for those of us who expect more from a film than mere entertainment, we have to be mindful of a certain process, to be alert and engaged film viewers. For instance, each time I hear the names of new books, movies, paintings and people in a film, I create a list, do some research and, in the process, become more acquainted with the film’s meaning and complexity. This research - into a film’s political, cultural and aesthetic background - makes the second viewing a richer and more rewarding experience. Not only is the film more enjoyable, but the black and white, grainy picture also doesn’t look so alien anymore.

A rebirth comes from a need for change. If this need doesn’t exist, change doesn’t exist. Politically, we made history this election year because the time for change was ripe. If eight years of Bush can be compared to the “Tradition of Quality” films Truffaut described, then Obama would represent a New Wave. But a political revolution, just like cinematic revolution, doesn’t come because people at the top say it should. It has to start with us.