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

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Part Three: Sustaining the New Era

By Meseret Haddis

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

Everyone’s a critic

One of the most important elements for sustaining an artistic medium is criticism. This can mean both professional and amateur critics. The general population of filmgoers are amateur critics. You might think: “I’m not blogging my opinions or giving speeches about them, so how can I be a critic?” Making the choice to see a film makes you a critic. Once you spend those twelve dollars on a ticket, you have just made a critical choice.

When The Dark Knight swallowed hordes of money at the box office this summer, most viewers said, “We like this film. We like action, we like drama, we like suspense and I think you would like it, too.” A critic’s job, when deconstructed and simplified, is to get people to see a movie. Bad reviews are often defended because they protect the audience member from wasting their money - but who asked them?

One argument says that critics should use their power to showcase great films that aren’t getting attention; the other argument questions whether or not these same critics should be trusted at all. Let’s look at it this way: If you are a critic for an entertainment publication or company (i.e. E! or Rolling Stone) that depends on selling papers or getting website hits, don’t you think you would feel pressured to hand out positive reviews? The other alternative is to be an independent critic and, well, if no one reads your reviews, then you might as well keep them to yourself. It’s a tricky position to be in, as we need independent critics who can cut through the complacency of the mainstream critical establishment.

The Internet’s ability to give weight to a variety of smaller voices has benefited independent criticism (just like the idea that digital cameras could save independent cinema by giving more people an opportunity to create films). However, quantity does not always mean quality. It does, however, give opportunities to those who hadn’t previously been given a voice.

Critics are as powerful as the art form. When art forms suffer, so do their critics. Not in their talent but, rather, in their potential to influence audiences. When an art form thrives, everyone’s a critic.

Two Audiences

I’m not someone who believes that there are two audiences: audiences that are passionate about the art form and those that are merely casual participants. When something transcendent happens in an art form, it will affect both audiences. This is proof that the distinctions between the two audiences are arbitrary. What we have is a collective audience that everyone - artists, critics, fanatics and casual fans - share and experience together. Thus, distinctions between audiences are arbitrary, because we all experience the human condition. Yes, we might live in different places, know different people, like different things, but that doesn’t change the fact that we get sad, or happy, or angry, or depressed. It’s not surprising why successful films are so successful. They capture something that isn’t defined by the physical or regional, but by the whole, which we all experience. It’s like string theory. It’s an idea that forms the fabric of all our lives, something that we know is there, but can’t grasp or manipulate.

What has happened, with the audience, is a conscious split between them. This again goes back to artistic and economic cinema. A film that caters exclusively to one of those audiences has a much better chance at being successful (financially) than trying to please everyone. Independent films, for example, have limited releases, because that’s the best way to effectively spend limited resources while getting a profit. People who appreciate independent cinema are not necessarily fans of commercial, popcorn films; however, when a film is great, these distinctions collapse. The only catch is to make great films.

How do you make great films?

To call a film great is subjective, of course, but what can do is measure great films by their reception (financially and critically). Case in point: Hollywood’s Golden Age. The rate at which films were made during this period was enormous, producing terrific work. Of course, with every great Golden Age film, there were about fifty mediocre releases on the side. The good releases, however, were most certainly good: romantic comedies (The Philadelphia Story), crime dramas (The Big Sleep), war films (Only Angels Have Wings), westerns (Stagecoach), and so on.

Besides the obvious rate of production, another difference between films being made during this period and those being made now is the quality of collaboration. Howard Hawks worked with Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner on screenplays. Internationally, Jean Cocteau wrote dialogue for Robert Bresson’s Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne and, later, worked with Jean-Pierre Melville on Les Enfants Terribles. Dalí worked with Buñel, as did Pasolini with Fellini.

Great films around the world are able to speak to both audiences; they examine something important. The great films of the past eighty years all share a passion about telling stories through images; 8 1/2, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Bicycle Thieves, Seven Samurai - all are films made by auteurs, by filmmakers who are telling stories with a unique eye and a particular worldview. Importantly, another common thread through all of these films is that they are inspirational. That is, they are influential for future filmmakers, they encourage them to want to make films.

Learning should be cheap…

Education, of course, is important for sustaining a growing community. Free education, however, should not mean bad education. One place of learning that has become exceedingly costly is the movie house. In New York City, for instance, I have yet to find a single dollar theater. Here, when asked why they don’t go to the movies, most people reply that the cost of admission is too expensive. Why do you think Netflix is such a successful company? It’s because it’s become less expensive to watch a film at home than at the theater. However, watching films in the cinema is still unsurpassed by any recent technology or alternative; films, after all, are made for the big, silver screen.

One way for cinemas to combat complete financial ruin is by showing older films inexpensively. Here in New York, we have a number of movie houses that feature extensive retrospectives of older films and filmmakers, but these venues still charge the same prices as other theaters.

In Conclusion…

To be at the cusp of artistic change is frightening for artists and for audiences alike. And I can assure you that we are nearing the cusp of such a change. Artists will take chances and audiences will grimace and complain, but there has to be an understanding. A change artistically can’t happen unless time warrants it. That’s one big issue I’ve had with Jean-Luc Godard and some of his later films; they weren’t about the audience anymore, it became about the revolution, the change, the method. Godard is someone I admire and think has altered modern cinema forever, but he moved too quickly for his audiences. You can call him boring, you can call him pretentious, but you can’t deny that the man takes chances and is willing to put it all on the screen. How many filmmakers (let alone artists in general) would you say do that same thing? He’s not a successful filmmaker because of these choices, but that’s the price you pay for trying to instill change in your audiences. Don’t get me wrong, one day Godard’s films will have a significant place in our culture, where casual audience members and students alike will look at them for artistic and cultural understanding, but for future filmmakers we can’t lose sight of that important thing we are making our films for: the audience. As filmmakers, it is your job to not lose sight of that. We have to understand, we have to study, we have to relate, we have to disagree with our audiences, but the moment we think we are above them, it’s over.

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.

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

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Part One: The Dying Industry

By Meseret Haddis

In this three-part examination, I will look at cinema as an industry and as an art form. In part one, I will examine the dying industry; in part two, I will examine the rebirth of the industry; in part three, I will examine how to sustain it.

Cinema as a Definition

When examining something, it’s important to be clear about what’s under examination. Here, when I refer to “cinema,” I am thinking specifically of two kinds: an economic cinema and an artist’s cinema.

By economic cinema I mean the financial aspects involved in making a movie (production costs, distribution, etc.), separate from artistic and creative decisions. Commercial cinema is a main product of an economic cinema; producing films that are created to make money. It’s something that has stayed since the golden era of Hollywood. When you have films funded by big studios, you’re expecting something that generates a big return. Big stars (like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, etc.) worked specifically for certain studios, and they would draw money for those studios by making picture after picture. Today, the intentions of studio films are the same, except that it costs more money to make them. The formula seems to be that putting more money into a film will get more money out of it.

By artist’s cinema, I mean the creative and artistic aspects of filmmaking (subject matter, methods, etc). Artist’s cinema doesn’t necessarily mean the films don’t make money; it simply means that money isn’t the main goal. Here, the goal is in trying to express a feeling, story, or image in a way that transcends money. Each kind of reformation in cinema (and in other art forms) changed the world and how we looked at it, but never planned to do so. You can’t look at Paul Thomas Anderson’s films without thinking about Scorsese or Altman (or then at Kurosawa and Fellini). Artistic cinema is a bond that can’t be defined by weekend sales, but by its cultural and psychological impact.

Can cinema die (and should it)?

When people say that cinema is dying, they are only partially right. Economic cinema, one that lives on profit, can wane and flutter, but because cinema is also an art form, neither (economic or artistic) can die. Economic cinema will always cross the line of profitable and not profitable; and at the moment, it’s not making money. This assessment isn’t difficult to make when our economy is dying; furthermore, when you look at other art forms, the death of an economic medium isn’t always bad. Sometimes it forces artists to focus on the art and not the spectacle that comes in creating it or presenting it. In some cases, it’s actually needed. In the 1980s, for instance, a stand-up comedy boom happened in the United States. Practically anyone who wanted to become a stand-up comic soon became one, since the demand for them on television grew. But, at the end of the 1980s and following into the next decade, the frenzy died down. What didn’t die was stand-up comedy; the people who wanted to be stand-up comedians stuck through the bad period, while the people who wanted their fifteen minutes got it and were never heard from again.

An economic cinema needs to go through the same process. You know you have a problem when films like Synecdoche, New York and Che can’t find distributors by the time they leave Cannes. As the economy fails, so does its art (economically). When life is good, art is great (think Renaissance literature, art, philosophy, architecture, science, etc.). When people have money and are content with their lives art can flourish, creating a necessary supply to an earnest demand. When life isn’t great, a period’s art either flounders or is transcendent. Shakespeare was born in a time of economic unrest in England, where the gap between the rich and poor was growing. That’s why it’s not surprising when people say his plays can pander to the rich in the balcony and to the poor in front of the stage. There was a need for it.

An artistic cinema sometimes needs to go through the same process. Of course, an artistic cinema can’t die, but it can go through stages that force a rebirth. Each new wave (French, American, German, Czech, and so on) began when filmmakers (and critics alike) needed to not only put their stamp on the medium, but to redefine it for their generation, their ideas, and their culture.

Are there no quality films?

It’s not that there aren’t any good films; rather, the way films are being made is changing so significantly that it’s becoming more difficult to produce good work. The big news at last year’s Oscars was that foreign backers financed a majority of the Best Picture candidates. When someone gives you money, they control what you make. Remember: distribution dictates production. And when a film like Che leaves Cannes without a distributor, not only is the industry effected (i.e. the crumbling of the specialty divisions Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures), but the filmmakers are, as well. One could say that Che was finally purchased solely because of the Soderbergh/Benicio brand.

In artistic cinema, money should never effect how a film is created. However, with the commoditization of art films, business and art are now even more inseparable. So the choices we will be left with are these:

Big budget blockbuster movies (some good, some not, but you’ll be able to see it at any theater in the country). Or: Low budget movies (again some good, some not, but will be regulated to New York and L.A. for limited engagements).

When it gets harder for Joe Shmoe to see a film like Synecdoche, New York in Kansas City, or Seattle, or Minneapolis, that’s the death of cinema. It shouldn’t be a question of whether or not we think Joe Shmoe might be interested in a film like Kaufman’s, because it isn’t our place to decide what his interests may be. Henri Langlois, the late co-founder of the famed Cinémathèque Française in Paris, took all films into his museum. He said, “One must save everything and buy everything. Never assume you know what’s of value.” I believe the same goes for showing films. How will you ever know the impact a film can have on you if you’ve never see it?