Why would cinema die? Have you went in a cinema in these times there is still a lot of good movies playing every week, too much good movies that are released everywhere in the world to allow you see then all…
It’s almost dead…
When independent film became a viable way to make commercial films, it killed the hopes of revitalizing the medium. I’m not saying that cinema dying is a bad thing. It’s needed. In the 80’s their was a comedy boom in the United States. Everyone, who wanted to become a stand up comic, became one, television execs were handing pilot deals off the street. But at the end of the 80’s and into the 90’s it died a beautiful death. The rebirth of comedy and comedians, showed the wherewithal of the comedians who struggled through the boom and came out of it still in comedy. Those who were looking for their 15 minutes in the 80’s got it and after it ended we forgot about them. Those who truly were comedians survived and are still around.
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. That’s just the beginning, as is film companies cutting back on their specialty devisions (what I believe Olivier would classify as the good movies that have been coming out – most of those films are acquired from these divisions). As the economy fails so does it’s art. When life is good, art is great (think Renaissance in literature, art, philosophy, science, etc). When life is down, art either dies (leaving an era of no advancement) or lives through those with true intentions who later give it a chance to be reborn.
This doesn’t mean their won’t be good films. Now that these companies are being more cautious about choosing films, it just means there will be fewer of them. At that rate their isn’t much hope for cinema as you and I would like to see it. So just bide your time, let it die, and be ready for the rebirth. That’s what people should be worried about.
ah Mezm, you have hit the nail directly on the head. I completely, absolutely agree. The writing is on the wall. You’re either willing to look at it or bury your head in the sand. Either way, death/rebirth/transformation is inevitable. Film isn’t dying. Cinema (the industry that funds creates and distributes film) is sickening however, coughing up phlegm and wheezing like a confused old man writhing in TB sheets, afraid to look out of the grimy window at a brave new world he does not understand.
Hey Roberto, I am not sure what you mean exactly with your statement? If you mean, the death of Cinema means the end of good films, then I have to disagree. Cause I think there are still a lot of really amazing films being made today. Though, if you mean, the death of Cinema, in terms of fewer directors showing their films in the movie theaters or if you mean, more and more directors are choosing to use digital cameras for their films, as oppose to using actual 16mm/35mm film, then I will partially agree with your statement. But, I will also have to say that Cinema will never be ‘completely’ death! Even in the age of MP3 players and digital downloads, if there are still people who are collecting Vynl’s and, more importantly, enjoy listening to their favorite tunes ONLY from these now labeled “old-fashioned” devices; I think there always will be Cinema ,and movie theaters that shows films, and Cinephiles that are excited about watching these films in the actual movie theaters, regardless of how niche or small this audience group might be…
| literature will never die, theatre will never die, the opera will never die, cinema will never die … never in history a medium has been replaced by another…
Hey fellow film theoreticians/ film makers. Apologies for being incredibly vague but due to time issues i can’t be as thorough as i would desire, hopefully soon I can cultivate a sufficient response/essay that Mr Bazin would adhere to. I mean this may seem somewhat paradoxical to some but solemnly think, and converse. Lets be Socratic about this. Is the zealous essence of film/form/montage gradually expiring amongst capital, avaricious individuals, society ect. I’m a prolific worker in the industry and what I observe is vile, vulger, impudent and oppressive.
Angelus, perhaps by death what is being referred to is not the absolute extinction of the artform but the decline of its heyday to the margins, to the edges, to niche appreciation, to elite, to the underground…every form you mention has gone through a birth, a supernova explosion when it stood central to the culture that birthed it, and finally a red dwarf sunset, burning quietly (but still capable of great power, great impact and massive social relevance for those to whom it speaks). I also disagree that never in history has an artform been replaced by another. Each art you mention has evolved from beginning points to forms unrecognizable to its progenitors. Yes, nothing is directly replaced. But it is usurped— its significance, its capacity to hold the attention of a society en masse changing in time with politics, social revolution, spiritual/ethical values and technology.
Interestingly enough, I was talking to a game developer the other day, high up in his field, working for Lucas arts —I asked him what the major challenges facing his industry were in the coming years —and he told me two things. 1) the next major leap for interactive gaming is how to engage the player emotively in the story —and to this end they are employing screenwriters from Hollywood to write scripts. and 2) cinematography, to which end they are employing cinematographers to work alongside the visual artists.
You see, what interests me about this is the way his eyes were shining with revolutionary glee —as if his artform was emerging from an infancy akin to the Lumiere brothers, and beginning to see the horizon of DWGriffith and beyond. I can’t find that same zeal in my interactions with the film industry.
First rule of art —flux and mutability. Even this site is a move to democratize, to revolutionize the way in which we experience film, break it from its distributional prison. Watching a film online is not the same as watching one in a theater. Gradually, film will evolve to meet a new viewer expectation, and as it does so, the form will evolve… reborn, but in a different shape to the one it took in the 20th century. Maybe it’s not cinema that’s dying, but the audience.
For me, cinema ain’t dying, it’s hibernating (or in a coma).
It is true that these past years cinema has been flatlining…
…both in content and “industry-wise”.
But after every deep cultural crash, comes a refreshing re-birth.
Gotta keep the optimism.
So I’m eager to see what comes next.
We need new cinematic languages, filmmakers need to start taking chances.
But the industry we know today, won’t do this for us.
And I don’t think we will see this change coming from the US, anytime soon.
(Unless a miracle happens)
A new independent film industry needs to re-emerge,
one that keeps the flux and mutability rule in mind, just like the Tdude says.
New formats, new technologies, a unified and globalized market, smarter production models…
… and above all, producers with a good set of balls.
Of course cinema can never die but i do agree with the assertion that we are waiting for a rebirth. Mez and T have valid points and of course there are good films around even great films but they are few compared to the amount of crap that swirls around. I think that the ratio is something like 20 to 1 good films to bad. For every mongol there are twenty accepted, college, the house bunny ( even though i like anna faris those films are just there for profit alone) movies that the studio exec see as dollar signs only. Honestly the invention of the test audiences really brought on the beginning of the end for the auteur.
An article on this topic in the NYTimes. Maybe they were reading this thread? (There is another article on this topic, if I find it I’ll post it.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/movies/moviesspecial/07darg.html?_r=1&ref=movies&oref=slogin
Not a death, just a tremendous evolutionary change: in media, in distribution, in budget, in audiences. For the better, in the long run, let’s hope!
I lot of people of our generation will not tolerate this change, because this time (and unlike other “evolutionary changes in media, distribution, etc, etc”) the change will be drastic.
Hey people! you either embrace it, or you will loose the train, and you will grow to be the typical elder cliche:
“when i was young, films were better, not like the shit they are doing today.”
We must evolve with the times, yet never lose the insight that has been given to us by our predecessors. As simple as it may sound we must respect and learn from our elders. This is the beauty of film that it is up to us to go and watch what those before us did. To learn and grow they way did. Man i sound like some professor sorry ladies and gentlemen i’m going to work.
Amen.
T, I have to disagree. With this…
“Film isn’t dying. Cinema (the industry that funds creates and distributes film) is sickening however.”
Correct me if I take these statements too literally. The words Cinema & Film must be switched in these proclamations. I agree that the Hollywood industry has longsince been corrupted. No argument there. However to call ‘the industry’ ‘cinema’ is a frightening thought & this idea should be shunned at all costs.
Film, the celluloid material, IS, and has been, dying a languid & writhing death. The advent of digital photography will soon see the final burial of ’film’making whether we like it or not. There will only be moviemakers left. Since I’ve started making short films (the majority on digital) I have refused to call myself a filmmaker, I find it dishonest. I am a cinemamaker. I create cinema without using film. & I do not mean this as some clever twist in the way Cocteau means when he says “I am not a writer, I am a poet. To be a poet is to write, without being a writer.” But I digress…
The digital revolution has easily has more pro’s than con’s. From either a mainstream or an independent perspective it is more cost-efficient; & from a personal hand-held perspective, it’s simply easier to maneuver. As far as con’s go we only have the supposed quality & visual depth of film over digital, & the other argument I’ve heard being the simple nostalgic merit. & if I may say: “Fuck nostalgia”.
Again, to stranglehold the word ‘Cinema’ as synonymous with the system is too jarringly myopic for my taste. Cinema is ubiquitous. Your screensaver is cinema; your microwave is cinema; the view out an airplane window is cinema. Let’s never forget that.
Also, to answer the question of the post, “Is Cinema Dying?” My answer comes from a response I gave to some local art-school college girls who, no joke, giddily invited me to a party they were hosting called ‘Art is Dead, and Warhol Killed It’. In shock I told them, “I don’t know whether to tell you that your pessimism is so naive it’s offensive, or if I should just slap you.” They laughed but I could see the loss of hope in their eyes. I also told them, “& you’re giving that douchebag WAY too much credit”, but that doesn’t really apply here. As an afterthought, if anyone’s interested, I couldn’t bring myself to hang-out with them thereafter & later found out they canceled the shindig, which I took as a personal victory. The point of telling this tragic story of my peers is that (although it was phrased as an innocent question & I am not pointing fingers at the poster), in general, anyone who proclaims that ‘art is dead’ or ‘cinema is dead’ simply doesn’t have the creative flux in themselves & therefore wants to forever bury the medium with the hope that no one else can revive it & thus prove them wrong. They envy creation & prey on its destruction. It may seem sad, but it is a most human of qualities.
To try to tie together both of these rants in a phrase:
Innovation is the key.
I agree that sometimes the fate of cinema looks grim (never in my life have I felt there was less to see in the theaters). I think collectively though, cinephiles (for lack of a better archetypal title) eager for growth in this field won’t let it die. I know I won’t. =)
It’s getting there
warhol a douchebag?
Cinema dies with every bad film and is reborn with every good one. Perhaps it has just been rather sickly of late..
The argument is not that it is dying, but that there are so many bad films to choose from that it blurs our vision from seeing the really great and good films. I mean has anyone seen the visitor which is nestled in between crapola like meet dave and step brothers. All in all we have to continue to gripe, because if all we get is one good film per every twenty than so be it, i’m not hard to please. Besides not to brag but my dvd collection is around 5,000 strong. So i can always bunker down with my generator and escape for years. So go ahead hollywood do your worse.
“Again, to stranglehold the word ‘Cinema’ as synonymous with the system is too jarringly myopic for my taste. Cinema is ubiquitous. Your screensaver is cinema; your microwave is cinema; the view out an airplane window is cinema. Let’s never forget that.”
cinema
Noun
1. a place designed for showing films
2. the cinema
a. the art or business of making films
b. films collectively [shortened from cinematograph]
3.
a. A film or movie.
b. A movie theater.
4.
a. Films or movies considered as a group.
b. The film or movie industry.
5. The art or technique of making films or movies; filmmaking.
various dictionary defintions
I took this as my starting point for an argument, or rather more specifically 2a and 4b. Now Nathan/Art, while I agree with you that “cinema” can be extended in meaning to include almost all vistas capable of movie broadcast or inspiring such (although how far will this go? – the cell phone screen? the thumbnail?) , we are entering a debate about the nature of transmission architecture, which is perhaps a wider scope than I thought this forum post originally intended. “Transmission Architecture” stands atop a genus/species/phylum/order breakdown of media. And maybe this is where we can cut to the bone, because it includes discussion of means of production (which is really the big change in how moving pictures are created now)… BUT… that said, I think your distinctions are both exacting and accurate. I would still describe myself as a filmmaker because ultimately I prefer celluloid mediums (16mm and up) – and when I work digitally, unless it’s intended purely for a DVD only release or the web, I always seek funding to convert to 35mm post production (which is a cheat admittedly, but this is more a constraint of resources than a failure of intention)… but for me, and the purposes so far in this debate, filmmaking is a kind of shorthand for the (non physical specific) medium of movie making— it’s content (the history of narrative/factual/imaginarium representation)… and it’s method (which despite digital invention hasn’t actually evolved much – we are still dealing with cuts and edits, shots structure, cinematography)…
Every generation makes this statement, be it about painting, photography, poetry, literature, theatre or cinema and they all still exist today. The idea that it seems like things are so much “worse” now is taken out of context, we only get to see the most successful and occasionally some of the more obscure “cult” films from cinema history, but there were just as many if not more “bad” films being made back then as there are now, nothing has really changed except there is possibly more visual media in our faces 24/7 that it seems overwhelmingly bad 95% of the time and what came before often seems better, but in fact it is because only the better works have survived and the rest are forgotten.
Ultimately it depends on what kind of “cinema” you are into, that is, mainstream, independent, arthouse etc. How you personally define cinema and where you exist in the world and what you have access to, but you can totally filter out all the crap, focus on the past masterpieces and the occasional contemporary gem that pops up once in a while and get by quite nicely, which Bronc sounds like he is fully equipped for and I’m sure many others are pretty self contained and have been for some time to combat the long cinematic droughts.
I commend those who still desire to use celluloid. I personally would love to use 65mm &/or 70mm filmstock. Alas, I am restricted by poverty. I don’t have time to respond in detail right now {though I will say I assumed a dictionary would be brought out :)} and I appreciate the term ‘transmission architecture’.
I propose a new thread be stared, titled “What is Cinema?”
It is the “craft” and “spirit” of filmmaking that is dying, most significantly the art of screenwriting/storytelling that is really affecting cinema, most films now are either revisionist or hybrids of other films from cinema history cut and pasted together, with the emphasis usually on new technology and pointless nonlinear story structures and multiple points of view to bamboozle the audioviewer. It’s about getting back to basics, “returning to zero”, and as T points out, not much has changed in the method and production of films over the last 100+ years anyway – it has always, and will always come down to the craft of the storytelling (be it narrative or nonnarrative), simple as that, if it engages an audience or not regardless of production format, language or transmission architecture.
“though I will say I assumed a dictionary would be brought out…”
play with the razor sharp knife of exactitude, paper cuts will ensue :)
No. A storytelling format could never die. Those films will find a venue. Home release is powerful.
To be honest, I sometimes look at my list of favorite directors and wonder why there are so few worth paying attention to these days. The number of filmmakers I actually actively keep up with these days is tiny. However, I don’t think cinema will ever die. It’s true that commercialism is an impediment to art, and that there aren’t a ton of auteurs out there, but there will always be art. As long as cameras exist, so will cinema. It may dwindle and wane over the years, but there will always be at least one auteur keeping an eye on (hopefully).
Great movies still come out every year.
I would argue that radio drama is dead.
Just in response to the idea that a story telling format can’t die.
You don’t see much hieroglyphics these days either.
Roberto
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