Is Cinema dying?
Perhaps the question should be put into the context of how does the dynamics of ever faster social and technological change, the advent of instant messaging and communication, the breakdown of former modes of social control/restraint impact on the films made today? In other words, if life is changing at a faster rate than any of us can readily comprehend, do film artists – as the antenas of the race (to quote Pound re poets) – reflect this in the films they are making? Or the pessimists might ask: If the world is degenerating into chaos or going to hell in a handbasket, how do films reflect this?
As long as the films reflect and comment obliquely on the current state – however it is viewed – then cinema can’t be dying. If it is part of the problem – ie, non-recognition of change – then it might as well be dead. I think we can factor out all the CGI mishmash and 3-D effects films from the equation. If we are only looking at the mass market, hyperbole driven films, then cinema might as well be deader than a doornail.
Looking at the wealth of international and independent film and the new emerging ways of distribution, I think film is far from a museum or mausoleum item yet. Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated!
No.
There are tons of great films being made in the Balkan Countries in which they never move the camera.
Cinema is alive and well!
Dimitris – Why have you taken over Jason’s identity and posting under his name? Yes, we know the Balkans is saving cinema from its death at the hands of the Americans. But you don’t need to assume Jason’s identity to tells us that!
EDIT: What? It is really is Jason after all? Dimitris – Why have you brain-washed poor Jason and now have him spewing your line?
RLS, you are as conservative as an octopus!
LOL
nah, he didn’t copy RLS….read carefully ;)
“in which they never move the camera.”
hahahaha.
Cinema is not dead yet. It is the age we live in that makes the art poor.
Just like the other arts, cinema needs its own Renaissance.
At the moment, I just see a generation of Benedectine amanuensis aware of the greatness of the greats. We say how much we love Eisenstein, Lang, Welles, Hitchcock, Bergman, Kurosawa, Kubrick, Fellini, Godard, Tarkovskij, Kieslowski… but when we are behind the camera, we don’t even try to emulate them. And if we try to do it, the result looks awkward. We don’t imitate the greats, because we still can’t do it.
Sooner or later, an enlightened generation will come. This generation will be far enough from those greats to be able to ‘study’ them in peace, just like the Humanists did with the Greek and Roman artists. And this enlightened generation will hopefully produce something greater than the films we adore.
I am not saying that we do not produce great films anymore. There have been two couples of films in the last decade that I can consider ‘masterpieces’ with ease. But those are not enough to say that we are living in a ‘golden age’ of cinema.
The Middle Age, often (mistakenly) considered a long ‘dark age’, produced great works of art. But they were all surpassed by those produded in the last centuries.
And that’s where I see us. I see us like a few Benedectine amanuensis aware of the great works of art they are handing down to the posterity and aware that the World outside their abbey ignores the existence (and the importance!) of those oeuvres.
We will get out of it. But we will have to wait.
“Just like the other arts, cinema needs its own Renaissance.”
actually, cinema had, has and will have many Renaissances, it’s distribution that’s killing it…..
There are tons of great films being made in the Balkan Countries in which they never move the camera.
The Balkans move their camera entirely too much. I blame it on the second-rate aesthetics of underdeveloped cultures.
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Moderated
Just to take it back to the first page – ABOUT the film CHE – it was good, but the reason that I believe that it didn’t get picked up after Cannes was because a good Che movie had already come out a few years earlier. Despite teens wearing his t-shirts, many people in the US don’t care about a communist revolutionary, especially if you have to watch part 1 and 2 when you could read his wiki page in 5 mins.
I just had to put in my 2 cents because I don’t know why that movie was made.
Dimitris, for reference, Jerry is mocking Armond White.
Please keep your heads cool. There’s always a decent amount of sarcasm and irony floating around the boards, and taking comments (especially when they’re so ridiculous) at face value isn’t always a preferred road to conversation.
“Jerry is mocking Armond White.”
pardon me for not knowing every single element of the Anglosaxon culture.
No
SDEL
I think it was made because they wanted to capitalize on the “teens wearing his t-shirts”
Cinema is terms of making good films is still alive and well. Always will be. Golden Ages will come and go but there shall always be great films, more or less. What concerns me is whether theatres still have a commitment to 35mm film, 70mm, superscreens, double bills, film culture in general. Also, I am very fervent about going to the cinema to see films, and I do encourage people to actually pay to see films, or see free movies when on offer at the cinema, to show theatres people want alternatives. The whole filmgoing experience for me is a major buzz.
It depends on your answer to the famous question, “What is cinema.”
My answer is that cinema is the art of film. As such, it was killed several decades ago by video. Most films today are seen by most people on a video screen, and indeed are made to be seen on video residuals. But video isn’t just a smaller, more convenient form of film — it’s a fundamentally different medium. A real film, the kind they used to make, can only effectively be experienced projected in the dark on a large screen. To say that you’ve seen a real film because you’ve seen it on a video screen is like saying that you’ve seen the Mona Lisa because you’ve seen it on a t-shirt.
No. But it’s fallen . . . and it can’t get up!
Do we detect a theme here in some recent posts?
OK – we’ve seen the images – but is it art?
Matt – hahaha! That looks like ol’ granny cinema to me, alright! Over a 100 years old and gettin’ kinda frail. Looks like some fresh blood is required…
Did someone mention blood?
Go back into your coffin – this is a serious discussion!
We’re all dying and there isn’t enough time to watch all the great cinema.
Jon, I could argue SOME films (possibly) work better on television than they do inside the cinema. Just as there are television shows that were too good for the small screen. I’m as much an advocate of going to the cinema as much as the next person: I clock more than 100 film visits per year at the cinema. That said, there are certain films I’m pretty demanding about, ones I prefer to see on the big screen, sometimes exclusively so (e.g. “West Side Story”, “Seven Samurai”). I don’t believe one NEEDS to experience a film at the cinema in order to “get” or “feel” the film. It might help, and is often preferable, but at the same time, you could always have someone in the cinema ruin it for you. Also, when does a “big screen” become a small screen? And vice versa. However, it is ridiculous when someone views something on a mobile telephone or the back of an airline seat. There must be some standards. It really depends on the film and the individual.
I disagree with the following comment by Peter Bogdanovich:
“I think one of the reasons younger people don’t like older films, films made say before the ‘60s, is that they’ve never seen them on a big screen, ever. If you don’t see a film on a big screen, you haven’t really seen it. You’ve seen a version of it, but you haven’t seen it. That’s my feeling, but I’m old-fashioned.”
Nothing to do with the big screen, really. They don’t like them because they’re old, period. Many youngsters are ignorant when it comes to ANYTHING before 1970 or whatever year. And if you see a film on television and it moves you greatly, how can you say you’ve not experienced the film? Millions of people have only ever seen “It’s a Wonderful Life” on television, and remember it wasn’t a box office hit. But it remains a popular classic and really moves you no matter how you see it.
On a totally different film, I saw “Antichrist” at the cinema, but the screen was MUCH smaller than usual, a fraction of the size of the Astor Superscreen. The cinema itself was tiny, the screen wasn’t whoppingly huge, but still many times larger than a television set. But when is a big screen no longer a big screen?
By the way, Mr. Bogdanovich (as if he’s reading), I enjoyed “What’s Up Doc?” rather well. It’s a visual comedy, and admittedly, I’d love to enjoy it on the big screen ‘cause that’s just me, but whether you see a film at the cinema or a reasonable sized screen, you’ve seen it. Yet I will be the first to say the cinema experience does enhance most films…whereas I think I would’ve been better off seeing “Akira” on videotape or DVD!
Edit: double post.
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Peter Bogdanovich:
“I think one of the reasons younger people don’t like older films, films made say before the ‘60s, is that they’ve never seen them on a big screen, ever. If you don’t see a film on a big screen, you haven’t really seen it. You’ve seen a version of it, but you haven’t seen it. That’s my feeling, but I’m old-fashioned.”
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I’d never seen that quote before, but I agree with it.
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Nothing to do with the big screen, really. They don’t like them because they’re old, period. Many youngsters are ignorant when it comes to ANYTHING before 1970 or whatever year.
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I don’t know … when I was in college, films (the whole history of them) were part of student culture, like rock music. You could meet someone at a party and start talking about Busby Berkeley or John Ford films from the 30s and 40s just like you could start talking about the latest Rolling Stones album, on the assumption that because they were part of your cohort, they would be interested in such things. You could even mention Eisenstein in the assurance that the response wouldn’t be, “Uh, the guy who invented that relativity thing?” And when Alfred Hitchcock came to campus for a question and answer session after a screening of one of his films, the auditorium was totally full. I remember that the questions the students asked him were quite detailed and technical — why for instance did he use a certain camera angle in a certain two second shot in a film thirty years earlier. I also remember that he was pleased and surprised to get such questions, and that he always had the answer immediately.
In that environment, the passage of time didn’t seem to make older films obsolete. If younger people today think of older films as irrelevant, there must be a reason beside the appeal of novelty to youth.=
But when is a big screen no longer a big screen?
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It’s not just a matter of measurement. A screen’s diagonal has to be big enough in relation to the throw distance that it looks like a movie rather than a video — tautological maybe, but that’s the best I can do. But darkness and distance are also important. If you can watch it in a lighted room, I’d say it’s not really a movie, and if you can reach over and turn it off, I’d say it’s not really a movie.
Redrum4
The only real answer to this question-
Yes… and no.