tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10161060.post690596437851560083..comments2023-11-05T04:31:48.615-05:00Comments on Elusive Lucidity: The Tribalism of CinephiliaZChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10211734319629732065noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10161060.post-44363535569811372152007-06-25T21:32:00.000-04:002007-06-25T21:32:00.000-04:00Kevin, I'm glad you could get something out of thi...Kevin, I'm glad you could get something out of this.<BR/><BR/>Jameson's "lumping" of the new modernists is the sort of thing he sometimes does with too much ease, and as I alluded to in my post on violence above, I also think Jameson--like a lot of "moonlighters" in film studies--sometimes settles too easily for generalizations of whatever they know from DVD or arthouses or big film festivals; hence Jameson always uses this shorthand for the 'great auteurs of the 1950s' (Bergman, Kurosawa, Fellini) and the great late modernists like Yang or Sokurov. (He doesn't always let his hand show as to the extent to which he considers these 'greats' personal favorites versus the extent to which he's merely letting them be identified by their stature, so that he can examine them & their work as cultural artifacts. I think he does have much genuine affection for Yang & Sokurov, though.) Anyway, the article itself (on Sokurov) is pretty good at delving into what Sokurov does, his significance, and contextualizes the forms he uses rather than indicate they're merely difficult "writerly" play.ZChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10211734319629732065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10161060.post-18712192149735830282007-06-25T17:17:00.000-04:002007-06-25T17:17:00.000-04:00great post. For years I have wanted to write an e...great post. For years I have wanted to write an essay provisionally titled "Against Cinephilia", inspired in some part by Sontag's "Against Interpretation". Your gleanings and comments get at some of the points I've wanted to lay out. My main point though, kind of tied to yours, has been consternation at the cinephilic impulse to "consume" movies as a fanboy hobby rather than tapping into a greater sense of purpose and appreciation for life beyond the screen. <BR/><BR/>That line you attribute to Brenez made me think of David Thomson and his eventual disgruntlement with cinema and regret of having spent so much time watching movies under the supposition (a false one, he eventually determined) that it was as good as if not better than living in real life. (I'm paraphrasing from an essay Kent Jones wrote which took to task Thomson's last iteration of his Dictionary of Film). I think cinema inspires that kind of all-consuming passion due to how easily it may supplant lived reality. It comes back to that balance you speak of at the end, feeling that you are in possession of your life regardless of however you spend it (rather than how exactly you spend it?)<BR/><BR/>That paragraph on Lawson can easily describe my own alienated moments while foraging the blogosphere.<BR/><BR/>Looking more closely at the Naremore paragraph, I'm kind of put off by the cavalier tone by which he regards all those great filmmakers he lumps together as the new modernists. He seems to imply that their interest is chiefly in their own production and formalistic practices, not in anything greater. I'd be hard-pressed to say that about nearly all of the filmmakers he names. <BR/><BR/><BR/>PS: Joyce of Ulysses - stereotypically accessible????alsolikelifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00413911837893154382noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10161060.post-51039040380095653252007-06-24T09:12:00.000-04:002007-06-24T09:12:00.000-04:00That's a great distinction, Dave (polymathism vs. ...That's a great distinction, Dave (polymathism vs. culture of polymathism). And even in my own chosen academic/publishing field, film studies, I feel like there's almost a sense in which "generalist" indicates nothing more than a mainstream-centered dilettantism, as though someone interested in cinema "in general" is going to be like David Denby rather than Adrian Martin--you receive wisdom rather than go spelunking all over the map. I think this applies to culture in general, too. But polymathism is alive--just look at Girish, left-brainer by day, right-brainer by night, musician & sketch artist in his free moments, etc.<BR/><BR/>Those three rules are good ones. And they apply even if one has no special interest in films or being a filmmaker--cinema needn't be the object.ZChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10211734319629732065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10161060.post-17845682826124656212007-06-24T02:14:00.000-04:002007-06-24T02:14:00.000-04:00In the last few years, there have been a few diffe...In the last few years, there have been a few different books with the title or subtitle "The Last Man Who Knew Everything." These books are mainly biographical, but carry a hint of exoticism towards the idea of the successful polymath; often they suggest that such achievements are no longer possible. Of course this is fiction; the institutionally authorized sources of learning benefit from this myth of unbreachable (and hence unquestionable) expertise. What I think has faded is the <I>culture</I> of polymathism. Where intellectuals once strove to achieve in disparate fields, now most choose to remain firmly enclosed in their discipline, or create cross-disciplinary approaches that unify their areas of interest. I don't believe this shift from multidisciplinarity to interdisciplinarity is true of the arts. Art is always a polymathic enterprise. <BR/><BR/>One of the people who taught me the most about filmmaking had 3 rules for being a filmmaker: <BR/>1. Take drum lessons.<BR/>2. Do physics.<BR/>3. Watch 2 movies a day. <BR/>Which is to say, learn to feel rhythm deep inside yourself, to improve the rhythm of your cuts and your sense of music in the world; be a student of the world, and an observer of the way things work around you; and keep your mind sharp with the techniques of your art. I do my best to keep to these rules (the spirit, if not always the letter) because they are, in a way, an extension of my polymathic impulse.David McDougallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11020826602374694194noreply@blogger.com