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May 1996, Week 5

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Subject:
From:
Eduardo Antin <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 31 May 1996 02:25:06 -0300
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Murray Pomerance's long and thoughtful posting remind me of a story told by
Truffaut in the 60's. It goes more ore less this way. A famous film critic
from a journal is called to the editor's office. The editor says to the
critic: "In your last review, you praised this film. But, I have to tell
you, my mother in law hated it". This story is similar in a way to
Pomerance=B4s story at dinner time. There is a difference, although. In thos=
e
days, there were no film students. But the nature of the problem is the
same. In both cases, someone showed disrespect for the cinematic knowledge
of somebody. I am not able to tell if the phrase "our society" applies to
both decades, but I'm inclined to say that the world of Truffaut and his
collegues is very different from ours. What remains the same is the nature
of the media. Film always aroused this kind of confusion, liberated the
freedom of speech of the ignorant. It=B4s hard to imagine a literature
student saying: " This Madame Bovary is sexist bullshit. I abandoned it in
page 90." Or the editor informing a prestigious book reviewer about his
relatives' taste. But the problem is that you cannot force people to see
Blow Up 20 times. You cannot force them either to see it one time with a
good disposition. Borges used to say to his students that if they read a
book and, in spite of it=B4s prestige, they didn=B4t enjoy it, then they sho=
uld
leave it because that book was not meant for them. Somebody can argue that
film studies were invented precisely to create an environment were these
things don't happen. And that a film student should not behave like an
outsider. I think this is not so, and the problem has nothing to do with
disrespect or with "our society" (at least in terms of posmodernism or so).
The problem is film itself. We are educated in film as a popular
entertainment. We learn to love and hate films from our early years. Even
film students and film teachers are educated this way. Even "art film"
lovers behave this way. And film keeps it=B4s double nature as art and
entertainment all the way. And analysis wont prevent us from loving or
hating films in ways that may be very irrational, but are very important to
us. Those who care most about film take this love and hate very seriously.
Even they take their prejudices seriously. Maybe to the point of ending up
making films or analysing film and teaching about film. (I=B4m afraid of
thinking that things go otherwise, that people who teach about cinema don=B4=
t
love or hate the movies that they see.) There is a moment when we learn
that watching a film 25 times, reading about it and listening to those who
thought about it is interesting, encreases our knowledge and our pleasure.
Economy or law students don=B4t think that their teachers may have nothing t=
o
say about their subjects, but film students do beacuse people in the
streets do, their parents do, their friends do. It=B4s easier to learn a
couple of jargon terms, even whole theories than to learn how to learn. And
make them learn, or repeat or comment or write analysis won=B4t make them
feel this interest, this pleasure. When this happen, when somebody reaches
the point of discovery of these new pleasures, it=B4s a miracle if it happen=
s
truly. But it doesn=B4t happen often. And this is the problem with film, the
problem with art, with college, with society and it will keep being the
problem, a problem that forced respect doesn=B4t solve.
 
Quintin
Buenos Aires
 
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