BREAKING TENSION IN CINEMA

[socketlevel]

I think not being able to discuss these things ties into what cronnenberg was saying at cannes (another thread), once we censor ourselves it leads to mediocrity and lack of progression.

these are just thoughts, and we are a group of people that on some level gravitate toward this cyberpace to talk.  so lets fuckin' do it.  PC or anti-PC lets just drop it at the door.  because then we'll have nothing interesting to talk about if we don't.

for instance one thought could be that everyone in the classroom that laughed or giggled (regardless of being white or black) are just assholes.  so then Mac or I or Pete could redirect to:

http://xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=6852&highlight=

that's just an inside joke, but a valid claim as any.  looking at his last post i don't see any racism, why don't we actually talk about what he's asking about.  I've got my stance on it, i've written it above.  what's your point of view?  why to you think only blacks laughed at it?  that's far more interesting then bringing out historical refferences (which i admit i do as well) and say why he shouldn't even talk about it.

-sl-

[socketlevel]

I'm late in this discussion, but sl, your initial post really struck me.

i guess it was a poor choice by the filmmaker that made the video you saw in class.

Maybe I'm assuming the wrong thing here, but I think what was shown in his class was documentary footage of civil rights protestors being hosed. I doubt the filmmaker was making deliberate, cinematic choices besides "capture this shit."

You might be a little too brainwashed by film school. Think outside of it for a moment.

come on, there is still rhetoric in editing and how you present it, or maybe the choice of presenting it at all.  i used a hypothetical approach, and that's in my delivery, hence the "I guess..." you quoted.  it was a thought.

so what do you think?  please expand my mind with your outside the "brainwashed" point of view.

-sl-

[kotte]

Maybe I'm assuming the wrong thing here, but I think what was shown in his class was documentary footage of civil rights protestors being hosed. I doubt the filmmaker was making deliberate, cinematic choices besides "capture this shit."

I don't know when the footage was shot but nowadays it's possible to edit your material. Shoot something, anything and you can make a laugh riot out of it as well as something serious and profound.

If this was something obviously funny, Chaplin funny, he had the choice to cut away from it...

What I'm arguing here is that CAPTURE THE SHIT isn't enough...

[meatball]

Maybe I'm assuming the wrong thing here, but I think what was shown in his class was documentary footage of civil rights protestors being hosed. I doubt the filmmaker was making deliberate, cinematic choices besides "capture this shit."

I don't know when the footage was shot but it is possible to edit your material. Shoot something, anything and you can make a laugh riot out of it as well as something serious and profound.

If this was something obviously funny, Chaplin funny, he had the choice to cut away from it...

What I'm arguing here is that CAPTURE THE SHIT isn't enough...

Wasn't this a news camera? Or was this an individual filmmaker? I'm assuming it was a news camera, in which the image is captured and... hopefully... not tampered with.

Here in Los Angeles, a news camera just captured a man being run over by a car. He tries to dodge out of the way, but the car runs over his legs with both the front wheels and back wheels as if he were a rag doll. It's painful to watch, but at the same time a little funny. I'm glad they showed the footage untouched, and I never once thought about distance of the subject or editing choices to make it less funny or less painful.

[socketlevel]

Maybe I'm assuming the wrong thing here, but I think what was shown in his class was documentary footage of civil rights protestors being hosed. I doubt the filmmaker was making deliberate, cinematic choices besides "capture this shit."

I don't know when the footage was shot but it is possible to edit your material. Shoot something, anything and you can make a laugh riot out of it as well as something serious and profound.

If this was something obviously funny, Chaplin funny, he had the choice to cut away from it...

What I'm arguing here is that CAPTURE THE SHIT isn't enough...

Wasn't this a news camera? Or was this an individual filmmaker? I'm assuming it was a news camera, in which the image is captured and... hopefully... not tampered with.

Here in Los Angeles, a news camera just captured a man being run over by a car. He tries to dodge out of the way, but the car runs over his legs with both the front wheels and back wheels as if he were a rag doll. It's painful to watch, but at the same time a little funny. I'm glad they showed the footage untouched, and I never once thought about distance of the subject or editing choices to make it less funny.

but it does, i doubt they tried to make it look funny.  they just stumbled upon the techniques that makes something look funny.  an accident or coincidence but the form for humor is there.

there is something to be said for subjectivity of humor as well.

-sl-

[Gabe]

See, in all relativity to the thread, when Meatball says that the back wheels ran over the guys legs, all I can think of are the way 'crazy legs' legs looked in 'Don't Be a Menace' and its just hilarious. I think its easier to choose to laugh than to pity someone, even if it is inconsiderate. IT DIDNT HAPPEN TO YOU!

[meatball]

About "enlightening" you with my "un-brainwashed" mind, I just have a thought about film school, having recently vacated one.

I guess... I see it as a breeding ground for bad habits and thinking in a "brainwashed" way that is encouraged by the faculty and peers. As if adhering to the school's teachings guarantees good storytelling or good cinema. Why? Because we're all paying good money for this school to teach us how to do what we want to be doing, filmmaking. I don't know. It's just a thought.

[kotte]

I guess... I see it as a breeding ground for bad habits and thinking in a "brainwashed" way that is encouraged by the faculty and peers. As if adhering to the school's teachings guarantees good storytelling or good cinema. Why? Because we're all paying good money for this school to teach us how to do what we want to be doing, filmmaking. I don't know. It's just a thought.

You unlucky bastard...what school did you go to??

[meatball]

You unlucky bastard...what school did you go to??

Xixax.

[socketlevel]

About "enlightening" you with my "un-brainwashed" mind, I just have a thought about film school, having recently vacated one.

I guess... I see it as a breeding ground for bad habits and thinking in a "brainwashed" way that is encouraged by the faculty and peers. As if adhering to the school's teachings guarantees good storytelling or good cinema. Why? Because we're all paying good money for this school to teach us how to do what we want to be doing, filmmaking. I don't know. It's just a thought.

true, it doesn't garuntee shit, besides i'm done now.  it gave me the opportunity to make a bunch of films until i made one that i'm somewhat proud of.  there are diamonds in the teachings though.  i take what i want and leave the rest.  i have had two teachers to mention, lily alexander (who's at NYU now) and Michael Conford that inspired me, humbled me and most important when i was on to something great pushed me forward.  both stellar and i learned a lot from them.  the majority of teachers are a waste of your money, but those two were worth the whole thing.

i have a love hate relationship with it.  and the stuff i brought up on this thread comes from my own observations.  See that's something i look down on film school for.  i, supposedly, was at the best film school in canada, yet they never told you important techniques, like the conventions of certain genres (ie. comedy and the wide shot).  so i brought it upon myself to look at these films and come up with the answers.  some stuff i got from books, that proved me wrong or right and others from experimenting.

now if i had spent four years experimenting my parents would not have financialy help me.  so i'm glad i did it in the end.

to each his own.  just don't presume my experience's shaped by any third party factors, i might surprise you.  i'll  give you the same respect.

-sl-

[Gabe]

Who can come up with a tally of the xixaxers films you've seen and how good they are?

[socketlevel]

see now you're on to something.  that should be a thread.  i'd love to see all the xixax posters' films.

fuck that would be great if there was a way.

i guess the only way would be to host it yourself or show stills from the film.

-sl-

[Brazoliange]

Thrindle, I can see what you're saying and largely agree, but a lot of the time behaviors are general. I go to school and half of the black people that go there listen to hip-hop and try to start shit with other people. I'm not trying to say this in an "all-are-the-same" way, but a lot are similar to the point where it becomes habit to think of certain patterns when we see certain people.

I think what Jarubei initially said wasn't so much racist as much as looking at a group of people in his class. Just like I'd look at most teenage girls and think they probably like romantic comedies. Or most high-school guys and think they like really shitty mainstream comedies and action movies.

Not sure about anyone's follow-ups though.

some of the dumbest things I've read in a while.
first of all, you say that "half the black people" in your school listen to hip hop--as if that's some kind of stereotype that they're fulfilling.  like the type of music has nothing to do with the culture you were brought up in or the demographic/ niche you belong to as a consumer.  no, you lumped it roughly in the same category as "trying to start some shit".  which on the outset looks like HOT DAMN, TWO things them black folks are liable to do that you've caught them doing red-handed!
so lets break down this claim "trying to start some shit".  first of all, it's vague.  what shit are they trying to start, that 50% of the black population in your high school are guilty of?  are they talking "hard"?  are they threatening your presence?  has 50% of the black population, in fact, challenged you on a series of 1-on-1s that you and your civil white class mates have to politely turn down?  Call me Nostradumbass, the prophet of all things dumbass related, but I assume that no, when you say "trying to start some shit" you're probably referring to how you feel threatened by their demeanors.  and OBVIOUSLY this has everything to do with their skin color.  you, brazilmonkey of omaha, cannot help how you generalize an entire race of people based on the 50% of them that go to your high school.  No.  You're just a victim of racism.  MLK fought so hard for your right to not ever have to descriminate again, but those 50% just have to ruin it for everyone.

intermission, now to your second point aka a dumbass defense for jaruebi's categorization of black people in the first place.

you saw his labelling of an entire group of people in his class as naive, because YOU (aka not him) think teenagers like shitty movies.  that's a really dumb defense isn't it?  no?  want me to break it down?  okay: you're claiming that he's not racist by saying that sometimes you categorize teenagers unjustly.  does that make any sense?

also, I'm not calling jarubei racist.  nor am I calling you.  you're both still young and sheltered and just have really fucked-up notions of race relations and sociological interactions between the classes in this country.  your parents/ school/ church/ internet forums have failed to reach you early on in life that generalization and categorization and stereotyping all stem from ignorance and laziness and human's stubborn unwillingness to recognize ALL human beings as conscious capable human beings, beautiful creations of God or descendents of the monkeys from 2001.  AND then you thought yourself savvy and got entangled in all these raging debates of PC and anti-PC and post-PC movements, in which everyone is arguing with everyone else the merits of "how far is too far" and "what does so and so really mean when he says such and such outrageous statements about race" to which you, my Nebraskan friend, have no part of.  Why?  Because you can't even see people beyond their skin colors.

jesus christ....

I'm not saying me personally, I'm saying that a large number that I've seen around my school (only about 10% of my current high-school isn't black) have gotten in mine or my friends' faces, or tried to pick a fight with us or someone we've known.

I was saying that he was probably looking at them as a clique in his class (wrong word, but you get the fucking idea). We all have these groups today (or maybe it's just my school), the 'jocks', the 'band group', the troublemakers. I can't even find names for them all, but when you hit lunch don't you sit with your 'friends' or the group you feel comfortable with? and hang out with them?

again this is coming from a high-school perspective, so bear with me.

let me put it this way (feel free to attack my blatant idiocy [but not racism, I was just brought up badly]): when I go to hang out in the computer lab while I wait for my ride for 3 hours every day after school, a group of 3-8 black guys comes down with speakers and starts streaming hip-hop music videos from the internet. loudly. Do I see any of my white, asian, or other classmates running down to throw on hip-hop? no.


sorry that I haven't experienced every black person alive, I'm dealing with a sample space here.

-end civilized response-

fuck you, so high and mighty ruler of the races. You're insulting my parents and the way I've been raised and raised myself? You know nothing about me, and you judge me because I try to interpret what someone else said. Sorry I tried to think for myself instead of believing everything I read directly.

Did I ever say every black person is the same? I just said a lot of black people tend to have the same habits. Why? Culture? Their raising? Their friends being near eachothers' families while they grew up? I don't fucking know! *insert big gasp here*

but you're a fucking idiot if you think that people in Africa have different habits and tastes than people in America than people in Japan than people in Russia.

Bits I especially love:
"No.  You're just a victim of racism.  MLK fought so hard for your right to not ever have to descriminate again, but those 50% just have to ruin it for everyone."

"you're both still young and sheltered and just have really fucked-up notions of race relations and sociological interactions between the classes in this country.  your parents/ school/ church/ internet forums have failed to reach you early on in life that generalization and categorization and stereotyping all stem from ignorance and laziness and human's stubborn unwillingness to recognize ALL human beings as conscious capable human beings, beautiful creations of God or descendents of the monkeys from 2001."

"you, brazilmonkey of omaha, cannot help how you generalize an entire race of people based on the 50% of them that go to your high school." - aside from the fact that you misinterpreted this and decided to turn on attack mode

stop trying to pick fights, you're not better than any of the rest of us.


your post sickens me and makes me want to leave Xixax.

[edit] and I don't think I'm unjustly classifying my peers when I look at my student forums and see 50% of the population of my school talking about how Miracle is one of the best movies ever made and "lol how pimp Kicking and Screaming looks".. oh, and "it's gotta be better than whatever that Casablanca movie is anyways"..

[Brazoliange]

aside from which, this thread was supposed to be about breaking tension and not equality

[Gabe]

Black People + Xixax = Touchy Subject