i am troubled by pete's signature (academia nuts)

[Pubrick]

the usual cop out. surprise surprise.

hahahaha. are you serious?

heres something that only those with balls will answer: if im doing woman studies because i think that women are so beautiful and that i love them so much that i want to study every specific way they are beautiful and how they influence males, and then i see that all men out there think that loving women equals raping them, wouldnt i feel obligated to say 'hey you people are fucking crazy?' unless of course i was afraid for my life because if all men were crazy motherfuckers raping women constantly in the streets in daylight id WANT TO JUST HIDE IN MY QUATERS AND CONTINUE STUDYING THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN. but defending cinema in that sense is not the same as confronting a society of psychotic raping men, so if film academia is not objecting to the film school process, its because they either dont give a shit or are afraid of the political consequences. convince me otherwise.

can you maybe rephrase your point so it MAKES SENSE and doesn't sound like the ravings of a COMPLETE WACKO?

[The Sheriff]

look at the logic since you wanna play dumb ill explain it point by point:

1) if i choose to study something, its because i love the subject matter (in this case "cinema").

i wouldnt go into film studies if i wasnt passionate about cinema over other things i can do with my life. right? does that make sense so far? yes or no?

2) if the state of filmmaking today is 98% horseshit, wouldnt those that are passionate about cinema be angry at this? yes or no?

i think this site is the perfect example, everyone has their own opinion and tastes of course, but there is a shared hatred for lets say bret ratner, which represents i think how the people here hate evil filmmakers who dont give a shit about the medium, who just use cinema by raping it.

3) what is going on in film academia today? what is coming out of these studies? is it "we conclude that 98% of films are hoseshit" or somehting like that?

but then it isnt their jobs to comment on these things is it?

but it isnt your job to dislike bret ratner either, you do it automatically because he represents something that is evil towards what you are passionate about.

so film academia either: sees nothing wrong with the rape of cinema, or they dont think cinema is being raped

so now, why dont you think 2 minutes about the condition of cinema. who are the dominant artists? the herzog type or the bret ratner type?

[Pubrick]

ok, you smug jerk, let me break down what's wrong with your "logic", starting with a preliminary point-by-point:

one: your main problem, let's get it out of the way, is you think you're revealing some grand truth to everyone and the reason no one is replying must be that we are too scared to deal with your scary truth. that's you being a nut, ok?

two: you haven't attempted one single moment to accomodate anyone else's points, however calmly or logically argued. instead you reply with "no." then pose a ridiculous scenario with a laughable metaphor that indicates you are either on (more likely OFF) medication and have never had to argue a point outside of an internet message board.

three: this is the specific problem
children with angels is part of film academia and has explained repeatedly that what you think it is, it is not. and yet you continue to create your idea of what it is, then position it against something else that you assign your own qualities to -- in this case cinema, which conveniently is diametrically opposed to the evil academia that haunts your dreams at night.

four: "convince me otherwise" is an absurd thing to say.
you're opinion is wrong, CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE
you suck, CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE
you're guilty, CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

gimme a break.

-- ok enuff of that, there's too much wrong with the way you argue to even begin to respond to your "points". but here goes:

you want film academia (FA) to save cinema. possibly the world. you think FA is capable of doing this, otherwise you wouldn't complain that it's not being done. Children with Angels is saying that is NOT what FA is. i'm gonna say now that what you describe doesn't require anyone special to point out, you're doing it yourself, you're pointing out that 98% of cinema is shit, every CRITIC knows this. they're the ones that are interacting in the "marketing" section of academia, if you can still call it that. and still it changes nothing. 

cinema has ALWAYS been "raped". but it's not even rape, it's mediocritization. mediocrity is the norm in cinema, as in everything else. (oooh grand sweeping unsupported statement, i'm you now). and is a symptom of the market (another "you" statement -- identity theft imminent!). ppl accept mediocrity, and there's nothing academics, critics, filmmakers, or your neglectful father can do about it.

you have way too many issues with "institutions" for this discussion to be fruitful. you make ridiculous statements about religion that have nothing to do with anything. you equate the study of film with "women studies" which you then misrepresent. that's just completely ignorant, there's no other word for it. that metaphor was grossly flawed and that's why no one responded.

the voice of film, and therefore the voice of CHANGE IN FILM, is not academia. it's much bigger and complicated than that. it's closer to what mos def says about hip hop:
Ppl be askin me "yo mos, what's gonna happen with hip hop? Where do you think hip hop is goin?"
I tell em, "you know what's gonna happen with hip hop? whatever's happening with us"
If we smoked out, hip hop is gonna be smoked out
If we doin alright, hip hop is gonna be doin alright
People talk about hip hop like it's some giant livin in the hillside comin down to visit the townspeople
We are hip hop
Me, you, everybody, we are hip hop
So hip hop is goin where we goin
So the next time you ask yourself where hip hop is goin
Ask yourself.. where am I goin? How am I doin?
Til you get a clear idea
So.. if hip hop is about the people
And.. hip hop won't get better until the people get better
Then how do people get better?

that's some shit i just pulled out of my ass. but it's a far more reasonable, decent, logic than anything you've offered. CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.

[The Sheriff]

okay, so people just accept mediocre products, i agree with that. and if you wouldve read my other posts to GT you wouldve seen that i say the consumer/individual is important and that an "institution" doesnt exist. but then children with angels came in saying that there is no link with film studies and making a blueprint for filmmaking. im saying that even though it isnt the intention of film studies to make a blueprint, it still has a voice, it has an affect on filmmaking, even though the link isnt direct.

why would i WANT film academia to save cinema, im saying they are unpassionate people who only care about standardizing the form. that was the beginning of my posts on the subject. arrogant bitch

[Gold Trumpet]

why would i WANT film academia to save cinema, im saying they are unpassionate people who only care about standardizing the form. that was the beginning of my posts on the subject. arrogant bitch

Standardizing the form? Are you kidding me?

1.) Film academia is a reaction to cinema. It is commentary and evaluation of the different norms and trends in films. The fact that academics exist for all levels of cinematic interpretation and that range is growing all the time only helps cinema. It gives us new perspectives from which to look at film. Umberto Eco said the life of a work of art was based on how many levels it was able to interpreted and commented on. That includes both aesthetic and personal interpretation. You can't talk about an institution interpreting cinema with standard methods because there have become too many numerous levels on which to interpret cinema. If you are an accomplished writer and have a good idea in which to interpet cinema, you can be published. You don't need the typical requirements. My film professor tells me of a man who went to school for everything but film but is always printed in academic journals for film and dedicates himself to writing about film without a position at any university. 

2.) You seem to be against film school. You seem to be against academic thought. Well, both are useful tools to become a professional filmmaker. They teach you have to make films at a high level of competence. They make your first film look a lot better. Do you have to dedicate your career to replicating that success? No. You grow from it and apply new ideas in which to make your later films. The creativity begins to take more effect and you start coming into your own, but the fact is you need how to become a professional before you can deviate from the standard path. I know too many filmmakers who think creative inspiration alone will make them grow. I doubt it. It happens in a rare blue moon, but even most filmmakers who go without film school still emulate the standard film processes. If the institution does exist, it exists for a good reason.

[The Sheriff]

1.) Film academia is a reaction to cinema. It is commentary and evaluation of the different norms and trends in films. The fact that academics exist for all levels of cinematic interpretation and that range is growing all the time only helps cinema. It gives us new perspectives from which to look at film. Umberto Eco said the life of a work of art was based on how many levels it was able to interpreted and commented on. That includes both aesthetic and personal interpretation. You can't talk about an institution interpreting cinema with standard methods because there have become too many numerous levels on which to interpret cinema. If you are an accomplished writer and have a good idea in which to interpet cinema, you can be published. You don't need the typical requirements. My film professor tells me of a man who went to school for everything but film but is always printed in academic journals for film and dedicates himself to writing about film without a position at any university. 

okay, so not literally everyone involved is completely evil.

2.) You seem to be against film school. You seem to be against academic thought. Well, both are useful tools to become a professional filmmaker. They teach you have to make films at a high level of competence. They make your first film look a lot better. Do you have to dedicate your career to replicating that success? No. You grow from it and apply new ideas in which to make your later films. The creativity begins to take more effect and you start coming into your own, but the fact is you need how to become a professional before you can deviate from the standard path. I know too many filmmakers who think creative inspiration alone will make them grow. I doubt it. It happens in a rare blue moon, but even most filmmakers who go without film school still emulate the standard film processes. If the institution does exist, it exists for a good reason.

so you admit that film academia influences filmmaking? are you saying film academia is better than film school? anyway i said a page ago that i think academia is an EXCUSE FOR PROFIT. its an excuse to make money. they offer some positive insight on film and art but that comes from the occasional individual who rises above the rest. so the institution is irrelevant. is that more clear?

[Gold Trumpet]

so you admit that film academia influences filmmaking? are you saying film academia is better than film school? anyway i said a page ago that i think academia is an EXCUSE FOR PROFIT. its an excuse to make money. they offer some positive insight on film and art but that comes from the occasional individual who rises above the rest. so the institution is irrelevant. is that more clear?

Film school and film academia are two different things. I'm saying a filmmaker, on his way to become a professional, should take some notice of academia. They just don't need to operate from it. I said this in my first post and I say it again, academia isn't essential for a filmmaker. Academia is a literature. Filmmakers can make theoretical films and invest more time with academia, but that's their choice. It isn't academia's doing.

[The Sheriff]

so you admit that film academia influences filmmaking? are you saying film academia is better than film school? anyway i said a page ago that i think academia is an EXCUSE FOR PROFIT. its an excuse to make money. they offer some positive insight on film and art but that comes from the occasional individual who rises above the rest. so the institution is irrelevant. is that more clear?

Film school and film academia are two different things. I'm saying a filmmaker, on his way to become a professional, should take some notice of academia. They just don't need to operate from it. I said this in my first post and I say it again, academia isn't essential for a filmmaker. Academia is a literature. Filmmakers can make theoretical films and invest more time with academia, but that's their choice. It isn't academia's doing.

exactly, but academia, as you say

is a reaction to cinema. It is commentary and evaluation of the different norms and trends in films.

which means that those who want to revolutionize the form (or go against standardization), will only pay as much attention to film academia to see how people interpret the past. but again i point to criterion, i know you think they dont offer the same amount of insight, but i disagree. the reason why academia exists is because certain artists are ahead of their time.

i prefer your explanation that  "academia is a literature." but its not the science of film appreciation, thats absurd.

[The Sheriff]

theoretical discussions features as much new analysis and different looks at filmmakers as what critics and commentators give. Academics love to align films and filmmakers to represent certain theoretical credences, but theoretical discussion changes so quickly that an analysis of one film in a specific context can be wiped out the next year with a new analysis. The fact is that film theory is changing so quickly that while people on the outside believe it is a stagnant, it is always changing and always evolving. Theorists within the academic field may have numerous problems with certain ideas and beliefs. They will then work to apply new methods. People on the outside are always critical of academics, but they don't realize work is always being done to change and evolve the studies. Classes teach the major theories, but journals and publications always feature essays that give new looks at different cinemas in ways that havent been written about before.

can you give me some examples of theories written on films and then replaced the next year? is there really that much work to do and discuss other than what idiots like us do?

can you give me an example of a modern theory about a style or a film that might change in the future?

[Chest Rockwell]

Structuralism/Poststructuralism is an easy example.

The auteur movement has been critiqued for some years now. Barthes wrote in 1968 "The Death of the Author," writing that the idea of the Author is an imposition of ultimate meaning from an authorial figure, when meaning actually comes from the Reader.

[Gold Trumpet]

Chest Rockwell is accidentally becoming my research assistant so I'm grateful, haha. I understand the differences on this board between myself and others. It's mainly a filmmaker and moviegoer board, but it's great that other members have significant knowledge of theories. I'm still getting into the field and will have a lot to learn in the next coming years, but it is an exciting field. My thesis for my Masters will be a modern look at an older theory. The whole point of theories is based on their ability to evolve over the years and continue to have signficance for each new generation.

[The Sheriff]

if the ideas or theories were presented on the internet and grew that way, i think it would just make more sense because then they can grow accordingly with every consumer involved or die, when its being profitable to "discuss" ideas and theories within a school or institution, its like... whos checking up on you? where does the funding come from? even if filmmakers team up to advance academia, its still a secluded field with like-minded people associating, so... i dont understand how you can think that the results of this are for the benefit of cinema... they are an excuse for jobs, thats it. if you dont think that these institutionalized ideas can have a stagnating affect on cinema because those who choose if they are relevant or not are those being paid to discuss if theyre relevant or not, well whatever. i think its the promotion of nonsense, it will not DESTROY the industry, it slows down ACTUAL film studies, which to me would be to illiminate the institution in the involvement.

and then i get told that the intention of film studies is not to make a blueprint, but the examples given to me (eseinstein, mulvey) oh no they dont talk about that in film school. pff of course not. whatever

[squints]

Sherrif, have you ever taken a film theory course?

[The Sheriff]

i didnt go to university, but i read some of what people i knew were reading while in film studies. i would compare it to classical music, or opera or something like that whereas im like going "what about punk, what about rock n roll?" i dont know how else to explain it, not that film academia needs to be more "cool" but that its just... its not even saying anything i can find enlightening or useful as a filmmaking, just a bunch of marxists explaining their theories.

as for the more modern or new theories, things written recently... i dont have any examples

[Gold Trumpet]

I spent an hour writing a responce to Sherriff's post, but I erased it. P's right. It looks useless to respond anymore.