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

[pete]

first of all, give me some examples of what good the academia has done to the other arts.  how have they ushered the said arts into the new millennium?
secondly, your liking that film that I haven't seen is also just based on your taste.  you still don't have good argument on why academia makes any contribution to filmmaking.  how is making a films that compare and contrast different cinemas and histories more beneficial or even worth giving a shit?  how are the academics' taste for the movies enabling their ability to last?  how is their favor engendering the survival of cinema in any way?  why is it the main area for studying filmmaking?
the earlier example you've given about james joyce was ass backwards.  he wrote a brilliant novel that is still being read, the academia loved his novel, and somehow joyce had the academia thank?  I would imagine an institution that is dedicated to studying the works of others would need to thank Joyce instead. 

First, you forget academia does have subgroups for cinema that do specialize in how people watch films.

yeah, and they suck.

it is pretty okay for a group of people to talk about cinema, I mean I'm part of that right now.  however, the academia does have a hand in ruining cinema because it is part of the film school establishment and it does go on to produce studio heads, executives, and worst of all, aspiring filmmakers who come out of that school thinking they know how to make movies and deciding for the rest of the world how films should be viewed and should be made.  the problem is, they were taught by people who had as much say on the subject matter as a magazine editor or a message board junkie.  it's what bruce lee would call an "organized despair."  it's more despairing when the academics refuse to inform themselves on the art they were supposed to know so much about.  is academia merely the science of appreciation?  I can take it if it is.

[Gold Trumpet]

I can't believe I'm going to seriously reply to this post. I swear my original post was ignored except for two lines.

first of all, give me some examples of what good the academia has done to the other arts.  how have they ushered the said arts into the new millennium?

Like I've said, academia gurantees the survival of major works. Films made for public appreciation are at the mercy of the whims of the public, but academia establishes critical benchmarks that will allow works from hundreds of years ago to be studied and given significant analysis today. That is also true of literature. What was considered popular hundreds of years ago may be found nowhere on our radar today. Academia gurantees the survival of people like Shakespeare and the application of his work to modern interpretations. The new analysis of his work makes it grow.

how is making a films that compare and contrast different cinemas and histories more beneficial or even worth giving a shit?

It extends film to the critical methods used for analysis of literature and a few other arts. Literature has become so important that it has influenced how some other arts. The poet Mathew Arnold created benchmarks that became widespread. Of course modifications have been made to represent the uniqueness of film, but basic moral ideas prevail in film.

This isn't a new idea that was created last week and is still open to debate. It's an established benchmark of artistic analysis that extends hundreds of years and is continued to be referenced today. Either you believe in this or you don't. I'm guessing you don't, but if you want me to detail it further, I shall. The point is that it represents a large history of artistic analysis. It should be at least considered important.

how are the academics' taste for the movies enabling their ability to last? 

Alright, I'll give a new perspective for understanding.

Consider Silent film. It had a lifespan of 30 plus years going back to 1895. Silent Cinema (meaning feature filmmaking) goes back only to 1915. The period ended in the early 1930s so a major period of our Cinema died out in under twenty years. Some ideas about film art that were created then still exist to this day. An example is basic narrative storytelling and the three act plot structure, but other ideas don't. They are ideas that are entrenched in the period and pretty much forgotten today. Academics make sure those ideas still exist in theoretical studies.

See, film is a unique art form. It develops as technology does. That means a major period of film is likely to be condensed into a small period of history. My film professor said five years in film history was equivalent to a hundred years in literature because of how important technology was to film. This means that the narrative cinema we know now may not always be the prevelant method of storytelling.

In the 1970s, Umberto Eco theorized that film and television were moving to become more interactive with the audience. He said this had the best chance to change the face of cinema because it would change the structure of story in films. Audiences would no longer go to cinemas to watch a story being told, but interact with the start of a story and allow their decisions to make up what happened in the film. I'm giving the general explanation, but it is the heights of the "Open Work" and the possibilities of storytelling.

Does that sound like science fiction? Not necessarily. Consider the importance of video games. If it's going to be considered an art, it will be considered so in exactly that way. It is open storytelling. The popularity of technology and video games could make for major changes in film. I'm not talking about twenty years done the road, but a hundred or two hundred years. Slowly but surely the narrative film we know could be dead. Stanley Kubrick wanted his last film to be a film that completely broke from standard storytelling. He didn't have the creative genius to do that to his satisfaction. The fact is technology is more likely going to do it.

See, if film establishes itself as an art form in academia the whole art form has a better chance for survival. Film is tied too much to money and popularity to hope the public will always want to see films. Nickelodeons were once the most popular thing on the block. They brought in huge profits, but demand sizzled once the best new thing was available with epic feature films. There is a reason that huge epics like Birth of a Nation and Cabira were made immediately instead of later. It was to sell the feature length film as the best product for mass consumption. It made people forget about nickelodeons the quickest. Simple feature length stories wouldn't have done that.

Even if you cannot imagine a future where films don't look desirable, your great grandchildren's generation might be able to. They also may be able to imagine a version of film that has little similarity with the film we know today. Technology might have too many new innovations and wonders that our version of film could just look like hallmarks of a previous time period. I'm not saying the world will change like this, but it's certainly possible. Most people didn't think sound would mesh well in a silent film world, but it did. Academia establishes film as respectable art and makes sure that what we identify as cinema is at least considered of moral importance even if the world doesn't consider it of entertainment or financial importance. Academia keeps major parts of cinema history in good memory.

the earlier example you've given about james joyce was ass backwards.  he wrote a brilliant novel that is still being read, the academia loved his novel, and somehow joyce had the academia thank?  I would imagine an institution that is dedicated to studying the works of others would need to thank Joyce instead. 

Thanks. You make my point. You still say the importance of that novel is tied to academia. The only point you make is a clarification. And that's still wrong. I never said academia made Ulysses great. That would omit my words of "[Ulysses was great] not because it was just the best work of its era but because it had the greatest structural innovations ever found in a novel". That still gives credit to Joyce himself. The academic world just assisted by continuing to study Joyce's work. Joyce didn't invent academia, but wrote a novel that encompassed the entire history of literature. He was challenging established academic standards. When he wrote Finnegans Wake, he said his intention "was to keep the critics busy for the next five hundred years."

The point is, even if you think I am not giving enough credit to Joyce, what still remains is the fact that he is a fundamental part of academia.

it is pretty okay for a group of people to talk about cinema, I mean I'm part of that right now.  however, the academia does have a hand in ruining cinema because it is part of the film school establishment and it does go on to produce studio heads, executives, and worst of all, aspiring filmmakers who come out of that school thinking they know how to make movies and deciding for the rest of the world how films should be viewed and should be made.  the problem is, they were taught by people who had as much say on the subject matter as a magazine editor or a message board junkie.  it's what bruce lee would call an "organized despair."  it's more despairing when the academics refuse to inform themselves on the art they were supposed to know so much about.  is academia merely the science of appreciation?  I can take it if it is.

Are you talking about film academics in general? Or Social theorists?

[The Sheriff]

is academia merely the science of appreciation?

i think that its an excuse for profit. mostly theyre interested in standardizing everything, they pretend their overanalytical obsessions are out of passion for the artform but its because they see themselves as shit. its a church, it employs desperate people craving attention, authority, and approval.

[Gold Trumpet]

i think that its an excuse for profit.

Explain. That's too general for me to understand.

mostly theyre interested in standardizing everything

Is that really a problem? See, 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.

, they pretend their overanalytical obsessions are out of passion for the artform but its because they see themselves as shit. its a church, it employs desperate people craving attention, authority, and approval.

The best part about the 1960s is that everybody saw themselves as able to contribute seriously to art cinema. The appetite to read journals and books was there. They weren't reading thicker versions of Movie fan magazines, but thick theoretical works by commentators and filmmakers alike. Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard, among other people, contributed to this. Godard even loved to make a point he was rejected by film school and always was an amateur instead of a professional, but yet he contributed to serious ideas to film art. The environment of the time allowed for people to want to be part of that world. There hasn't been any new gates that have come up to keep people away, but a new public disdain that grew against academia.

[The Sheriff]

i think that its an excuse for profit.

Explain. That's too general for me to understand.

the criterion collection does what you say academia does. the criterion collection is a company, not an institution. people in companies want to sell because theres a demand. institutions decide what is important for the consumer.

mostly theyre interested in standardizing everything

Is that really a problem? See, 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.

but all of that is being done by idiots like us.

, they pretend their overanalytical obsessions are out of passion for the artform but its because they see themselves as shit. its a church, it employs desperate people craving attention, authority, and approval.

The best part about the 1960s is that everybody saw themselves as able to contribute seriously to art cinema. The appetite to read journals and books was there. They weren't reading thicker versions of Movie fan magazines, but thick theoretical works by commentators and filmmakers alike. Michelangelo Antonioni and Jean-Luc Godard, among other people, contributed to this. Godard even loved to make a point he was rejected by film school and always was an amateur instead of a professional, but yet he contributed to serious ideas to film art. The environment of the time allowed for people to want to be part of that world. There hasn't been any new gates that have come up to keep people away, but a new public disdain that grew against academia.

but is there a need for an actual institution? it seems to me like "academia" is just some pathetic middle-man

[Gold Trumpet]

the criterion collection does what you say academia does. the criterion collection is a company, not an institution. people in companies want to sell because theres a demand. institutions decide what is important for the consumer.

They aren't the same thing. A Criterion DVD might have an essay or commentary by a scholar, but that isn't the equivalent of a full length book. If you didn't notice, these books are written by small press companies. They barely sell to any large demand and make so little money that even the author only gets (likely) 50% off his book. If an online store bought too many copies and wants to get rid of the books, a better deal may be offered to the consumer than what is even offered to the author. That person is given such a shit deal because their books really won't sell many copies and the company that published his book knows that was always the situation.

but all of that is being done by idiots like us.

To a point. There certainly are differences between how this board and academia criticizes films, but one of the notions earlier on this thread is that people have learned more coming to this board then they have in any classrom. That's true. Self education is always the quickest route to a better education. See, further study of academic methods doesn't just bring up different textbooks that say the same thing, but new journals, essays and books that say many new things.

but is there a need for an actual institution? it seems to me like "academia" is just some pathetic middle-man

I'm not sure I follow, but I say yes. See, I mean an institution as an establishment that is defined by basic beliefs and certain moral standards. There are challenges and modifications to this institution, but never a dismissal of it. See, in the 1960s, one of the first ways Godard was presented to the public was by amateur theorists who said his films and arts went beyond older moral ideas of art. There no longer was a battle between highbrow and low, but an equalization of all things we take in life as important. The main person in this notion was Susan Sontag and she believed a completely new approach to how we judge art was being created. Things went well for this in the film community for a while, but Sontag begin to become sad about some bad movies being released that tried to spout these beliefs. Then in the late 1970s it became obvious this method opened up all kinds of bad filmmakers that had little regard for anything so Sontag formally went against ideas she established in the 60s and said the basic moral establishment of art was still the best.

It's kinda like Winston's Churchhills summation of democracy being the worst social government ever created, except for all the others.

[The Sheriff]

but is there a need for an actual institution? it seems to me like "academia" is just some pathetic middle-man

I'm not sure I follow, but I say yes. See, I mean an institution as an establishment that is defined by basic beliefs and certain moral standards.

so admit that its a church! you cant defend its existence saying its doing the moral good of preserving this film over that film... the 3 act structure is used because it works, meaning there is a demand for it, people enjoy the films that use this method, not because some institution went "AHA! see this is important. and unless WE point it out, filmmakers will still do one shot 3 minute type films thinking thats all that can be done." theyre full of themselves

[Gold Trumpet]

so admit that its a church! you cant defend its existence saying its doing the moral good of preserving this film over that film... the 3 act structure is used because it works, meaning there is a demand for it, people enjoy the films that use this method, not because some institution went "AHA! see this is important. and unless WE point it out, filmmakers would still be doing lumiere brothers type films thinking thats all that can be done." theyre full of themselves

I think I understand your point now. I'll try to respond to it.

Yes, the three act structure began out of a cultural phenomenon. In the 1900s, theater was growing past its bounds and its basic structure showed up in film because it was the easiest transgression for a new art form that already had a lot in common with theater. the public warmed up to it easiest because vaudeville and plays were popular amongst people. It didn't begin with grand theories by academia.

Academia made sense out of this phenomenon by responding to it with studies and discussions of the common attributes among all early films. Their jobs was to make sense out of the films in different areas of discussion. One of the most important theorists was a psychologist who interpreted edits in a movie to passages of time and events within a common dream. So, yes, a lot of film theory in the beginning was a responce to a cultural phenomenon.

While academia did not make film, they did help to create some of the most important theories that would revolutionize how films would be made. It's said that only three films changed the way we watch films. One is Citizen Kane and the other is Breathless, but the first was Battleship Potemkin. Battleship Potemkin was made by Eisenstein, an important academic of many theories that would become the basics of film art. Many theorists were writers, but many were also filmmakers. The Soviet School in the 1920s testifies to that.

You can say the three act structure exists to this day because of public demand, but identifying films by only mentioning that structure barely describes films as they exist today. Academia helped to create many methods of filmaking and film art that we see today. And it wasn't done by just professors in universities, but also by filmmakers. Even filmmakers who were outside of university work (Godard). The combination of all the above makes for a relationship too complex to say one party is responsible.

Academia is important because it records the evolution of thought and theory for film art.

[The Sheriff]

look at it this way: if you write an essay on lets say scorsese, do you sign it GT (i dunno your real name) or do you sign it "academia" or "film school" or "voice of god?"

i know YOU exist. and if youre talking to me you know that you exist and that i exist too. an institution doesnt exist, its a group of people. so why do they say "we are not a group of people like you, we are academia?" how does one become an academic? by getting hired by the same group that calls themselves the academics? it means nothing.

if i go to church and hear a story about forgiveness and it inspires me to patch things up with an old friend, i cant turn around and say "church is good" because ANYONE can give their 2 cents about morality. church had nothing to do with it. hell, i might have come to the same conclusions by seeing a bridge with water under it

the reason why academics are evil is because deep down they know this. theyre angry at cinema and they want to harm it. thats why i dropped out, i couldnt stand it. they are disgusting people.

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm fascinated with this subject. My ears are glued to this thread for any updates.

I guess my experience and yours is different then. I've met numerous professors and writers who write in the field of academics and all of them are vastly different from each other. Not only in personality and ideas of academia, but in approaches to how they write about their subjects. I know professors who write dense studies of a writer or filmmaker and I know others who write about personal interests and do so in a mannered and down to earth way. I read a fascinating and fun study of 1950s and 60s Western genre by an English professor who was doing it out of personal curiosity. Some writers do this in their own fields as well.

I'm going into the field of academia, but my interest is to write about personal subjects. I want to write about people and filmmakers who have little or no recognition in book form (at least in this country). I doubt I'd make my books an exercise in jargon, but rather a study that mixed criticism with personal fondness. Do I really find every academic book that references twenty films and filmmakers in one page to be quality work? No. My whole purpose has been to argue for the importance of academia in general. Even if you are put off by the stuffiness, it's an essential evil to the art form.

One element of academia that I do think is ridiculous and only speaks to how highly professors and writers think of themselves is conferences. Some people may not realize this, but colleges and institutions around the world set up conferences to invite professors to for discussion about a cinema or filmmaker. A few professors will give speeches, but most go to congregate and just talk about great they are. I was actually recommended to get myself an invite to one of these things and use it as a reference for graduate school applications. I happily declined.

[The Sheriff]

it's an essential evil to the art form.

but thats like saying religion is an essential evil for humanity. the problem is that people want easy answers to the big questions. its not essential at all, its a crutch.

its not the stuffiness that bothers me, its the corruption. basically what pete said about how it ruins the industry is spot on, but it cant be the science of appreciation at the same time then. would you destroy the things you appreciate? obviously the vast vast majority of people involved in this HATE cinema.

of course this isnt a huge agency of murder like the government... its possible to be a spy like you say and write about personal interests from the inside.

[pete]

wow this debate took a turn.  I don't have a problem against other forms of academia.  the doctors who do research and shit, for example, sometimes heal people.  it is because their dialogue is organized that allows them to converse with each other in such a rapid and somewhat competitive environment.  but film academia, as I've mentioned before, encourages no such interaction.  it observes what is going done by people who receive no benefits from the film scholars, and articulates what they've observed mostly in forms of essays, and then in schools students are made to read those essays and with the hope that they can extrapolate future films from words about past films.  a clumsy process, no?  that is my problem with film academia.  the format is all wrong.
and I still disagree, no matter how many times you re-phrase it, that the academia preserves great works.  again I see your attributing the academics to the survival of shakespeare's works to be self-important and a little insulting.  but whatever, you might be right and I've just been ignoring this Free Mason Society for the Schooled all my educated life.  It still has problems translating to film, which is a completely different form.  In all of the essays I've read, none of it has ever taken the physical act of filmmaking seriously.  Susan Sontag wrote some childish proses from time to time I suppose, but the theories have neglected the hardest and the most vital part of filmmaking, which is capturing images on film and creating illusions through any means necessary.  It is a much more complicated feat to understand than painting or typing, and this process is very rarely discussed with dignity, and very few filmmakers - amatuer ones, hacky ones, or masters, have actually agreed with the scarce observations.  That's point number two in this post.
The third one is also an elaboration of an earlier idea.  Even if these academic journals are taken seriously by the "right" people, that is, talented people who are already making films a certain way who can really benefit from the symbiosis and help facilitate some kind of evolution for modern cinema, why should they give a fuck about making these films based on histories and theories?  What is the actual benefit of making movies in ways that academics recommend?  I mean, the obvious downside to making films according to academics, as so many people out there have set out to do (fuck you arcs) is that it actually limits a lot of people from thinking about and making films that are moving or unique or truly exploratory.  Instead, "film" becomes an opaque entity trapped and bounded by backwards expectations; people begin making films that they hope could be observed by the academics in such a way that they'd be written about similarly in their future essays.  People then choose to be irrelevant.  People then neglect the most exciting part of filmmaking, or creativity in general, which is its heavy reliance on accidents.
you cannot reach truth by criticisms and theories.

[children with angels]

I don't understand this link that everyone's making between people doing film studies and then going on to make films themselves, or being involved in the film industry in any capacity. I've been in film academia for five years (I'm doing my PhD now), and I haven't known anyone who's studied film go into the film industry. This vision of film studies:

it observes what is going done by people who receive no benefits from the film scholars, and articulates what they've observed mostly in forms of essays, and then in schools students are made to read those essays and with the hope that they can extrapolate future films from words about past films.

just isn't the case, as far as I've seen. Film studies (as opposed to film school, which teaches you craft, etc.) is not intended as a precurser to filmmaking: it's the art of appreciation of film. Some people might misguidedly take it, thinking that it will help them get their films made, but - while I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to know some film theory - this is by no means the norm. Film studies is about the aesthetics, politics, sociology, philosophy and history of film, practised by scholars who want to find ways of better explaining the power and importance of the medium. Some of it is wonderful and enlightening, some of it is dull or just plain misguided. It's like literary studies - most people who study or teach literature have no desire to write literature themselves: it's an entirely different skill, and entirely different field of interest.

Since a lot of people on this board have ambitions to become filmmakers, I can understand the antipathy towards film studes (particularly if the general conception of it was that it's a preparation for filmmaking), but the two are very separate indeed. Thus, one has no chance in hell of ruining the other.

[The Sheriff]

one has no chance in hell of ruining the other.

well, no. parasites dont wanna kill off the host.

and petes third point is still very important

[children with angels]

petes third point is still very important

Not really, because it presupposes a stronger link between film studies and filmmaking than actually exists. Pete asks, "What is the actual benefit of making movies in ways that academics recommend?", but film scholarship is very rarely prescriptive: it's not in general offering models for how films could be made. In fact, I can't think of any school of thought within film studies that does that (though I'm sure some people do - but they would tend to filmmaker/film-theorists, of which a few do exist). 

The function of film studies is rather to respond to existing films and styles of filmmaking, interrogating their workings and meanings for audiences. Film academia has certainly not promoted the idea of, say, the 3-act structure, or character arcs, etc., and if filmmakers have picked up this approach from anywhere its likely screenwriting manuals, definitely not film studies.

I think there's probably a bit of confusion going on here between film studies (i.e.: the academic critical and theoretical discussion and study of film - entirely separate from filmmaking) and film school (of which I have no knowledge, but presumably teaches you the craft of filmmaking - maybe acts, arcs, etc.?). I'm sure the latter can be damaging to film in a very real sense (I've heard as much), but not the former.