L'Enfant

[Alexandro]

For Alexandro ----

When I implied most bands into garage band mentality, I meant most bands. Not all.

Wes Anderson isn't considered the new Antonioni, but he is considered one of the premiere filmmakers America has to offer. If he is the pinnacle in which a new filmmaker is to aspire to then that's sad.

Truth to be told American cinema is not going through one of it's more exciting moments. Maybe world cinema in general, but I don't think I'm qualified to say something like that. Young filmmakers are mostly emulating their idols or reviving their childhoods through their movies. And their childhoods ARE movies. We've been film fed all our lives, so I guess is kinda hard to come up with a vision that has nothing to do with other people's visions. It is sad but true.

Also, young filmmakers have to learn, and one way to learn is to first master at least the simple storytelling that everyone uses, but if you make two films in ten years is hard to learn fast and move on to something different. All the energy is going to so many things except making the film. All these new guys who are or were big promises like Tarantino, PT. Anderson, Wes, David Gordon Green, Jonze, they just take way too much time between films and with not all of them seem to be changing gears that much. Wes Anderson, specially, is obviously content with the thing's he's been doing. You're right that if he's the pinnacle to aspire that's sad, cause these guys have nothing on the old dying breed like Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni and so on...Even Kubrick would be a great role model, but the only thing people seem to be emulating him is in the long periods between movies, only without the exhausting research and dedication...

[Gold Trumpet]

I'm not saying that every Art Film is the same, I was just making the point that, whilst you say that "serious issues" or "serious themes" are only dealt with in Art Films, they can be found in many genre films as well. However, I would argue that it is true that, in just the same way as you can say many genre films are very similar, you can make the same argument for a number of Art Films, despite the obvious disparity of approaches. Bordwell did in fact make a number of salient observations about the underlying impulses of the style. There are clichés in both kinds of filmmaking, but I would say that the difference is that in a genre film the cliché often has the possibility of being a profound cliché because of its historical lineage, whereas in an Art Film the cliché can be just a cliché, and that is all. But, of course, I'm not insisting that all Art Films are clichéd: I like Begman, Fellini, Antonioni or Godard as much as the next cinephile. My point was to defend genre filmmaking, not to attack Art Film – all I wanted was an acknowledgment that the "seriousness" you crave can be found in genre too.

I most definitely do not think that the cliche in a genre film has the better possibility of being more profound than the cliche in an art film. The cliche in a genre film has everything to do with calculation in structure and idea. Stucture wise, the films will be geared for entertainment. The rules to which an action film are told is more set in stone to be repeated over and over again. Art film, with its short history, has nothing structure wise set in stone. Bordwell made a few good points in his essay about some similarities between art films, but he even admitted the essay was half serious in addressing them. He wasn't trying to set up a new basis of how to analyze art films. He was more responding to a new phenomenon in film.

With idea, genre films prey on subjects that are near and dear to the hearts of the public. They are more likely to take subjects that get the attention and sympathy of the public. The handling of the theme and subject will not be to challenge the audience, but to remind them of their intrinsic beliefs. People can do many things like go to church, go to political rallies or watch daytime shows to hear their most basic beliefs and sympathies repeated to them. Genre movies are mostly made to be a product. They sell common feelings the public will buy into. Art films will challenge. Even the most cliche art films have better potential because their basis in is ideas and personal revelation over common beliefs.

I gave up a long time ago on the distinction between art and other kinds of entertainment: it's a losing argument that's grounded in impulses of cultural elitism as far as I'm concerned. This isn't to say I've given up on evaluation at all, but rather for ease of discussion and for a level playing field I would call every type of film part of the same artform. A film can be a "cultural phenomenon" and a "piece of art" at the same time. Artists have always used genre to further their own artistic impulses, and it is the very restrictions of a form such as genre that can allow art to be successful, rather than being atypical and self-indulgent, which CAN come from attempting to abandon those forms entirely (though, quite obviously, not always).

Yes, genre has always been a part of the arts. I think of theater and literature where it has had its purpose and importance. Even some films have done very well with genre, but I must make a distinction. Genre alone isn't reputable to artistic significance. If a filmmaker set out to make the most common film against the most common backdrop, he wouldn't be creating anything good. A quality thriller with good structure, a fine story and all around good filmmaking is just good entertainment.

Genre becomes good when it begins to break its structural and content limitations. Some people may say for a film to do this, it has to start mixing the genres and become criticial of its own existence. I agree there is merit there. Godard, a flawed filmmaker, at least showed its potentials. But I do not think that films that combine genres and tell conventional stories still add to much at all. Looking down at other things you said, you name two films in The Apartment and Buffalo 66 for having different combinations of genres. Yes, they do, but I believe they are reflections of the norms in filmmaking and storytelling at the times. Buffalo 66 didn't have greater ideas. I believe it was just a side show of oddities and The Apartment is just a good story with a few twists. Quality entertainment at best.

The more important work with genre is the infusion of ideas and themes. I look back to theater and comedy for examples of this. Bernard Shaw, a favorite of mine, always made plays in different realms of genre. He'd go from action adventure to comedies and melodramas. He'd break barriers and challenge structural norms, but the comment about his plays weren't comparison pieces about him with other playwrights and genres, but about the societal and personal subjects his plays would take on. Look at his John Bull's Other Island, advertised as a comedy, but about many of the social, historical and economic differences between Ireland and the United Kingdom.

See, this is a genre work, but as a piece of art, it extends its interest to include the social, historical and even political. Alfred Hitchcock does genre, but has stories that at best are focused on one or two things only.

Subtly is just one of the features that I particularly admire and crave in a work of art; this is why I'm also not an Oliver Stone fan! But that's a whole different argument... Aesthetically, as opposed to just thematically, I find Vertigo more rewarding than Persona (its narrative, its characters, its uses of colour, its ellipses, its manipulation of point of view, its overall mood, and on and on), and much of this comes from its status as a classical Hollywood genre film – a mode that demanded subtlety and cohesion in its aesthetic.

What you call subltety I call a limited objective. Vertigo has, at best, a very general theme. I doubt Hitchcock or the other filmmakers took the time to consult books or expert opinions on the subject of identity. I also doubt they considered to get rid of the some of the structural barriers in the thriller format because it would free up the story to be more about personal identity. I doubt they considered at all to add more details about James Stewart's character that allowed his situation to be more complex instead of summed up by a medical condition. When Hitchcock needs to  displays the feeling of Vertigo, he just repeats the same camera trick over and over again. The film doesn't dig at details that really reflect true emotions. It's all quite generic.

The filmmaking, the use of colors and other tricks you mentioned, are all done to convey a dream aspect to the film. Because the story has so little going for it that would make it distinguishable from any other generic melodrama, it doesn't add up to much at all.

"Cultural implications" should be an absolutely key factor in the assessment of any work of art, as I'm sure you'd agree. I think what you seem to be arguing, though, is that if genre carries such cultural meaning by itself then to praise that meaning in a film is not to be praising an artist who has put those meanings there, but rather an unthinking meaning-carrying structure. But the point is that artists can use and operate inside these structures for a purpose – this is part of their art: the meaning that comes with genre is part of the overall meaning of an artwork. The (subtle) personal inflections that they then bring to their uses of these meanings through their manipulation of this structure is then what characterises their artistic style.

As I said with my Bernard Shaw analysis, I agree a lot can do be done within the confines of genre. I just don't believe Hitchcock ever did much at all. I have no clue how Vertigo is anything more than a generic look at personal identity with generic details in a generic story and with a generic conclusion. I also don't understand how (as you say later) Hitchcock's Psycho is a social drama either. That's a bad melodrama as well.

I think it's very arguable whether Persona has "far more themes" than Vertigo, but even if it did, keeping a sort of tally in this way seems like a very crude way of judging artistic worth. Also, whether things in films are "viable to happen" is surely not a valid reason for a film having artistic merit: every work of art relates to and reflects "reality". The events in Vertigo are obviously unlikely in a "realist" sense, but surely we're not saying that a work of art has to be realist to good?

Judging Persona by mentioning the numerous themes, objectives and ideas it has is not a crude way to judge artistic worth at all. Of course one has to evaluate what themes and ideas a film talks about and how the film goes about it, but talking about the breath of a film as far as its ambition goes is not a crude or worthless thing to do.

I'm not clammoring for all films to be realistic. I'm asking for films to be objective in criticizing both art and life. They can do this in numerous ways that involves stories and characters that are both philosophical and fantastic, but have solid ideas that deal with personal experience and the world around us.

Vertigo isn't realistic, but it also isn't interesting enough to be much about anything that is dinstinguishable.

It is based on an intelligently exaggerated, very imaginative, and rather unique version on the mystery and romance plot: contrived would suggest that it has been seen many times before (which, even if it had been, would not in itself be reason enough to reject it: it's the way in which it's handled that is important).

Many things talked about would lead me to ask for you an extended and more detailed description of this. Your definining the "how" with little description and what the reward is in the story.

No, as I have said above, it has everything to do with art: preferring Vertigo to Persona comes from innumerable artistic judgements based on the two films' worths. I do happen also to believe that enjoying a work of art is very important too, but that's another story.

Persona, personally, is much more enjoyable to watch over Vertigo. I have labor through that film.

There is plenty written on Hitchcock's "supposed art". Robin Wood's Hitchcock's Films (or Hitchcock's Films Revisited) is a good place to start, if you haven't already read and dismissed it.

I'll read it with honest intentions, but I think I could recommend a few books to you as well.

No, it doesn't have to be like this at all (though, as I already said, I acknowledge that there are instances of this). Some random films that mix different genres to profound effect would include Psycho (social drama, crime thriller, horror), The Philadelphia Story (romantic comedy, romantic melodrama), Taxi Driver (western, social realism, political thriller, romance, horror), The Apartment (corporate satire, dark comedy, farce, romantic comedy, tragic melodrama), Buffalo 66 (indie drama, family comedy, musical, romantic comedy), 2001 (science fiction, horror, art film), Magnolia (family melodrama, romantic comedy, thriller, musical, satire, biblical epic).

Nevermind that you just described art film as a genre, something that looks very scary, but I don't believe the greatest merits of 2001: A Space Odyssey has to deal with the fact it has science fiction, horror and art film structures and norms. That description gives no justice to the ideas and philosophies behind the film. Some films do well to mix genres, but unless its purpose is to criticize genre, it should have reasons and meanings beyond the genre mixing that makes it great.

I'm sure you believe the objectification of 2001 shouldn't be limited to what genres it mixes, but I believe there is too much fixation on genre and its relationship to everything in academia. It's all my film professors talk about and I can't help but yell at them and challenge their every idea. I'm learning from them, but I am definitely not being convinced. I think you are also on the route to possibly a PHD. It's interesting we're both heading the same direction and representing two distinctly different ideas of film and art.

[pete]

has anyone actually seen L'Enfant?

[JG]

what, the movie?