For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

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Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

I don't really have the time to go into this thoroughly, so i won't. this is also not what i wanted for this post. i've been through these debates a thousand times between film school & other forums & i'm sick of explaining my position. i'd rather just discuss with like-minded people.

john, first of all, i think you took my comment about "holding the camera" a little too much to heart. it was basically just hyperbole. saying you've never heard of stan brakhage is like saying you've never heard of orson welles or steven spielberg-his output has been far greater, in every meaning of the word as far as i'm concerned.

as for my definition of "hollywood film", i left it deliberately narrow, because there are many exceptions to standard Hollywood fare-- indie narratives, underground, documentary, experimental/avant-garde, etc. not everyone thinks of being a filmmaker as working on a set with dozens of other folks with a script & a big budget. in fact, that's the last thing that some folks every want to do.

i simply wanted a forum for people who engage in this type of filmmaking or are interested in it. i'm being accused of snobbery, yet it seems any time i try to introduce an alternative to narrative filmmaking on this site, it gets snubbed. so **** it--i'll stick to Frameworks and ILX for good film discussion and debate. it's better than the petty name calling that's making up the bulk of this forum.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

Don't go Jay!
Thanks for the heads up to the Jem Cohen/Elliot Smith film, it's downloading as we speak. Can't believe I wasn't aware of it. Lately I've seen "The 70's A Decade Under the Influence" which was an IFC thing I think but a very imformative documentary. Great lessons to be learned there. Another was "Interview with the Assassin", I'm not big on the conceit that the whole thing plays as a documentary but it works. Ray Barry stars in it, he's a spectacular theater artist who's rarely used well in films who shines in this. I've also recently seen "Decalogue" by Krzysztof Kieslowski a series of 10 one hour dramas made for Polish TV. I really admire how Kieslowski's handles character so cinematically. And last night a friend and I watched Kill Bill Vol. 1, YAWNNN.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

Point taken Jay and thanks fro clarifying. (I'm running to the closet to get my DVX). As much as I love the Hollywood film I have a diversified range of taste in all Art mediums; kind of goes back to the "IF it's good, it's good no matter what it is".

My film taste can run the spectrum but I lean towards the Hollywood branded film moreso than the experimental, non-narrative and like.

But...

I HATE the formula HOLLYWOOD crap but when 'they' do do it right, it's amazing. Now we can be friends again.

:D
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

Gotta make it quick or I'll miss my flight to NAB & sunny Vegas! 8)

John--never meant to have any bitter feelings; i think we just both wrote things that sounded right in our heads and ended up sounding harsh in print. no hard feelings!

And I don't hate everything that comes out of Hollywood, but I'm more of a fan of film as an individual art form. Smaller scale, more difficult/obscure ideas, radical approaches. I'm not saying that this never happens with a Hollywood produced film, but it's more rare because of the politics involved with a commercial piece. When you get $100 million dollars to make a film, there is generally a vested interest in profit by the financiers, and severe limitations have to be made in order to gain the largest audience. It's kind of like the way a politician will be ferociously left-wing until he enters the presidential election and takes a quick turn to the center (unless you're Howard Dean--and I am a Vermonter!).

Anyway, no time to get into that right now. rsbush, i'd definitely like to speak with you more about this. "decalogue" is amazing! definitely join the ILX "I Love Film" forum; you'll love it.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

---"I don't really have the time to go into this thoroughly, so i won't. this is also not what i wanted for this post.  i've been through these debates a thousand times between film school & other forums & i'm sick of explaining my position.  i'd rather just discuss with like-minded people."

Then why bring it up so condescendingly in an open discussion forum if discussing this topic is so very tiresome to you except with people who share your exact same opinion? If you've been through this debate a thousand times and you're sick of defending your position, then why begin the thread in such an antagonistic fashion? You put yourself in the position of having to defend your opinion by being so abrasive straight out of the gate. It's perfectly obvious that this forum is filled with fans of Spielberg and Lucas; can it be possible that somehow you thought that your comment about them deserving to be "dragged out into the street and shot" would not immediately generate a negative attitude towards you and your topic? Why not just say, "Hey everyone, check out these cool non-mainstream, non-Hollywood filmmakers. I see their work being superior to much of what H'wood churns out because of blah blah blah . . ." and open the discussion in a positive way?

---"saying you've never heard of stan brakhage is like saying you've never heard of orson welles or steven spielberg-his output has been far greater, in every meaning of the word as far as i'm concerned."

I had never heard of Stan Brakhage, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I thank you for bringing him to my attention. I plan to explore his work. Has he ever made a feature-length film? It seems that people who do only shorts are mostly destined to remain obscure. I enjoy good short films, btw.

---"as for my definition of "hollywood film", i left it deliberately narrow, because there are many exceptions to standard Hollywood fare-- indie narratives, underground, documentary, experimental/avant-garde, etc.   not everyone thinks of being a filmmaker as working on a set with dozens of other folks with a script & a big budget.  in fact, that's the last thing that some folks every want to do."

I like all kinds of films for all kinds of different reasons. And, some of the films that I love are the types films that you seem to dislike. I love Spielberg's and Lucas's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for example. One of the great things about film is that it is a form of expression that allows you to experiment, innovate, and explore from pre- through post-, but as you know it's not the purpose of all films to do these things. However, the avenues of exploration are wide open to those who choose to walk a singular path.

---"i simply wanted a forum for people who engage in this type of filmmaking or are interested in it.  i'm being accused of snobbery, yet it seems any time i try to introduce an alternative to narrative filmmaking on this site, it gets snubbed.  so **** it--i'll stick to Frameworks and ILX for good film discussion and debate.  it's better than the petty name calling that's making up the bulk of this forum."

I believe that there is a place on this forum to discuss every manner of filmmaking in a civilized, positive fashion, and I would gladly be exposed to different "non-mainstream" filmmakers and ideas. But, if every time you introduce the topic you get "snubbed" I'm not surprised if this is the tone in which you always chose to introduce it. Stick to Frameworks and ILX if you wish, but I would welcome a constructive thread about the topic that you initally raised, even though, given the choice, I would rather be involved in well-made, quality "Hollywood" films over obscure "art-house" stuff; but that's just me. I didn't specifically see any name calling in this thread unless you're referring to your use of the word "goons" to describe S & L.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

[glow=blue,2,300]Booya!!![/glow]

Wolf-01.gif
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

My only regret when watching young filmmakers' work (I am a budding one myself) is the reliance on creating something which one can reference to another creator, specifically another artist's work. And by referencing, I don't mean switching color filters in mid-shot like Godard in "Pierrot le fou," but by creating a tone which may be reminiscent of something else. That story has already been told. We've seen it already. Filmmakers (and I assume most of us can agree) believe there are only a few set ways to make film, be it based on the narrative cross-cutting of Griffith, the montage of Eisenstein, the visual poetry of Murnau or Bela Tarr, etc. These things only matter when business comes into play, no?

When one "pitches" a film, there has to be a "catcher" to accept or reject this. But why must a middle man interfere with your work? Assuming 90% of the art of filmmaking is dominated by weekend box-office numbers, speaking in business terms, why must those 10% conform to making something which may conform to this agenda. I bring this up because anyone who picks up a camera uses it as an external device, attached by the hand, to project something one feels worth showing. Why interrupt this by gliding your camera to something someone has done thusfar? Where's the chance or risk at shooting something we've already seen?

I apologize for speaking with such broad strokes, but it bothers me that so much creativity can be squandered for the sake of "succeeding" in a "business" where filmmakers are the pawns in an elaborate chess game of box office numbers. Who will tell the story or record an event of something one is around, but haven't seen on film before, and being afraid or unsure that this would be interesting to anyone but one's self? This can be applicable to documentary or experimental, or non-Hollywood-type narratives as well. We need a reshaping of cinema with every new film, not a reinforcement of old rules in a language which decays more rapidly than street slang.

Mike
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

I don't think there anything "new" in art.

I do think, though, that there are two major actors in the process of artistic creation : the artist and the person who recieves the art (reader, listener, viewer...) Maybe this reality is even more crucial in cinema than in the other art forms, as it deals with symbols to achieve its goal : to stimulate the collective unconscious.

Cinema has to be universal to be good. By "universal", I don't mean "seen by everyone", but "accessible to anyone". It's not a question of box office of course — it can even be very demanding to the spectators ; but it has to be universal because all films, even non-narrative ones, even the ones telling stories of animals, only talk about one thing : human nature. That's the reason why I (pure product of my parisian conditionning) can be totally emotionaly involved in a chinese film, a cultural environment I know very little about except for the most superficial part.

The Hollywood system and the "cinema d'art et d'essai", each of them for different reasons, forget about this too often. The first one forgets that the masses are made of individuals, the second one forgets that the individual belongs in a mass (human beings are gregarian animals, like it or not).

Cinema in all its forms — from the most underground avant-garde to TV commercials — is probably the most powerful recycling factory ever created. Moviemakers have always used clichés ; the great ones more than the others, but with the genius of hijacking them. Godard was very aware of that and he never claimed doing something else than the mainstream industry. He just said he did it in another language.

I don't think anybody creates anything new in art, and even less in cinema. All you can do is using codes widely accepted and render them in an original way. But the codes are still there. They have to be there, or your work is going to be nothing but a monologue between you and yourself. Of course, you'll always find some people who'll think this monologue is fascinating, but this will happen by chance or because they're snobbish, not because you have revealed to them something universal, something all human beings can share.

Unless you really know the codes — why they're here, how they evolved — you'll never succeed to break them. All you're gonna do is going against them, the way an adolescent does the contrary of what his parents do. Going against something means you're not freed from it ; you're just as prisonner of the old way as someone who blindly obeys the old way. You're his negative reflection, not a free artist. A free artist accepts the codes, the things done before him/her. They're his/her backstore supplies.

Examples ?

David Lynch is famous worldwide for his deconstructing the story foundations. But look at his films : they're made with very classical scenes  — a trigger event, a conflict, a resolution. All he does (with an immense talent as far as I'm concerned) is joining these classical scenes in a very unique way.

Alain Resnais became very notorious when he released "Hiroshima mon amour" or "L'année dernière à Marienbad" for his revolutionizing the drama, but he could do so thanks to his perfect knowledge of dramaturgy he had aquired fduring a decade as an editor. He later made more academic movies that were (according to my tastes) just as good. He simply chose the appropriate form for the stories he had to tell.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

To conclude this too long (i need to cut it in two !), rather doctorial and somehow pretentious post, I'll talk about Africa.

I went to Guinea five years ago to study percussions. Up to then, I thought that African music was mostly a question of "feeling the rhythm" and "letting yourself be carried by the groove". Clichés, clichés, clichés (and a bit of colonial subconscious remainings probably)...

I was totally wrong. What I discovered there was a very very codified music, not based on notation but on oral tradition. If you play the second djembé part on "Koukou" (a very classical rhythm), you have to go tap-tadap-tititap-tadap-tititap... all the time, and nothing else, or everybody around — musicians, dancers and listeners — will get really mad at you. Everyone in the band has a part to play. Only the solists can improvise. It's very much like classical music, with one difference though. A major one :

A rhythm like "Koukou" has been played in Western Africa for more than six centuries, and it's still alive. Every generation brings its own innovative brick to the building. When the Mozart requiem is invariably performed with the very same notes for 200 years, "Koukou" is still evolving from generation to generation , from village to village, every time with the same basis, but every time with very noticeable variations, thanks to oral tradition. And believe me, when it's getting hot, it's getting really wild, and new notes come to life, that humanity has never heard before. All that within a very codified traditional frame.

This revelation (it sure was one) freed me from my religion for originality. I realised that it was only me who wanted to be taken as a unique person, someone different from the others. It was my ego that drove me, not my artistic quest.

Nowadays, there's nothing more banal than being special. A proof ? That's what they tell you all day long in the commercials : "you're special." The illusion of uniqueness is the new religion of the western world. A very profitable one : it makes you buy thousands of useless things.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

[quote author=Anartiste link=board=movies;num=1081972841;start=25#30 date=04/17/04 at 19:13:51]

Nowadays, there's nothing more banal than being special. A proof ? That's what they tell you all day long in the commercials : "you're special." The illusion of uniqueness is the new religion of the western world. A very profitable one : it makes you buy thousands of useless things.[/quote]

YOU ARE NOT A DELICATE SNOWFLAKE.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

I would love to, though. Truly. But my fingers go faster than my will. Sorry David if I bugged you. It's becoming a bad habit... :-[.
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

No, no . . . that was a line from "Fight Club" saying exactly what you said in that paragraph.

:)
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

I do think you can make unique works by exactly your examples: Lynch and Resnais are two great filmmakers. You do need to know the cinematic language, as well as be willing to deconstruct it, if you want to challenge its form. The way to create a new cinematic language is to reshape the old, as ones don't spontaneously become created. But you can also go against these "codes" and be freed by challenging them; the reshaping, "rerendering" of these codes is itself going "against" what we'd expected from them. You may be going with the flow of a genre or narrative expectations (to cite narrative exclusively), but you are confounding the viewer.

I'm not against cliches either...look no further than the great Douglas Sirk, who took a form (the woman's picture, melodrama) and reshaped it (as film IS a giant recyling factory, I agree), creating not only highly emotional and personal works, but films which very much work within the language of the melodrama. But his reshaping created an addendum to the language, which I would deem as "new".

But is anything new? Where's Jacques Derrida when you need him?

As for being universal, I think with each part of the world, things are different (cultural, social, political), but we all look for the humanity within characters or images, forming that crucial link between maker and viewer. One can make an anti-anti-communist Cold War picture (The Manchurian Candidate, for example) and have it be relevant in, say, Japan. For me, it's not is it universal and if it is how is it, but what can be said of a film that is, and what does that say about the two worlds (the nation in which the film was made, as well as its maker, to the viewer and wherever he or she lives and the nation in which they live)?
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

[quote author=Michael_Lieberman link=board=movies;num=1081972841;start=25#35 date=04/18/04 at 00:51:49]Where's Jacques Derrida when you need him?
[/quote]

Probably off somewhere trying to prove that black is white except when it's black.

;)
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

[quote author=John Hudson link=board=movies;num=1081972841;start=25#37 date=04/18/04 at 10:32:08]I just want to make something like Black Hawk Down.  [/quote]

Hey John, you have great taste! ;)

What did you think of the camera work in the action scenes of G.I. Jane?
 
Re: For those of us who hate Hollywood films...

Pure Ridley. :D Too bad the story was kind of lame (I mean really, a chick in the Seals? preparing for the feminist attack now). But technically the movie was cool.
 
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