"Paul Schrader: Film undergoing ‘total systemic change’ "

[David G. Smith]

From Screen Daily; Paul Schrader giving a public masterclass at the 53rd Festival international De Cine De Cartegena De Indias (FICCI) in Cartagena, Colombia... "2013 is more or less like 1913, we’re making it up all again. Very little we’ve learned in the last 100 years of cinema is of very much use anymore.” ...“In the 1960s we were suffering from a crisis of content, there was a new generation that had become defined by various liberations….movies needed new heroes, new anti-heroes and new themes. From the mid and late ‘60s to the early ‘80s, a lot of interesting films came out of that.”...“Today we’re in a greater crisis, it’s crisis not of content but of form. We don’t know what movies are anymore,”...

http://www.screendaily.com/5052354.article

 

[Ryan Patrick O'Hara]

"2013 is more or less like 1913, we’re making it up all again. Very little we’ve learned in the last 100 years of cinema is of very much use anymore.” ...“
http://www.screendaily.com/5052354.article

I disagree. I think films like 'the canyons' can certainly stand as an argument for the opposite.


The future of filmmaking will be different, certainly...but the knowledge, good and bad, gained from the last 100 years of cinema is beyond priceless to our industry. This is some grandiose statement to make a wave. Same with Spielberg saying there will be an implosion. As correct as he is about inevitable big change in the industry (as we've seen in very consistent cycles throughout cinema history) the statement is an overstatement in immediacy for dramatic effect. But what do you expect from these guys? They are storytellers. Drama is their thing

 

[David G. Smith]

Absolutely RPO. I am a huge fan of Schrader but I do realize that he is more than a little bit prone to hyperbole. One thing that I admire most about him is that of any currently active filmmaker of note he is probably one of the few that is totally steeped in the classical school of film criticism and, as a matter of fact, he is probably singularly the most important voice in our current understanding of the importance of Film Noir to film history with his essay "Notes on Film Noir". http://ubuntuone.com/0eij9pdtWkxT2y7P7xpASD

I also have to give him mad props for "The Canyons". When I first heard about that flick... that he had teamed up with Bret Easton Ellis to make a $250,000 flick with Linsay Lohan I was kind of taken aback. I mean the writer of "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", turned director was forced to go "Micro-budget" (Hollywood wise at least) with a TMZ celeb nightmare, ya know. However, it seems like he kind of cracked something with it and it is my understanding that his deal with IFC to distribute has already made all concerned "Fat" off the flick and like he says, they have not even made any international deals. You are right, he is in the controversy hype business at the moment and good for him. A lot of things are changing in cinema these days. I am glade to see Paul Schrader elbow his way to the front of the crowd and get himself a fresh "Fifteen minute" voice on the matter. I am definitely going to see "The Canyons" but I don't have a lot of expectations about it.

BTW, Schrader does a special features segment on the Criterion disk for Robert Bresson's "Pick Pocket", which I guess is one of his favorite films. I just watched it and think it is outstanding. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it

 

[Gillvane]

Quote: He gave the example of “new auteurs” making one or two minute pieces of content for YouTube, or of watching Whitney Houston’s funeral on his computer monitor, with the live feed in the middle, her music videos streaming on the right side of the screen, and a live global Twitter feed on the left. “All of this at the same time, that’s what movies are becoming.”

yea, not really. That's TV media crap, more "reality TV" and social media.

At the end of the day he made a movie in the classic sense of the word. It's got a story, a plot, themes, a star, a beginning, middle, end, and so on.

Will you sit in a dark room at home with people and watch the movie on a big screen, or at the theater? In the end this probably isn't as big a problem for Hollywood as it is for theaters and popcorn and soda makers.