week 14 the perverse present: globalization, digitalization, u tube and the future of cinema
TRANSCRIPT
Week 14
The Perverse Present: Globalization, Digitalization, U Tube and the Future of
Cinema
Screening TBA : Run Lola Run (1999) Tom Tykwer; Waking Life (2001) Richard Linklater; Time Code (1999) Mike Figgis; The Matrix (1999); Larry and Andy Wachowski; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Ang Lee; The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2000-4) Peter Jackson. Once, John Carney (2007)
Reading: Thompson & Bordwell Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Toward A Global Film Culture pp 705- 739.
RUN LOLA RUN Tom Twyker
TOM TYKWER was born in 1965 in Wuppertal. Official Website sources
“Peter Pan" was probably the first film he saw, and he says that the youthful fantasy of creating a magical parallel world remains an inspiration to this day. The dreamy, childlike sense of wonder in “Peter Pan” fascinated him, as did Vittorio de Sica’s "Miracle in Milan".
RUN LOLA RUN, swiftly written and filmed, and brimful of ideas. The film struck a chord with the public and outdid its director’s wildest dreams, becoming the most successful German film of 1998.
“Another important cinematic experience was seeing "King Kong" – nine-year-old Tykwer realized that cinema was artificial, man-made. This particular film marked the start of his fondness for the horror genre. Tykwer also names James Whales’ "Bride of Frankenstein", "Miracle in Milan” and John Carpenter’s "Halloween" as some other early discoveries.”
Tykwer started making Super 8 films at the age of eleven, a purely fan-driven exercise in which he essentially rehashed his favourite films and – as he readily admits – bored his long-suffering circle of friends stiff. Nevertheless, he continued to work on similar projects all through school.
The title is a reference to philosopher George Santayana's maxim that “sanity is a madness put to good uses; waking life is a dream controlled.”
http://www.foxsearchlight.com/wakinglife/
“Are we sleep-walking through our waking state or wake-walking through our dreams”
Boat Car Guy:
“I feel like my transport should be an extension of my personality. And this is like my little window to the world... and every minute's a different show. I may not understand it. I may not even necessarily agree with it. But I'll tell you what I've accepted: just sort of glide along.”
“You want to keep things on an even key, this is what I'm saying. You want to go with the flow. The sea refuses no river. The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes. The ride does not require explanation - just occupance. That's where you guys come in. It's like you come onto this planet with a crayon box.”
8 pack 16 pack
Now you may get the 8 pack, you may get the 16 pack but it's all in what you do with the crayons - the colors - that you're given. Don't worry about coloring within the lines or coloring outside the lines - I say color outside the lines, you know what I mean? Color all over the page; don't box me in! We're in motion to the ocean. We are not land locked, I'll tell you that.
“The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving.”
Philosophy Professor:
“The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us... I'm afraid were losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the sense of taking responsibility for who you are the ability to make something of yourself and feel good about life.
“Existentialism is often discussed as if it were a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre, once interviewed, said he never felt once minute of despair in his life.”
“One thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance, of feeling on top of it, its like your life is yours to create. I've read the post modernists with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out.
“The more you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as being fragmented of marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses.”
Sartre
“And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or souls that theologians would talk about. He's talking about you and me talking, making decisions, doing things, and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in this world, and counting, but nevertheless -what you do makes a difference.”
“It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms, to other people, and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never write ourselves off or see each other as a victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.”
1) Postmodernism provides Choices of perspectives:
Alternative experimental, commercial and the mix and matching of commercial
avant-garde or neo-avant-garde styles. Mixing and matching of genres….conflation.
U Tube, File Sharing and new distribution methods. Broadcast yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2) We mentioned in previous weeks Hollywood’s resurgence - domination of the market by block buster movies - global distribution patterns. Penetration ofHollywood in the most remote corners of the globe. Home movie distribution, multi-channel universe, digital age brings with it greater opportunity for marketing and the putative increase in consumer choice!
The DVD Revolution
VHS/Beta of the 1980’s followed in the 90’s with the DVD pkging of home movies led to a boom in consumer marketing and encouraged the development film literacy and an interest in film history. Seagram Corp's purchase of controlling shares in MCA in 1995 lead to increased Canadian participation in the film distribution service industry now abated with the market meltdown 2008/9
Centre/Periphery
There is an increased Centre/ periphery margins - hegemonic control in the distribution of films and video programs. Europe/US dominate the distribution but not the production of movies.
English the language of choice for translation.
World Cinema
However World cinema no longer hidden from view. One is as likely to see multi-national productions of films from Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Russia, Spain, Australia and New Zealand (The Piano), India (Slum Dog Millionaire) becoming box office successes, thus expanding the number of nations from the traditional movie producing countries with strong national traditions: Italy, France, Germany, England, and Scandinavia.
Films from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa are also finding their way onto public and cable television and the soon to be (gasp!) 500 channel `universe' provides a ready market for productions.
Groups from different national ethnic backgrounds speaking in their own voices, creating their own images.
In previous weeks we noted the emergence of Japanese, Chinese and now Australian Cinema. Previously dominated by US and British films - no production base until the late 1960's. Australia had produced a few sound films before the war and almost none in the 25 years after..
Like Canada eh?
Finally like Canada, in 1970 Oz set up[ the Film Development Corp (Later Australian Film Commission) in recognition of the role of Cinema and Television in promoting national expression and identity. In the 1970's over 100 features were made and by the late 1970's Oz film makers had received a number of academy award nominations My Brilliant Career (Gillian Armstrong) 1979 Costume design and Breaker Morant (Bruce Beresford) 1980 screenplay.
Ill considered govt policies in the 1970's hindered the development of Canadian Cinema as whole. However Quebec has become a particularly productive centre within the Canadian film industry.
Quebec Cinema:
Although marginalized twice over by France and English Canada this has strengthened the Quebec governments resolve to support specifically French Canadian culture.
And while the October crisis of the 1970's and political repression further disadvantaged Quebec cinema some wonderful films appeared during this time including
Claude Jutra's (1930-1986) Mon Oncle Antoine 1971 and Michel Brault’s Les Ordres (1974)
Canadian Govt policy changed in the 1980's to a more supportive role in supporting film makers. This helped film makers such as Denys Arcand to realize his award winning film The Decline of the American Empire (1986)
This work centres on the sexual lives of a group of history professors and one prof's theory that societies decline when personal desires take precedence over common goals.
Jesus of Montreal
Arcand's next film concerns an actor who portrays Jesus in a Passion Play and during the film becomes a Christ like critic of immorality and materialism.
A Quebec film to receive major international recognition (1992) Cannes was Leolo a film by director Jean-Claude Lauzon (b 1953) concerning the difficult family life of a small boy in Montreal. And of course Toronto's Atom Agoyan (Exotica, Chloe) has now become one of Canada's most famous directors.
Gay and Lesbian Cinema
The so-called `sexual revolution' of the 1960's and 1970's encouraged a new openness to gender and sexual issues which had remained somewhat repressed and hidden from view.
Within the past 20 years gay and lesbian cinema ranks with feminism and ethnic cinema as an important influence on the development of both alternative and mainstream commercial cinema.
Both federal, state/province legal codes as well as The Hollywood production code prohibited against the representation of explicit sexuality, nudity and specifically violent sexuality in the commercial film industry. But like the prostitution trade double standards existed everywhere. The first news of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980's also encouraged a new openness to dealing with sexuality in films and television. Autopathographies abound in novel and film form.
(1931, remade in 1958) by Leotine Sagan and the justly famous Boys in the Band (1970) by director William Friedkin. Shot on one set (like My Dinner with Andre it revolves around the lives of nine men, eight of whom are gay who attend a birthday party and end up exposing their lives and feelings to one another throughout the night.
Entire groups of works by specific directors or appearances by actors such as Howard Hawks and Rock Hudson have entered a kind of gay canon. Needless to say these films do not enter the Vatican's approved list of film viewing.
Homoerotic themes and society's by and large homophobic responses to them. These were essentially underground films and this continued throughout the 1960's and early 70's to be the place where gay and lesbian themes could be explored. There are a few earlier films with explicit homosexual content for instance Madchen in Uniform
The films of Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol from the 1950's & 1960's respectively, provide early examples of the representation of explicit gay sexuality,
Isaac Julien
• (Black English film maker (b.1960) member of the Ankofa workshop in Britain a group attempting to reverse discrimination against blacks. His Looking for Langston (1989) began as a documentary on the AfroAmerican poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967).
Juxtaposes actuality footage with stylized mise en scene black and white film described by Sklar "as a work of contemplated and troubled exploration, suggesting that race, sexual preference and desire are subjects that are difficult to categorise in simple programmatic ways. (498)
Young Soul Rebels (1991)
Lesbian Cinema
Donna Deitch (b 1945) Desert Hearts (1985)
Ulrike Ottinger (b 1942) Madame X Eine absolute Herrsherin (Madam X an absolute ruler (1977).
• Monika Treut) Die YungFrauen Maschine (The Virgin machine
• Rosa von Praunheim (b. Holger Mischwitzki in Riga Latvia 1942) Working in both Berlin and New York has made since the 1980s some extraordinary films on the AIDS crisis.
Ein Virus Kennt Keine Moral (A virus knows no morals (1989) a satire of the medical profession, press politicians and even gays themselves. A gay entrepreneur runs a sauna club and dismisses the AIDS threat because he wishes to maintain his profit margins. The films ends with the farcical shipping off of AIDS sufferers to the Hellgayland.
Gay, Lesbian and Related Films with Homosexual Themes.
• Maedchen in Uniform (1931, 1958) Leotine Sagan
• The Boys in the Band (1970) William Friedkin
• The Conformist, (1971) Bernardo Bertolucci
• Death in Venice (1971) Luchino Visconti
• Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) Rainer W. Fassbinder
• Je,Tu,Il Elle (1974), Chantal Ackerman
• Fox and his Friends (1975) Rainer Fassbinder
• Outrageous Richard Benner (1977)
• La Cage aux Folles 1&2 (1978,1981) Eduardo Molinaro
• My Dinner with Andre (1981) Louis Malle
• Looking for Langston (1989),Young Soul Rebels (1991) Isaac Julien; Desert Hearts (1985) Donna Deitch
• Ein Virus Kennt Keine Moral (A virus knows no morals, 1989); Rosa von Praunheim (Holger Mischwitzki)
• I've Heard The Mermaid Singing (1993) Patricia Rozema
• Caravaggio, Derek Jarman
• Maurice, (1987) James Ivory
• An Englishman Abroad (1988) John Schlesinger
• Philadelphia
• Longtime Companion (1990) Norman Rene