I used this idle year to enroll myself in autodidactic film school. As I cycle chronologically through films and directors, it dawns on me that the history of cinema is like childhood. First you see, then you speak.
It is obvious too why (with a few notable exceptions), the Hollywood film is a dead medium. I've often felt that film as art began to spiral in the late 1970s. Jaws created the blockbuster, and Star Wars was an exercise in developing tie-in merchandise rather than in writing good dialogue. Then Heaven's Gate destroyed forever the director as auteur. The freedom that filmmakers had been given in the late '60s was taken away, with the money men now making creative decisions sans any sort of creativity.
The history of film is one of generational innovation. First was film itself, then in the 1930s came sound. Color followed in the '50s, then the freewheeling storytelling and technique of the '70s. Digital animation in the 1990s revolutionized (and in my opinion dumbed down) the presentation of image.
And since then? Nothing. We skipped a cycle about a decade ago, and are meant to be satisfied with a rehash of anniversary reissues (with the usual cosmetic surgery of improved definition and sound), as a palate cleanse after the junk food violence that is supposed to entertain us.
Roll credits.
On the turntable: Ennio Morricone, "The Best of Ennio Morricone"
2 comments:
I watched the extras on the Criterion DVD of Alfonso Cuaron's "Roma." He literally dropped in hyper-realistic backdrops to conjure an absolutely real 60s Mexico City on a backlot, with streetscapes and moving trams... Would that count as the missing generational innovation that presumably countless other filmmakers are using to create their modern masterpieces (like Roma)?
Sure. Of course there are exceptions. Some directors are still making excellent films. In the above I was referring mainly to Hollywood, though the malaise has crept through the industry worldwide.
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