1. Movie vs. Video (2 net movie projects)
2. Movie/Film/Cinema/?? >was Movie vs. Video (2 net movie projects)
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Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 19:02:00 +0200
From: Matej Modrinjak
Subject: Re: 2 net movie projects
> nyc2 canal
> http://66.240.178.143/canal2/
> bandl
> http://66.240.178.143/bandl/
When I saw this two works, as you said "2 net movie
projects" - I was just wondering what is the difference
that separates the movie from a video?
both clips seamed to me more like a video then a movie.
matej
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Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 14:15:13 -0400
From: doron
Subject: 2 net movie projects
it's an interesting comment. I think it's a matter of semantics.
true, the original source is dv. but the output and the feel of the work is
quicktime.
'apple' and the general definition for streaming quicktime is known and
respected as 'movie'.
I chose to call it a chicken. some call it an egg.
y,
doron
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Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:53:31 -0700
From: Robert Koehler
Subject: Re: Movie vs. Video (2 net movie projects)
Matej wrote:
my definition of Video and Movie (in the case of an
artistic product):
- Movie is a story (an act of narrative nature, that have
got the start and the end)
- Video is a sequence (an act that reproduces itself
infinitely)
Even allowing for your definitions within the scope of an artistic
project, they hardly apply in any other way. On material terms, ``movie'' is
celluloid; ``video'' is videotape. This is a huge difference, from the
aesthetic to the physiological (the well-noted eye-brain interaction that is
slowed down watching video).
``Movie,'' from a cinephile standpoint, is a much more subjective
animal. The term has long been bandied about, with some parties (Paulettes
among them) embracing the term as a useful identifier of the art form's
populist nature, while others hold the term as a nice, convenient term that
reminds that these are motion pictures, with the emphasis on ``motion.''
(I'm more or less with this camp.)
However, in my own writing, I am also prone to easily alternate between
the the term ``movie'' and ``film'' when referring to an individual work.
This is as much for resisting repetition as much as anything else, for I
also reject the formulation of John Simon's, which he encapsulated in the
title of one of his compilation volumes, ``Movies Into Film,'' arguing that
there are slight entertainments (movies) vs. substantial works of art
(film). This is merely rhetoric on Simon's part, in my view, and not very
helpful in getting to the heart of the matter. Unfortunately, the marketing
of movies has embraced Simon's usage. ``Going to the movies'' still seems to
be a phrase used not only by the casual weekend moviegoer plotting their
trip to the multiplex, but is also used in exhibitor promotions, trailers
and other advertising–which, in turn, reinforces that casual weekend
moviegoer to keep using the term, including thinking of themselves with the
term I just called them. (Advertising thus achieving one of its central
aims, to provide the customer with a definition of themselves, rather than
they seeking out their own self-definition.)
On the other hand, ``art film'' is used as a shorthand term by
marketers and burned-out critics alike to lump all manner of Tsais,
Kiarostamis, De Oliveiras, Dardennes, Jarmusches and Greenaways together in
one easy-to-swallow package. To put it another way, when was the last time
we saw the term ``art movie''? I can't think of it, except perhaps meant in
a derogatory way. I would add ``cinema'' as another alternating terms with
``movie'' and ``film,'' and, I think, the best of the bunch. And as a term
to act as a headline banner over the art form as a whole, ``cinema'' for me
remains the best of all, from cultural, aesthetic and historical
perspectives. (It is much more frequently used in the UK and France–and in
its linguistic equivalents in many other countries–than in the US, where
the term ``cinema'' has a certain snootiness attached to it. I always
thought it ironic that Kael, the champion of the ``movie'' term, wrote her
New Yorker column under the banner ``The Current Cinema.''
Characteristically, the New Yorker is about the only mass magazine in the US
that still uses the C-word.)
Another interesting way of measuring usage is in the major film
journals. The cleverest and most satisfying usage is at the best North
American journal, which uses it in its own title–CinemaScope. Yet, down at
Lincoln Center (or is it up?), it is Film Comment. Here on the West Coast,
there is Film Quarterly. (Also, long ago in L.A., there used to be Cinema
Magazine, edited by Paul Schrader.) My favorite LA video store is cleverly
titled Cinefile. You have to travel across The Pond to the UK to find a
journal with ``movie'' in the title–namely, the newly revived Movie.
Cahiers du Cinema, of course, still embraces the cinema definition. Others
bypass the issue altogether–sometimes classically (Sight & Sound,
Chaplin)–sometimes with marvellous poetics (Trafic, Bianco e Nero ).
Sometimes, they combine the term with poetics (El Amante/Cine).
Note, too, that filmmakers–or are they moviemakers, or
cineastes?–sometimes use their own specific terms for their cinema
production. ``Joint'' is Spike Lee's original term, to suggest the
collaborative nature of production. ``Picture'' is Scorsese's term, which I
read in a cinephilic way to restore the long-forgotten term that was common
during Hollywood's studio hey-day, as an abbreviation of ``motion picture,''
though completely unsatisfying to those of us who want to stress the art
form's cinematic, motion, qualities. (And no, dear academics, I do not use
the phrase ``Classical Hollywood''–a risible bit of verbiage if there ever
were one.) I've even heard several contemporary directors, producers and
writers–some under the age of 40–use the term ``show'' for their
production, although I think this is a bizarre word, much more appropriate
for theater, or Vegas, than for cinema. Some, like Kubrick, used to use the
word, ``production,'' which to my mind is an excellent and very precise term
for what's being described. By far the most frequently used term by US
directors exploiting the possessory credit is ``A Film by….'', but this is
the most risible of all. A prompt for the unfortunate rise of this phrase
came from both genuinely independent filmmaking as well as from the French.
Yet a Godard, when it is on film, is certainly ``un film de Jean-Luc
Godard.'' But can anyone confidently say that if McG directs something, it's
``A Film by McG''? Isn't ``A Jerry Bruckheimer Production'' more on the mark
than, say, a production which Bruckheimer (for better or worse, the most
emphatically auteurist of Hollywood producers today) produces that also
happens to be identified in the credits as ``A Dominic Sena Film''?
While ``movie'' was a term that I liked for a long time–despite my own
antipathy to almost everything Kael stood for–the rise of ``video'' has
somehow blunted its meaning and appeal, and even blurred the differences.
Video, after all, also moves. On other hand, ``film'' and ``cinema''
intrinsically separate themselves from ``video.'' You can go to a cinema to
see videos, but what you're seeing is not cinema. And it is obviously not
film. I've found in my own reviewing that I am making more explicit
reference to identifying a video-shot feature as ``a video,'' even if it may
confuse some readers with the term ``music video,'' which itself is
sometimes abbreviated in usage down to, simply, ``video.'' (``Spike Jonze
shot a video before he filmed `Adaptation,' '' for example.) This way, it's
clear–despite the potential confusion–that what is being written about is
not a movie, or a film, or cinema, but a video-shot production.
Of course, confusion creeps back into the process almost immediately.
Although in my Variety reviews (per our style format), I always note in the
credits (which include far more technical data than the typical
consumer-oriented review) which process was used for ``filming'' or
``taping'' (eg. for video ``digital video color,'' or for film ``Deluxe
color, Technicolor prints, Panavision widescreen''), the banner over the
paper's entire department of reviews is titled ``Film Reviews.'' (In the
same way, the department containing movie reporting is bannered ``Film.'')
So, there is really no end to the confusion–at least, journalistically.
But when it comes to identifying the two media, I think we have to be
exact, or as exact as terms used in the art world, which is commonly
extremely specific when it comes to identifying the media used in creating
an art work. Thus, at MOCA's immense Andy Warhol retrospective recently,
certain art objects were identified as ``oil,'' others as ``acrylic,''
others as ``lithograph,'' others as ``film,'' and others as ``video.'' The
material in hand defines the term. The cultural usage of that material may
change the term, or at least open it up to a range of terms–from ``movie''
to ``film'' to ``cinema.'' I found that I contradicted myself on all of
these points just at the end of last year, when, in my list of ``the best
films of 2002,'' I listed Michael Snow's feature-length video, ``*Corpus
Callosum.''
So it goes….
Robert Koehler
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Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 18:43:06 -0500
From: Robert Keser
Subject: Re: Movie/Film/Cinema/?? >was Movie vs. Video (2 net movie
projects)
Robert Koehler wrote:
> <snip> I would add ``cinema'' as another alternating terms with
> ``movie'' and ``film,'' and, I think, the best of the bunch. And as a term
> to act as a headline banner over the art form as a whole, ``cinema'' for me
> remains the best of all, from cultural, aesthetic and historical
> perspectives. (It is much more frequently used in the UK and France–and in
> its linguistic equivalents in many other countries–than in the US, where
> the term ``cinema'' has a certain snootiness attached to it…
Maybe we need to start using a more neutral term. 'Kino' has
always appealed to me. I like the 'K' and I like the connection to
Russian and European filmmaking.
Why has 'screen' fallen into disuse? Doesn't 'Silver Screen' hold
some residual glamour?
> Another interesting way of measuring usage is in the major film
> journals. The cleverest and most satisfying usage is at the best North
> American journal, which uses it in its own title–CinemaScope. Yet, down at
> Lincoln Center (or is it up?), it is Film Comment. Here on the West Coast,
> there is Film Quarterly. (Also, long ago in L.A., there used to be Cinema
> Magazine, edited by Paul Schrader.) My favorite LA video store is cleverly
> titled Cinefile. You have to travel across The Pond to the UK to find a
> journal with ``movie'' in the title–namely, the newly revived Movie.
Well, U.S. newstands have 'Movieline', but I've never understood
the logic of that title (or the attractions of that magazine).
> Cahiers du Cinema, of course, still embraces the cinema definition. Others
> bypass the issue altogether–sometimes classically (Sight & Sound,
> Chaplin)–sometimes with marvellous poetics (Trafic, Bianco e Nero ).
> Sometimes, they combine the term with poetics (El Amante/Cine).
Technical terms are popular too, as in Close-Up (Italy) and Positif
(France). Online we also have 24framespersecond and MacGuffin.
It's probably only a matter of time before we see 'Klieg' and 'Avid'
and 'Eyemo' on the newstands.
There's also the graceful 'Griffithiana', but that's not a model that
will work for, say, Hou Hsiao-Hsien. At any rate, we've overcome
the pedestrian titles like 'Monthly Film Bulletin' and 'Film Fan'.
> <snip>
> So it goes….
Indeed.
–Robert Keser
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Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 17:06:47 -0700
From: Robert Koehler
Subject: Re: Movie/Film/Cinema/?? >was Movie vs. Video (2 net movie
projects)
Robert Keser wrote:
Well, U.S. newstands have 'Movieline', but I've never understood
the logic of that title (or the attractions of that magazine).
Even worse, Movieline magazine has now retitled itself Movieline's Hollywood
Life. At least it clarifies where that magazine's real agenda lies, although
it also suggests that ``Movieline'' is a kind of brand name, like
``Brill's'' of Stephen Brill, or ``Kiplinger's''.
Robert Koehler
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Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 19:36:06 -0500
From: Robert Keser
Subject: Re: Movie/Film/Cinema/?? >was Movie vs. Video (2 net movie
projects)
Robert Koehler wrote:
> Robert Keser wrote:
>
> Well, U.S. newstands have 'Movieline', but I've never understood
> the logic of that title (or the attractions of that magazine).
>
> Even worse, Movieline magazine has now retitled itself Movieline's Hollywood
> Life. At least it clarifies where that magazine's real agenda lies, although
> it also suggests that ``Movieline'' is a kind of brand name, like
> ``Brill's'' of Stephen Brill, or ``Kiplinger's''.
> Robert Koehler
….and not unlike 'Fellini's Satyricon'.
–Robert Keser
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