MCN Blogs
Ray Pride

By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Posted Sunday, October 26th, 2008 - Comments Off on George Sluizer lectures on cinema's future: The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is 'sterile' and also utterly 'inconsequential.'
Be Sociable, Share!

George Sluizer lectures on cinema's future: The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is 'sterile' and also utterly 'inconsequential.'

Approaching Ground Zero with video camera

Dutch director George Sluizer (both versions of The Vanishing) delivered the Variety Cinema Militans Lecture in Utrecht on Sept. 27. “The lecture,” reports Variety, “is one of the highlights of the Netherlands Film Festival [and] has been delivered by some of Europe’s leading filmmakers, including Peter Greenaway, Krzysztof Zanussi and Agnieszka Holland.” All 4,200 worthy words are at the link; here’s a taste.”To put myself and you in the right spirit, let me start this Cinema Militans Lecture with a quote by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa: “The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is ‘sterile’ and also utterly ‘inconsequential.’ ” “Cinema” is, or I should say was, a thing of the 20th century. The film d’auteur died recently with the death of Bergman and Antonioni… In 2008, do we still need to devote our time to theories regarding film language, structure, style, editing, camera positions and all the other things we studied and were curious about 50 or 75 years ago? Today, the business of images for mass consumption is responsible for 95% of the media industry, including film for maybe 2% or 3%. Should we be nostalgic about the avant-garde filmmakers and essayists of the 20th century? No. Their way of filmmaking is now past history: very seldom today can we see films that remind us of the craft of “direct visual storytelling,” cinema that produces images that in principle need no explanation with words. Cinema is ruled by other media: television, DVDs and the Internet, and whatever is invented next. The Internet has many more consumers and much more influence than cinema ever had, and therefore it also has much more power. The new technologies determine and rule the business. They are responsible for the new way of communication between the people of the world… From an economic perspective, there is no point in investing in a delightful, memorable, challenging or subtle film, except if the product has a chance to make money. Politically speaking, art is unnecessary, because one does not need art to survive. The need for spiritual and artistic nurturing seems to have faded. It lives on mainly because some people need to fight the triumphant materialism and crave for emotions and emotivity as a proof of their existence… There are two processes that human beings cannot stop as long as they are alive: one is breathing and the other is thinking. Thinking makes us present to ourselves; thinking is the main component of our identity. Thoughts are the only assured possession we have. Thinking is supremely ours, and buried in the uttermost privacy of our being. No other human being can think my thoughts for me… There is a dichotomy, a deep fault between our old classical education and the speed of technological development. The two don’t match anymore. The abyss grows. What we have to learn is to think, something not usually taught in schools. To stay in sync with tomorrow, to learn to think, we have to learn. We have to re-adjust our mental education and mental training. Can we, for example, conceive of a society in which thinking is rationed… restricted to certain hours of the day, like food in the war was?” [Much more at the link.]

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments Off on George Sluizer lectures on cinema's future: The only attitude of a superior man is to persist in an activity he recognizes as useless, to observe a discipline he knows is 'sterile' and also utterly 'inconsequential.'

Comments are closed.

Movie City Indie

Comments Most Recent Archives

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon