This is really just a mulling sort of post - some of the many (very) sentimental thoughts in my head. I've been reading alot of Bazin lately, including Dudley Andrew's fine biography,
André Bazin. Film moves me, of course, but this is the first time, I must say, that film
theory has moved me. I think of all the prejudices, obstacles (difficulties in getting prints, screening etc) and adversities these critics had to face, I think of how they grappled with the new cinematic language, how they sought to present and promulgate and demystify cinema. Andrew writes, and literally, I will be quoting this in my thesis - in the 1930s when Bazin first started his work as a film critic: "It is difficult for us in our age to feel the depth of contempt in which cinema was generally held in the period." That was what they went through. It's crossed my mind many times while I've been reading all these early theorists... sometimes I feel almost envious: it must have been such a difficult, wonderful, exciting time, faced with a challenging and emergent "seventh art", arguing it, championing it... and with what triumph, what success.
Through the years, Bazin's theories have been criticised and practically ravaged... for their naivete, their transparent political causes, their impractical ontology. Fine. But he is the first great critic of our field. In praise, I can only quote Foucault, from "The Masked Philosopher" - I especially love the last line.
I can't help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life; it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgments but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes - all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I'd like a criticism of scintillating leaps of imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightning of possible storms.
Jenna
5 comments:
I consider myself a pretty hardcore postmodernist--you know, the usual critiques and assumptions about "representation" and "mediation." I'm incredibly skeptical of an claim to indexicality. That said, I think Bazin is my favorite straight film theorist (as opposed to cultural critics). I think his theories of the image--especially in "Ontology" and "Myth"--are a lot more subtle and complicated than he gets credit for.
And you're right, Jenna--his theories are moving and quite beautiful. He's a very careful thinker. I find his theories even more rich than Metz, Eisenstein and even Benjamin (though I like all those "canonical" thinkers). One day I'm going to write a defense of his ontology, from a Deleuzian perspective. I'm glad others still appreciate him, too.
js
During a film grad student meeting, a fresh-faced peer here said he thought film theory was still "cutting edge." I and others pointed out we all feel like old farts in the academic world. No matter what we do, we aren't truly trying to demystify cinema anymore. We simply complicate and challenge the past demystifications. People working in virtual worlds and other exciting areas feel more groundbreaking to me. I feel envious of their excitement when I watch them on my campus.
But perhaps I am too hard on myself.
It seems to me, despite any attacks, Bazin never goes away because the image itself is constantly challenged through technology -- or, now specifically, digitization. When reproduction itself changes, we have to strip the image down to the essential questions Bazin contemplated.
All the criticism of Bazin cannot stop that simple act from occurring.
I am not saying Bazin is simplistic. I believe he taps into the essential question in our field in something like "ontology." He is our father, as Jenna implies.
When we think he is obsolete, something happens in cinema or any image study that makes me realize we really haven't gone that far. We are still right there with him asking "What is Cinema?"
Maybe we are still "cutting edge."
I am fascinated by your list of canonical thinkers that you enjoy, Jason. I didn't expect to see Metz there. You know, as a patrial Lacanian, I still very much like ‘The Imaginary Signifier' – though others deride me for it.
As for theory that moves me . . . Barthes manages to do so at times.
Just an echo of previous posts, but I have to say that as problematic as I find some of his ideas, I still consider myself something of a fan of Bazin. The whole idea of an "ontology" of filmmaking suggests a sense of wonderment with the medium that is too often lost nowadays. I don't think he is a "great" critic, but he is certainly the most poetic, not demystifying cinema as he seems to intend to do at times, but rather remystifying it for my jaded sensibilities.
I sometimes wonder what he would think of films coming out today. I'm a huge fan of slick photography, cinematic optical illusions, and quick editing techniques, all things I imagine Bazin would dislike. But had he started his career now, not in the era of Umberto D. but in the era of Fight Club or Requiem for a Dream? How would his ontology shift? And would it still have that poetic ability to re-inspire my love for movies?
By the way, to comment on something that is in no way related to Bazin, but no joke, Slither is the best movie that's come out in 2006 so far (not that there's a long list of great movies yet).
I wouldn't say I'm big fan of Metz, but his writings are provocative. The phallic stuff is quite silly to me, but I find much to think about in the ideas of absent presence (present absence?).
In general (Scott's heard me say this before)--its not lacanian theory that bugs me, so much as it is lacanians themselves that I've encountered. Not to pick a fight, but there just seems to be this insufferable arrogance and single-mindedness that I find in lacanian academics today. I really don't say that to pick a fight--only to make a distinction and clear up a misconception about me that keeps being perpetuated. I do think some psychoanalytic theories work in tandem with other approaches.
Basically, my list was intended to state that I like Bazin best, even though I'd like to think I appreciate all the "classics."
I love Barthes, of course, but I guess I don't think of him as a "film" theorist (or Deleuze, or Jameson and so forth).
js
You're not offending me.
Besides, you've heard my rant on the Zizekian Lacanian movement of the 1990s in film studies.
I find a single-mindfulness masked as opened-minded-ness in many discussions of "the real."
It often goes no nowhere interesting to me. And the new direction seems to redirect Lacan in directions that reaches even quicker dead-ins than the 1970s school.
Not that some of the Zizek-love isn't valid, especially as a reaction to the prescriptivness of previous Lacanian film theory. Most of the new school reject Metz/Mulvey, etc . . . as a response to the heavy politicizing that resulted from the 70s. There is little concern that many of Metz's basic constructs are difficult to dispute, which bothers me in the shift.
I embrace some of the "phallic" discourse in my gender study, yet am no Freudian in my daily thinking. In gender, it helps to define by such terms since the discourse is right there and hard to avoid.
I also gag at the idea that using Lacan via Zizek is a way to move past the phallic discourse in Freud. I remember that being a debate in a class we took together once.
As Lacan said, (paraphrasing): "I don't know what a Lacanian is, I am a Freudian." Adding Zizek in doesn't mean you can overlook that idea.
Also, I noticed you turned off the response fuction on your blog, Jason. Where can I post my top 10 ten movie lists now?
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