Subject: Re: ft-l: Godard's "Alleged" Significance
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 1997 16:17:35 -0700 (MST)
From: Gary Norris <garyn-AT-tatteredcover.com>


	The following dialogue on criteria for the discussion of film is, 
I believe, askew from the original direction Bill wanted it take.  But I 
see a difference between "championing" Godard's cause, as it were, and 
the fans of Godard showing enthusiasm for the man's films.  The main 
point of my response is to question our use of language when concerning 
setting a criteria for film discussion. 

>    The championing of Godard's "alleged" significance in film history by 
> certain subscribers in the Godard thread brings up, for me, the far more 
> important question: what are valid criteria for the assessment of an 
> individual director's significance in film history?

I am wondering what you mean by "significance in FILM HISTORY"?
Is it that you are narrowing the inquiry by sifting out the arguments 
that have nothing to do purely with the history of film?  BTW, *now* we are 
involved in meta-criticism.  Meta-criticism in film criticism would have 
nothing to do with film-in-itself, rather it would be concerned with the 
criticism, i.e. what, if any, importance does Deleuze carry as a critic?
Personally, I want to talk about film.  AFAIC, Godard speaks to film as 

> 
>    I think one of the primary responsibilities of film theory is to 
> provide a critique of film criticism (meta-criticism) and to constantly 
> make overt the underlying assumptions of film criticism and re-evaluate 
> their validity.


> 
>    Along those lines, then, I'd like to put forth at least two criteria 
> (I'm sure you'll come up with more):
> 
> 
> 
>    1. The director's contribution to the evolution of film language (or 
> the medium of expression, art form or whatever else you want to call 
> it).
> 	

	We could say that everyone who has made a film has accomplished 
the above


>    2. The availability of that director's films for viewing.

	Is this supposed to mean how many copies are available at the local 
vid-store? If this is so, then I would like to say that the ordinary 
film-goer, the movie fan, does not have much to say about film.  This 
might sound a bit elite, but I don't mind that critique.  The ordinary 
movie fan would watch anything they were told to watch-- anything popular. 
Anything well advertised, with a big budget, with a movie critic's 
thumb directed up at it, etc.
	**OR** do you mean accessibility to an audience?-- and if so, what 
type of audience would you be referring to?  It seems that you would 
critique a film through who watches it as opposed to what it is as a film 
(what is says as a film, how it was made, what was intended, etc)
Certainly, you are not getting at films-as-propoganda, films that speak 
to THE people.  You are referring to films that are seen by people.  The 
former I would be willing to speak to, the latter is not a valid criteria 
( I speak to this below.)
 
> > >    Already, with only two criteria listed, the elitist and overly 
> idealistic nature of the film studies establishment becomes apparent. 
> Why?
> 
>    Because their "ratings" are given as though the distribution and 
> exhibition of European "art films" is homogenous and all on the same 
> "plane" (or the proverbial "level playing field"). Nothing could be 
> further from the truth, and that's why' for me, Godard isn't even on the 
> radar screen.

This makes absolutley no sense to me.  What is the "ratings" system you 
are referring to?

> 
>    Where were the majority of his films from the 60s and 70s primarily 
> screened? On university campuses. The academic elevation of Godard is an 
> exercise in self-serving apologetics for the academic film studies 
> establishment.

	Would you have us speak purely about the empty films (w/o significance) 
that most people will sit through?  Trash shovelled through screens like 
the fake butter through a greazy nozzle into your overpriced popcorn?  
The reason why most films are not seen in the US is because they don't 
make enough money, generate enough capital, for a theatre (most likely 
part of a chain) to buy.  For example, Wim Wenders latest film spent two 
weekends in the midwest-- approx. nine to twelve screenings at two 
theatres in Dever.  And it was a film specifically directed at the ordinary 
American.  This doesn't mean that Wenders film didn't speak to an 
American audience.  It shows that it didn't reach them because of how it 
was marketed, where and when it was shown.  
	Revenue, Capital, Spielberg and Co, Disney, etc. should not be the 
criteria we use.  What people pay to see should not be the criteria we use. 
The films themselves should be the criteria.  Students of film should set the 
criteria.  I do feel that the ordinary person who watches film can be viewed 
as a student of film.  There are different levels of discourse, though.  It 
would be ludicrous to base literary studies, for example, on what the average 
American tolerates as reading material.  And as far as students of film 
(usually) are concerned, what student has not been entranced at one time 
and/or at some level, with the films of Godard.

> 
>    Being a person who never took an academic film studies course, the 
> director whose films the largest percentage of which I was able to see 
> was Luis Bunuel. I've seen 11 of the 32 films he's credited with 
> directing according to the Internet Movie Database. And I saw 8 of those 
> in a commercial movie theatre.

Bunuel has the same problem, now, that Godard has always had.

> 
>    So, I don't think any director can be evaluated without taking into 
> consideration the availability of their films for viewing.

The discreet charm of the borgiousie has never been to appreciate film, 
rather they have been the subject of much of film.  They see films;  they 
do not watch them.  They attend theatres like AMC MANN ODEON CINEPLE 
GENERAL CINEMAS;  they do not patronize the theatres downtown, so to speak.

> >    
Bill Flavell 


gary norris

j'est un autre




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