kinds of cinema and tv
alejandro de tacobell
this category of cinema deals with fantasy reality. there is the
disneyesque or 'father knows best' kind of idealism, or scrubbed
idealism. in this world, everything is safe and banal and G-rated.
there is also the mythic kind of idealism as we see in movies like
ben-hur. the world of the mythic is often cruel and dangerous but the
themes are larger than life, and the human spirit has the power to
achieve heroic deeds.
ideological: has much in common with idealistic cinema but is closer
to realism. often gritty and down-to-earth, but the main objective is
to sway the viewer politically, to win support for a narrow cause or
agenda. generally propagandistic. battle of algiers is ideological
cinema.
idealistic cinema tends to be cleancut and more larger-than-life than
ideological cinema.
humanist: humanist cinema doesn't shy away from reality. it shows the
ugliness and cruelty of life. however, humanist cinema has a moral
perspective, a didactic element--though not necessarily obvious or
preachy--that guides the viewer. no matter how dark and gloomy, there
is a sense of moral compass, of hope, of redemption. killing fields
and the mission are humanist in this sense. so is schindler's list.
humanism may intensely focus on individuals--like in ikiru--but the
personal has universal connotations. the emphasis is more on the oceans
that unite the islands of humanity. in ikiru, the dying man initially
agonizes alone but learns to connect with others. examples of
humanist cinema would be bicycle thieves, siberiade, seven samurai,
films of rossellini, etc.
perhaps, most valuable as public or collective art, as representing the
core values and aspirations of a people.
anthropological: has the realism of humanist cinema but observes
without a clear moral compass or perspective. records or represents
reality faithfully without making a point or drawing a comprehensive
moral conclusion. goodfellas would be an anthropological film. this
isn't to say anthropological cinema is immoral or amoral; rather, the
point is to see the reality for what it is than to pass judgment on it.
personal: can be realistic as humanism but focuses more on personal
meaning than universal meaning. mean streets and 400 blows are
personal films. 400 blows can be declared as humanist and
anthropological, and of course no movie is entirely one thing or
another. no movie is entirely humanist, entirely personal, entirely
this or that, but most movies emphasize one aspect the others. and 400
blows is emotionally too close to the director to be coolly
anthropological. and, ultimately, the story of doinel is his
alone--and of truffaut--and not a lesson for rest of mankind or all
young boys. it's HIS story, good or bad.
neurotic: if humanist goes from individual to universal reality,
neurotic often goes from universal to individual reality. take
hiroshima mon amour. the woman seeks to know the man thru hiroshima.
but, and the man seeks to know the woman thru her story in nevers. but,
they remain locked within their private memories that cannot be shared
by the other. it can perhaps be understood but not shared.
in humanist cinema, even the greatest pain can be shared as well as
understood. we can access the hearts of the characters. the problems,
no matter how awful, is universal. how can we not sympathize or share
the fear and hope and aspiration of the jews in schindler's list?
but, how far can we go in understanding the woman in hiroshima mon
amour? we can only access her halfway. much of her is hers alone. she
cannot be saved thru us and we cannot be saved thru her. she remains
alone and we realize that we too have our own neurosis that belongs to
each of us alone. what may be personally tragic may be universally
comic or absurd. what may be universally meaningful may mean nothing to
the individual in neurotic cinema.
the films of bergman and antonioni are also neurotic. they also serve
no useful moral purpose for mankind at large as opposed to films by
kurosawa, rossellini, etc.
however, this is not a value judgment. the purpose of neurotic art is
not to teach or instruct but to dig into the dark recesses of human
consciousness or social alienation. it can perhaps be therapeutic but
the viewer must experience films such as persona or la notte alone. he
must find his own meaning in those films.
these films do not unite the film viewers into one humanity. instead,
they pull us into recesses that separate us from rest of humanity.
humanism navigates the oceans surrouding the islands of humanity.
neurotic cinema digs deep into the dark interior of the island.
neurotic art gains in depth what it lacks in breadth(humanist cinema).
while neurotic cinema doesn't represent the soul of the people, it does
represent the soul--often sick, twisted, dark--of individuals which is
certainly worth examining. as such, it can be degenerate and is the
polar opposite of idealistic(mythic) art of, say, leni riefenstahl or
the ideological cinema of sergei eisenstein.
examples of neurotic art include mulholland drive, face of another,
spider by cronenberg, and most bergman films.
pathological: unlike neurotic art, pathological art wallows in
morbidity and sickness. neurotic art exhibits some degree of clinical
trepidation, a serious attempt to understand the neurosis, to rise
above it or examine it with intelligence and caution. mulholland drive
and eraserhead are neurotic in this sense. but, blue velvet is perhaps
more pathological than neurotic. lynch goes overboard, dives fully into
the morass of ugliness. pulp fiction is one of the most pathological
films ever. and, so are most horror films. pathological films are
mostly works by demented souls, and their effect on the collective
psyche is generally damaging. pathological cinema happily and
pornographically surrenders to sickness, demonism, psychosis, and
mayhem. silence of the lambs is pathological. so is henry the
portrait of a serial killer. one may defend henry or man bites dog as
anthropological films, but it's simply not human to numbingly recreate
or blankly stare at scenes of pointless bloodshed and torture.
anthropological film, on the other hand, may not be moralistic but it
must be moral. pathological film takes pride in its immorality.
alejandro de tacobell
we should also include...
the formalistic: this kind of cinema is concerned mainly with the
possibilities of cinematic expression itself. it is less concerned with
the subject than how the subject can be represented thru the medium.
least moralistic of all the approaches. examples would be mizoguchi's
chusingura, resnais's last year at marienbad, the films of rivette.
alejandro de tacobell
ricci needs a job to feed his family in bicycle thieves.
kids have much to gain by having a nice playground in ikiru.
and so on.
neuroticism, on the other hand, is about well-off or even wealthy
people who aren't satisfied by material well-being or social stability.
with too much leisure time, privelege, knowledge, or etc they feel
disaffected, dissociated, etc.
marx said the working classes are alienated. i wonder if it was HE who
was alienated as an intellectual and then projected his own neurosis
onto the workers.
maybe the workers didn't feel 'alienated'. they knew what it was all
about. working, getting paid, paying the rent, supporting the family.
it made sense.
but, intellectuals always think and think, and as a result, become
alienated or disassociated from reality and normal human life. they
become stuck in a theoretical bubble.
so, what marx needed to do was examine his own mind or find some honest
work.
but, like all kooks, he pretended to understand the people, speak for
the people, and champion the people... when he was only championing his
own fatass self.