A letter to me about the Black Mail Pictures”
Dear Mr. Pseudonym,
You wrote:
“If you would like to work for us/with us you must agree to our 3 core philosophic views:
1. We believe in independent film. We believe that independant film consistantly overreaches Hollywood in quality of art and creativity.
2. We are against the status quo. “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it” – Bertolt Brecht.
3. We create films for their contribution to art and argument, not for the money. We hope to one day be able to live off of our film work, but if not, then so be it.”
As to point #1, I can tell you that I don’t believe in “independent film.” Nor do I believe in branding dozens of competing film/television/record/interactive media studios under one name “Hollywood.” I believe in good movies, be they made by James Cameron or by John Cassavetes. It really doesn’t matter much to me, just as long as they’re good.
My thoughts on the idea proposed by Mr. Brecht? I mean, I don’t really know. I don’t think that you can make any declarative statements about art like that. Otherwise, you’re saying that movies like “About Last Night…” and “Irreversible” aren’t art. They aren’t meant to “shape reality,” (and you can’t find them in the hammer departments of any hardware stores, either) but are the mirrors which he claims art cannot be. So, ya know, art is kind of an ever-changing and fleeting idea, I think. It’s not static and it defies most attempts to articulate it. (Having said all that, I assume that your intention behind that quote was to illustrate that you’re a no-holds-barred sort of artist, and to that end I will fit in. I believe in being aggressive and making points emphatically.) Incidentally, I wrote an essay on a filmmaker tailoring his pictures to the public, specifically George Lucas. You can check it out at www.StarWarsEssay.Blogspot.com. It won an award at TheForce.net.
And then there’s the third criteria, that I disavow myself from capitalistic ambitions. Well, here again I have to sort of take the middle ground. I think that as long as you’re making the picture for yourself, than it’s perfectly logical to ignore what others might think. But as long as the purpose of a picture is to communicate something to others, it makes sense to tailor it to the tastes of an audience. If it only makes sense to the director, than the director has turned himself from a communicator to a ranting street preacher, in my opinion.
And as for the list of fifty (FIFTY!!!) movies that I like, well, I think that a list of five would suffice and ten would be overkill, but here goes anyhow:
-The Abyss
-Jurassic Park
-Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
-Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
-Raiders of the Lost Ark
-Die Hard 2
-Braveheart
-Mission: Impossible 1
-The Lion King
-Jerry Maguire
-Crimson Tide
-Trainspotting
-The Rainmaker
-Pulp Fiction
-Maverick
-A Few Good Men
-Casino
-Star Wars
-The Empire Strikes Back
-Return of the Jedi
-Revenge of the Sith
-Irreversible
-Batman Begins
-Titanic
-The Terminator
-Terminator 2
-Dark City
-Mallrats
-Kingdom of Heaven
-Transformers
-The Manchurian Candidate (the original, DEFINITELY not the remake)
-Robin Hood (1991)
-Shattered Glass
-Excalibur
-Mars Attacks
-Stripes
-The Little Mermaid
-Swingers
-Naked Gun!
-Naked Gun 2 (well, 2 1/2, technically)
-Comedian (Seinfeld documentary)
-Born on the Fourth of July
-Ghostbusters
-Galipoli
-Fargo
-October Sky
-Titan AE
-The Hustler
-Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
-Goodfellas
Thanks,
David
My response
David,
What’s wrong with psuedonyms? My real last name is Barman, I use
Pareidolia only as a pen name for my scripts kind of like Beat
Takeshi, but whatevs.
The core points were just meant as a general way to weed out people.
But I feel like I should address what you said since it does have some
substance, and perhaps I can win you over.
When I was speaking of Hollywood as opposed to independent cinema,
again it was a vague generality. The majority of independent films are
shit, but I believe less so than “hollywood”. The competing film/
television/ record/ interactive media studios have been lessening in
number and consolidating themselves since the dawn of hollywood. Even
Chaplin was against the system when he founded United Artists. All big
business are in a form of monopolization and especially media. To say
that there are more than 6 companies 95% of the media the average
person intakes is completely inaccurate (see The Media Monopoly by
Bagdikian). That’s not to say that these companies (which I
convienently call “Hollywood” (Time Warner, Disney, 20th Century Fox,
Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom)) are unable to produce a good
movie. But the majority of their movies are based solely on the
objective of creating proffit through duplication of what has worked
before or ripping off independent films.
If me and you were to at random go and see 5 films at a multi-plex
and see 5 independant films from an “art theater” I’m willing to bet
that 4 out of 5 of the mega-plex films would be rehashes of films we’d
seen before while 4 out of the art house films would be “original”. By
original, I mean at least from a different voice and holding a
different theme than what we are continually steamed. Why is it that
only 4% of Hollywood films are directed by women? And how is it that
roughly 24% of independant films are directed by women (and 56% of
independant documentary films)? I could go on for pages at lenth about
non-caucasian writers, directors, actors, or break into a spiel about
“Hollywood endings”, but I think you get the drift.
You missed the boat on the second objective (which is probably my
fault for not taking the time to fully illustrate my point). Simply
put: We think films should say something beyond “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang”.
A theme. A personal message from the filmmaker to the viewer. That’s
all. If you don’t have the passion for change in the world or
something better then why say anything? – that’s what I meant.
I believe, from the bottom of my heart, that George Lucas is a
worthless douchebag. But, I know I’m alone in that thought, so I won’t
mention it any further.
Lastly. 50 films, it’s not that many. If I asked for 5 I’d get this
from virtually everyone:
The Matrix
Lord of the Rings
Indiana Jones
Clerks
Terminator 2
We want people so passionate about film that fifty doesn’t even seem
like the tip of the iceberg. I’ll give you mine really quick:
Cecil B. Demented
Polyester
Edward Scissorhands
The good the bad and the ugly,
Harold and Kumar go to white castle
Archangel
Goodbye, Lenin!
Eraserhead
Mulholland Dr.
Y tu Mama tambien
Contempt
Metropolis (Fritz Lang, not the anime shit)
M
A clockwork Orange
A touch of evil
Red and White (Hungarian)
Cable Guy
Man with a movie camera
Waking Life
Existenz
Videodrome
They Live (the middle 15 minutes)
Alien
The Big Lebowski
Repoman
The man who wasn’t there
Raising Arizona
Fargo
Coffee and Cigarettes
Resevoir Dogs
Kill bill (both)
1917 (Ten days that shook the world)
12 Monkeys
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Office Space
I married a strange person
8 1/2
La Strada
Koyaanisqatsi
Brazil (directors cut)
Blade Runner (directors cut)
Slacker (not slackers)
Return of the killer tomatos
Primer
Back to the future
Canadian Bacon
Roger and Me
Kid Nerd
Operation Grizzly
Life Aquatic
Royal Tenenbaums
Being John Malkovich
Human Nature
1994: the year punk broke
Eternal Sunshine
cinematically,
Steve
Tags: film criticism, filmmaking
