Given the great descriptions already in this list perhaps this is tautology -- but I have a mantra that I use when thinking about cinema -- “film is the crystallization of ideas” -- I suppose a distillation.
I then picture light traveling through various crystals in a kind of fortress of solitude, but I have no idea what that means... then I stop staring into space and get on with what I’m supposed to be doing.
With the exception of #24, all these things are true of comic books at their very best. (*18 is sketchy. if you can see how many pages are left in your book, you also know when there's only a few minutes left of your 2-hour movie.)
I'd add the SENSORY experience of film. It taps the viewers' dominant senses of sight and sound; in a good theater with augmented audio you can even FEEL it. (And if you're watching "Polyester" you can even smell it.)
I came to say something like #14, the Tarkovsky quote. I'd elaborate only to say that montage (unique to cinema; maybe even synonymous with it) is the only art form that depicts motion while allowing for instantaneous and radical changes of perspective. The "edit," as we know it in the movies, has no true analog in other forms.
Unlike a live performance, a finished film is immutable. Once it’s finished and delivered it’s rewatchable and the details will not change (external environment not withstanding).
Great list, loved reading it. It made sense as I was reading it but now I can’t remember everything I read. What’s that mean?
The movies that strike me the most are those the I didn’t love the first time around but liked and later loved because I’ve matured or stretched my taste maybe.
When a film reveals something about you that wouldn’t have been discovered without the stupid film pushing up against your ideals or traditions at a certain time in your life, that’s everything.
If you allow the thing to invade your headspace and work on your subconscious, then I believe thats what makes you a cinephile. Films like these are provocative truth bombs and if you’re courageous enough to be comfortable with being  uncomfortable about not knowing everything about the movie in the first few sittings, than the film become a strange little buddy that accompanies you on your journey.
Love to read peoples top 10 films they didn’t love and still don’t love but they can’t stop remembering them.
Unique to film is they’re the only passive medium where the audience has been changed by the experience. If it’s a good movie you sit down, it happens and a different you walks away.
Movies are Art and art is a dialogue with culture. And not just culture, but each individual who is a participant in culture, who experiences the movie.
Our brains are pattern recognition machines, narrative engines trying to make a cohesive story out of the Radically complex apparently chaotic experiences that we have. However, those patterns that we recognize, the narratives that we tell ourselves are a form of data compression. They do not tell the entire story. And because of that, there are eccentricities to our story that differ from intrinsic reality.
It is the job of the artist to recognize those eccentricities and the difference in intrinsic reality and emphasize it, such that a new story can be told, one that includes more of reality. For this reason, different perspectives from different cultures, sexes, genders, ethnicities, etc. Are vital. Because each of those comes with biases that affect the narrative that they are able to tell. We only have cinema as art when all of those voices can be heard in collaboration with each other, because only together can we tell the whole story.
As to Cinema as Art specifically, it is by far the most dominant media form, and the most capable of affecting social change. That may change with virtual reality or augmented reality, but I suspect it will be a long time before most of the world has access to that level of technology. Until then, Cinema is the best we’ve got. That’s why I’m a filmmaker.
I think just about everything you say is true of theatre (and perhaps even more so, opera). The big difference is that movies are portable. You can easily show a movie in one cinema, then another, and another, and even in many simultaneous, as well as (perhaps less optimally, though that is heading toward change) in spaces that are not formally cinemas, such as living rooms. Try doing that with live theatre.
I feel that #14 and #15 (and the packaging of #3) are the essence of what film can uniquely achieve. The items dealing with cost & social responsibility are pertinent but not unique to film.
If you accept that dreams have a purpose, then there is no artistic or business endeavor that reproduces the complete experience of dreaming -- and in turn, has the same potential (individually and collectively) to evoke emotion and change.
As an avid movie watcher I discovered the most distinctive cinematic trait during the pandemic that the home experience can't replicate, no matter how good your home system is:
When you watch a movie at home, the movie is on your time. You can pause it, you can break it up over a few days, you can stop at any time. This sounds like a plus, but in a day an age of infinite distraction, it makes it very difficult to enter the headspace that a great movie can take you into with the right concentration.
When you see a movie in a theater, it's the other way around: you are on the movie's time. You must show up when it starts, you must sit patiently, not check your phone, and plan your meals and bathrooms around it, and you are able to reach the focus and sanctuary that makes movies immersive and successful. For someone like me who is prone to distraction, this is impossible to replicate at home, and the most valuable part about going to see a movie in theaters. It can demand focus and transport your sense of time in ways the home experience never can.
(Now many audiences don't care about this at all and prefer to watch on their time, but for me, this is the gift)
I would add that cinema -- uniquely -- incorporates all of the other arts. It contains narrative, it contains theater, it contains photography, it contains fashion and music and sometimes even painting and dance.
Human beings are story tellers. I think the answer might just be as simple as that. Story telling is how we learn. Parents read stories to their children at night; politicians discuss the unfairness of a law by detailing how it’s impacting one of their constituents. What are Aesop’s fables, but stories that teach us a life lesson. We use stories as a means to talk about issues much bigger than ourselves. They give us the tools with which to discuss something heavy or too complex to put into words.
For example – in response to another one of your posts – about the commercialization of film being the root of film’s downfall, I would like to tell you a story…. one I'm sure a few of you are familiar with.
In recent years one of the big NFL football teams had a winning team, but an empty stadium. When they started to investigate the problem, they noted that ticket sales were fine, but the stadiums were woefully empty at kick-off time. They soon discovered the root of the problem was that the concession stand was so expensive that their fans were hanging out at the parking lot well into the first half of the game, getting their beer on and noshing on their hearty barbeque set ups – so as to avoid being bilked for all their spare change once they entered the stadium. In order to fix the problem - the stadium decided to do something drastic, something rather crazy. They lowered the price of the beer – DRASTICALLY. Suddenly, the fans started pouring into the stadium prior to kick off. In the end, the concession stands found that they actually made more money by charging less for beer than they ever had made with their former price-gouging amounts. Why? – the fans were now spending all of the game inside the stadium and were happy to pay $3.50 for a cup of beer. Not too surprising, but other arenas are now following suit.
The film business has always been a business. It can be art as well, but it will always be a business. If you want to save the art form, you cannot take the profit out of the equation. The studios need to make money somehow. Normally the big winners offset the losers and every once in a while a small film will hit big. That’s what keeps the system going. What if you approached the problem from a different angle? What if you lowered the cost of a movie ticket?
One of the key reasons why my generation loves movies so darned much is that we grew up watching them. And maybe the reason we grew up with them is partially due to the fact that they were affordable. As a teenager, I could jettison my parents and go to the movies with my friends, paying for the ticket with my yard work/babysitting money. Then there were other films that I could go see with my entire family and it didn’t cost my parents $100 to take us all. Heck, in the summer, I would sometimes go to the movies just to get out of the heat.
What if a movie ticket was only $5, would more people start going again? Would a wider demographic of people go? Would you be able to reach even more people than ever previously imagined? Would movies generate and even bigger profit than they are currently doing? The $3 theater on 50th Street in NYC was PACKED when it was up and running, showing 2nd run films. Can you make that lower ticket price model viable? Or maybe just indie films release at a cheaper ticket price? Would that impact their profitability? Would that move the needle any in the right direction? Would it be enough?
Yesterday I drove through my old home town, trying to get in some last-minute Christmas shopping. I walked past the old movie theater and sadly discovered it had just been torn down.
And so, hopefully, I have proven my point. Story telling has always been a powerful tool to communicate interesting ideas. And Film has always been a very accessible and powerful form of story-telling. Maybe the key to saving it is to re-assess the accessibility of it.
Given the great descriptions already in this list perhaps this is tautology -- but I have a mantra that I use when thinking about cinema -- “film is the crystallization of ideas” -- I suppose a distillation.
I then picture light traveling through various crystals in a kind of fortress of solitude, but I have no idea what that means... then I stop staring into space and get on with what I’m supposed to be doing.
With the exception of #24, all these things are true of comic books at their very best. (*18 is sketchy. if you can see how many pages are left in your book, you also know when there's only a few minutes left of your 2-hour movie.)
I'd add the SENSORY experience of film. It taps the viewers' dominant senses of sight and sound; in a good theater with augmented audio you can even FEEL it. (And if you're watching "Polyester" you can even smell it.)
I came to say something like #14, the Tarkovsky quote. I'd elaborate only to say that montage (unique to cinema; maybe even synonymous with it) is the only art form that depicts motion while allowing for instantaneous and radical changes of perspective. The "edit," as we know it in the movies, has no true analog in other forms.
Unlike a live performance, a finished film is immutable. Once it’s finished and delivered it’s rewatchable and the details will not change (external environment not withstanding).
Great list, loved reading it. It made sense as I was reading it but now I can’t remember everything I read. What’s that mean?
The movies that strike me the most are those the I didn’t love the first time around but liked and later loved because I’ve matured or stretched my taste maybe.
When a film reveals something about you that wouldn’t have been discovered without the stupid film pushing up against your ideals or traditions at a certain time in your life, that’s everything.
If you allow the thing to invade your headspace and work on your subconscious, then I believe thats what makes you a cinephile. Films like these are provocative truth bombs and if you’re courageous enough to be comfortable with being  uncomfortable about not knowing everything about the movie in the first few sittings, than the film become a strange little buddy that accompanies you on your journey.
Love to read peoples top 10 films they didn’t love and still don’t love but they can’t stop remembering them.
Unique to film is they’re the only passive medium where the audience has been changed by the experience. If it’s a good movie you sit down, it happens and a different you walks away.
Movies are Art and art is a dialogue with culture. And not just culture, but each individual who is a participant in culture, who experiences the movie.
Our brains are pattern recognition machines, narrative engines trying to make a cohesive story out of the Radically complex apparently chaotic experiences that we have. However, those patterns that we recognize, the narratives that we tell ourselves are a form of data compression. They do not tell the entire story. And because of that, there are eccentricities to our story that differ from intrinsic reality.
It is the job of the artist to recognize those eccentricities and the difference in intrinsic reality and emphasize it, such that a new story can be told, one that includes more of reality. For this reason, different perspectives from different cultures, sexes, genders, ethnicities, etc. Are vital. Because each of those comes with biases that affect the narrative that they are able to tell. We only have cinema as art when all of those voices can be heard in collaboration with each other, because only together can we tell the whole story.
As to Cinema as Art specifically, it is by far the most dominant media form, and the most capable of affecting social change. That may change with virtual reality or augmented reality, but I suspect it will be a long time before most of the world has access to that level of technology. Until then, Cinema is the best we’ve got. That’s why I’m a filmmaker.
I think just about everything you say is true of theatre (and perhaps even more so, opera). The big difference is that movies are portable. You can easily show a movie in one cinema, then another, and another, and even in many simultaneous, as well as (perhaps less optimally, though that is heading toward change) in spaces that are not formally cinemas, such as living rooms. Try doing that with live theatre.
I feel that #14 and #15 (and the packaging of #3) are the essence of what film can uniquely achieve. The items dealing with cost & social responsibility are pertinent but not unique to film.
If you accept that dreams have a purpose, then there is no artistic or business endeavor that reproduces the complete experience of dreaming -- and in turn, has the same potential (individually and collectively) to evoke emotion and change.
Dammit I had missed this one. But now this list is going into my writing rubric.
As an avid movie watcher I discovered the most distinctive cinematic trait during the pandemic that the home experience can't replicate, no matter how good your home system is:
When you watch a movie at home, the movie is on your time. You can pause it, you can break it up over a few days, you can stop at any time. This sounds like a plus, but in a day an age of infinite distraction, it makes it very difficult to enter the headspace that a great movie can take you into with the right concentration.
When you see a movie in a theater, it's the other way around: you are on the movie's time. You must show up when it starts, you must sit patiently, not check your phone, and plan your meals and bathrooms around it, and you are able to reach the focus and sanctuary that makes movies immersive and successful. For someone like me who is prone to distraction, this is impossible to replicate at home, and the most valuable part about going to see a movie in theaters. It can demand focus and transport your sense of time in ways the home experience never can.
(Now many audiences don't care about this at all and prefer to watch on their time, but for me, this is the gift)
I would add that cinema -- uniquely -- incorporates all of the other arts. It contains narrative, it contains theater, it contains photography, it contains fashion and music and sometimes even painting and dance.
Human beings are story tellers. I think the answer might just be as simple as that. Story telling is how we learn. Parents read stories to their children at night; politicians discuss the unfairness of a law by detailing how it’s impacting one of their constituents. What are Aesop’s fables, but stories that teach us a life lesson. We use stories as a means to talk about issues much bigger than ourselves. They give us the tools with which to discuss something heavy or too complex to put into words.
For example – in response to another one of your posts – about the commercialization of film being the root of film’s downfall, I would like to tell you a story…. one I'm sure a few of you are familiar with.
In recent years one of the big NFL football teams had a winning team, but an empty stadium. When they started to investigate the problem, they noted that ticket sales were fine, but the stadiums were woefully empty at kick-off time. They soon discovered the root of the problem was that the concession stand was so expensive that their fans were hanging out at the parking lot well into the first half of the game, getting their beer on and noshing on their hearty barbeque set ups – so as to avoid being bilked for all their spare change once they entered the stadium. In order to fix the problem - the stadium decided to do something drastic, something rather crazy. They lowered the price of the beer – DRASTICALLY. Suddenly, the fans started pouring into the stadium prior to kick off. In the end, the concession stands found that they actually made more money by charging less for beer than they ever had made with their former price-gouging amounts. Why? – the fans were now spending all of the game inside the stadium and were happy to pay $3.50 for a cup of beer. Not too surprising, but other arenas are now following suit.
The film business has always been a business. It can be art as well, but it will always be a business. If you want to save the art form, you cannot take the profit out of the equation. The studios need to make money somehow. Normally the big winners offset the losers and every once in a while a small film will hit big. That’s what keeps the system going. What if you approached the problem from a different angle? What if you lowered the cost of a movie ticket?
One of the key reasons why my generation loves movies so darned much is that we grew up watching them. And maybe the reason we grew up with them is partially due to the fact that they were affordable. As a teenager, I could jettison my parents and go to the movies with my friends, paying for the ticket with my yard work/babysitting money. Then there were other films that I could go see with my entire family and it didn’t cost my parents $100 to take us all. Heck, in the summer, I would sometimes go to the movies just to get out of the heat.
What if a movie ticket was only $5, would more people start going again? Would a wider demographic of people go? Would you be able to reach even more people than ever previously imagined? Would movies generate and even bigger profit than they are currently doing? The $3 theater on 50th Street in NYC was PACKED when it was up and running, showing 2nd run films. Can you make that lower ticket price model viable? Or maybe just indie films release at a cheaper ticket price? Would that impact their profitability? Would that move the needle any in the right direction? Would it be enough?
Yesterday I drove through my old home town, trying to get in some last-minute Christmas shopping. I walked past the old movie theater and sadly discovered it had just been torn down.
And so, hopefully, I have proven my point. Story telling has always been a powerful tool to communicate interesting ideas. And Film has always been a very accessible and powerful form of story-telling. Maybe the key to saving it is to re-assess the accessibility of it.