Following our analogy of cinema with painting, outlined here, modern attitudes to film preparation and reading would benefit from similar illumination. We could imagine a tree standing in a field, or perhaps a copse as pictured. What is visible of the tree – the leaves, branches and trunk – represent the commonly acknowledged aspects of cinema and television. The leaves are the surface gloss of performance and atmosphere, the nature of which changes with the ebb and flow of seasonal public opinion or developing individual taste; the trunk represents the strong and seemingly immovable basis on which this is formed, common to all trees as all productions, in that it is indicative of that peculiar, often perverse phenomena unique to cinema (and perhaps television): the cinematic spectacle.

Most commentators and practitioners, and a large proportion of the audience, are able to discern the branches: the filmmaking structures that connect the process of exhibition with the outwardly perceived image. These structures are taught in universities and schools, discussed in magazines and journals, and there are websites devoted to the dissection of their intricacies, so it isn’t surprising to realise that the vast majority of viewers are in the same knowledgable position of technical and artistic superiority as producers and technicians. What is surprising, however, is the inability of the theorists, commentators and practitioners to discern the invisible or hidden parts of the tree, despite the paramount importance these elements have to an individual’s understanding and deployment of cinema.

Beneath the ground, the tree is anchored in the earth by strong and intertwining roots. Film is likewise rooted by certain immovable truths – psychological, personal and social truths that underpin the cinematic spectacle – and planted, as our example, in the same immediate ground as its peers; what can be suggested as a form of collective cinematic unconscious linking all works of cinema. But the ignorance many display for that in nature we would take as a given, exposes the fragile foundations of many cinematic projects: to severe the tree from the roots, isolate it from its environment, creates something inherently different that cinema – perhaps, on its own terms, as equally worthy and entertaining, but certainly not from the same naturally occurring wellspring of form.

This is the difference between Black Narcissus (1947; dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) and The Nun’s Story (1959; dir. Fred Zinnemann), between Punishment Park (1971; dir. Peter Watkins) and Green Zone (2010; dir. Paul Greengrass), or Inception (2010; dir. Christopher Nolan) and Blade Runner (1982; dir. Ridely Scott) – the difference between cinematic achievement or mastery, and the near-automated distribution of the filmed image. Only by looking deeper into the medium, on both a preparatory or receptive level, and through this examination recognising the true roots of the cinematic spectacle, can filmmakers, critics and audiences alike approach a concise and mature appreciation of the form.

Hungarian Béla Tarr is one of a handful of filmmakers who, in the past twenty years, have consistently challenged the antiquated practices and misguided theories of readily accepted film-making ideas. His films only came to prominence in the West during the late 1990s, and he has since become a firm arthouse and festival favourite amongst pretentious media professionals who neither understand the alternative processes he employs, nor appreciate how his films differ from their narrative-centric, genre-defined structures.

This short film, made between his long-form masterpieces Sátántangó (1994) and Werckmeister harmóniák (2000), remains undefinable in generic film theory terms: there are no easily accessible storylines or character arcs, and the film can only be appreciated as a visualisation of the poems on which it is based. Tarr, as with his other work, is suggesting that cinema needn’t be as rigidly deployed as much mainstream film and media education demands. If as many practitioners and theorists applied what Tarr suggests as supported and praised him, then the accumulated output of a hundred self-indulgent filmmakers would amount to more than just a constant stream of shit.

Utazás az alföldön at the IMDb

Low-budget animation is often cruelly considered the poor cousin to its live-action counterpart – the animator has access to locations, actors and special effects that the real-world filmmaker could never afford – but, as with all things that operate at the lower end of the financial spectrum, a solid understanding of the cinematic spectacle, complete with a certain wit and ingenuity for stopgap solutions, is essential to raise a project from petty insults. This delicate and unobtrusive film, which has echoes not only from the work of Rene Laloux but also Hitchock’s VistaVision period, reaffirms the fact that, whatever the outcome, there can be no substitute for well applied cinematic knowledge.

Relying only on diegetic sound, without dialogue, and their simple, uncluttered compositions, helmers Collier and Gecaite craft a somber and captivating mood which, unfortunately, is married to an all too conventional narrative structure – had their film follow a more abstruse progression, along the lines of Laloux’s Les escagrot (1965), with which it bears some similarities, then the end result may have had greater impact – but undoubtedly their achievement rises above such flaws, and should hopefully establish them as dedicated experts in the forgotten skill of using sound and offscreen space to disseminate information. Given the nature of that skill, and its keen deployment here, it will be interesting to see whether their next film follows such rigidly defined media trends, or breaks away to meet an end that is its own justification.

Reap what you Sew is not at the IMDB

Visit the official Reap what you Sew website

The attitude toward film-making in this country is, unfortunately, one that panders to the Hollywood style and system. British filmmakers, unlike their foreign contemporaries, are primarily raised on films that originate in North America, and have scant knowledge of the wealth and beauty of cinema from outside of that region, let alone in their own country. This film from the early days of the laughable British film industry shows that we have always been suckered with producers and directors desperate to imitate the disgusting American style: Hepworth’s film – the direction of which he tellingly relegates to a subordinate – owes much to The Great Train Robbery (1903; dir. Edwin S. Porter) and, whilst it expands on that work’s groundbreaking continuity editing, laying the foundations for nearly every commercial film since, it’s precisely this need to take from and feed back to the Hollywood model that both inhibits and repulses.

Cinema Europe (1995; dirs. Kevin Brownlow and Dan Carter) – recently reviewed here – presents an alternative view of cinema history, showcasing the frankly stunning achievements of countries like Sweden or Germany, but reducing this country to a caricature evolved from this crap and a few (admittedly brilliant) silents by Hitchcock and Asquith. Little has changed in the intervening hundred-plus years, and, despite claims to a brief quell in originality during the 1950s and 60s, the United Kingdom is today left without a film industry unique to itself or recognisable to the world. The attitudes of commentators, theorists and practitioners – some of whom laughably suggest any film, regardless of nationality, produced on British soil somehow qualifies as a product of these shores – revolve around a set of filmic preoccupations derived from the same corrupt and restrictive templates that Hepworth aspired to.

Rescued by Rover, and its legacy of bitter hopes and small-scale dreams that pepper our cinematic history, pertinently reminds us, in a time when film production in this country is confined to deeply unfunny comedies and gross tabloid sensationalism, that the UK will never move out of Hollywood’s shadow until we can leave behind our fascicle reliance on the hierarchical myths it popularises – which are scandalously perpetuated at the most basic level of media education by pretentious and redundant egotists, who would prefer their students adhered to the same strict codes of film-making that stunted their growth rather than explore the true principles of cinema – and attempt to establish a national cinematic identity by evolving seperate processes wholly relevant and original to this country and its people.

Rescued by Rover at the IMDb

With modern film criticism and theory on UK broadcast television limited to the insipid Mark Kermode and the pointless Matthew Sweet on the BBC, and virtually nothing on other channels, this documentary series seems as much part of yesteryear as the early silents and talkies it so fondly recalls. this current deficit of intellectual discourse on mainstream television can only damage the cinematic awareness of the next generation of mass audio-visual professionals – without knowledge of cinema’s true beginnings and evolution, they will unconsciously subscribe to and perpetuate the myth of Hollywood domination.

Co-directed by film historian and sometime filmmaker Brownlow, Cinema Europe cherishes the originality and artistry of early cinema from the region. The series is subtitled “The Other Hollywood” and clearly documents the unfortunate series of events that lead to film production in countries like France, Germany and the United Kingdom to grind to a sickeningly portentous halt: the Second World War was around the corner and, like the continent itself, cinema and filmmaking in Europe was to change forever, eventually dwindling into the degrading, cowardly scenario that we have today. Programmes like Cinema Europe not only look to the past but, by showing us what was once possible on our home turf, offer an alternative future to the one currently predicted by the likes of The Culture Show (2004-Present) and The Film Programme (1971-Present) – the new frontrunner of which will undoubtedly be one of the BBC’s many populist, light-hearted idiots.

Cinema Europe at the IMDb

A metaphor for modern cinema can be formed from analogues in the world of painting. It divides films into three unconnected groups.

A very small, select number of films can be paralleled by the work of the great masters, in that they are governed by basic, easily identifiable principles, and through use of them push the boundaries of what is achievable with the form.

A second group, of larger but still limited number, seem intrinsically aware of those principles, and of the perverse phenomena of cinema, but appear to have happened upon this circumstance either by accident or through application of some small knowledge. These are the ‘also-rans’ – the landscapes and portraits that populate galleries and homes the world over, but fail to attain the high standard of painters like Picasso, Rembrandt or Munch.

The final group is undoubtedly the largest and most prolific. Here the painting is not a cheap watercolour or even a framed print, but the painting that you practice at home on your walls and ceilings. These films have no recourse to principles, and are directed by only a pathological interest in simplistic, misguided technique. They are the films of Hollywood and its imitators, of those pre-occupied with narrative and genre, and, as such, are as undeserving of our praise and admiration as a well-painted living room wall.

Modern practitioners, theorists and educators should aspire to filmmaking that learns from, explores and reinvigorates the basic principles of cinema. Otherwise there is no justification in the hyperbole, egotism and presumption that surrounds much modern filmmaking and film theory. A painting in a gallery and a painting of a wall are two different things entirely: one has meaning and influence, the other no significance other than cursory aesthetic pleasure. Cinema needs great paintings, not well-painted walls.

Cinema is necrophilia. The act of desiring now aged or decayed faces, trapped by the illusion of action that seems to exist in the present tense, but were in fact created and forgotten years ago. The sepulchral nature Bava’s masterpiece encapsulates the sentiment precisely: the climax of the film comes wo thirds of the way through, and sees our heroine unconscious as her leading man attempts to make love to her with the decomposing copse of his unfaithful lover in the bed next to them. And we watch – transfixed with a curiosity and an overwhelming need to follow events that were captured over thirty years ago as if they were unfolding before our eyes today.

There are four basic principles that govern the substance and success of the cinematic spectacle. Bava’s output – and this film in particular – are fine examples of these principles in action, and demand in-depth analysis and debate at the most fundamental level of film education, rather than being labelled as curios to only the most ardent horror aficionados. Lisa e il diavolo, with its oneiric logic and unreadable narrative, represents the pinnacle of a life’s work that was cruelly brutal in its time and ignored in death. The famed art house onanist Federico Fellini borrowed from Bava without recognising borrowed from Bava without recognising the knowledge and acuteness behind his cinematic skill – if a pilfering magpie can see some of the greatness, why must modern critics and theorists ignore the obvious importance of a filmmaker whose films include the beautiful and terrifying Terrore nello spazio (1965; reviewed here), the uncompromisingly brilliant Cani arrabbiati (1974), and this sublime piece of  dream-cinema?

Lisa e il diavolo at the IMDb

Our recent reviews of films based on works by the Strugatsky Brothers – read the others here and here – come to an end with this adaptation by themselves and Soviet art-house favorite Tarkovsky. This was the only adaptation that they openly approved of and, while it has its own merits, it says volumes about the brother’s cultural conservatism and elitism that saw them dismiss any tampering with their work unless it was by a media darling like Tarkovsky. The film is essentially plotless and therefore instantly likable, foregoing the ludicrous scientific investigation of the source material in favour of a wandering, pseudo-religious quest that has more in common with a mediaeval folk tale than hard science fiction.

Whilst the film shamelessly avoids any social or political issues, it would be an otherwise perfect creation technically if it didn’t fall flat on one essential principle of cinema: there’s too much talk. The film is so obsessed with its constant stream of pretentious babble – all the characters talk interminably about pointless things that are so obviously loaded with ‘meaning’ – that its beauty and quiet are lost along the way. Its a great shame that Tarkovsky was such a snobbish egotist (he manages to sandwich his name into the opening credits no less than four times) and it would be a worthwhile experience to watch Stalker with the volume muted so that his dialogue didn’t ruin the experience.

Stalker at the IMDb