YOU CANNOT ESCAPE….

Jean-Louis Comolli’s work came out in the wake of an anti-capitalist movement in the 60’s.

A revolutionary Socialist movement where people wanted access to the means of productions.

Cashier du Cinema was written by Truffout and Andre Bazin amongst others and they drew their inspirations from that to make their films.

The dominant ideology of cashier du cinema is to apply the scientific method of scientific analysis to film and from there we can see films in the French new wave bringing attention to the means by which they are produced.

Counter to classical Hollywood were you HIDE the process. Making the people question and draw them out.

‘Tute va bien’ makes a statement that it is an anti capitalist movie that starts off with the checks that they shown.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_zii-1JdBQ

Can’t pin point a specific meaning for cinema? They are saying it’s a product within an economic and political system. Film is still a product.

Kish’s ‘Overman’ talks about how his film is against the Hollywood film, but will he be able to make it and distribute it when it is nothing Hollywood expects. Every film is still political.

Have the things that you have been taught influenced your creativity?

How far away can we actually get away?

Let the small fish survive.

The tools and techniques are always going to be the same and are going to define it as a certain film. Kodak Example: It is the monopoly that allows the creation of all “films.” Tear the article apart for its constant circular reasoning and assertion of the same flawed premise.

It’s our responsibility to separate film from being an ideological tool. To return it to just being art.

Filmmakers are unconsciously aware of the ideology that they are showing through the film.

No matter what filmmakers do they are repeating the same conventions and ideologies. They are rehashing the same conventions; aspiring filmmakers are forced to go back to these conventions and learn from them and pollutes new creativity to form.

You’re only ever going to se the films that the audience wants to see and therefore the ideology perpetuates itself inevitably. “What the public wants means what the dominant ideology wants.” Endlessly repeating the same illusion.

Kind of like what Karl Marx that religion is the opiate of the masses so too the ideology of cinema puts the audience to sleep. Why change it? Why question it?

People who try to be counter ideology, two ways: they directly attack the political.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI8AMRbqY6w

This only becomes effective unless you also challenge the way reality is being depicted, such as using different techniques as the dominant ideology.

Regardless of the political content they unquestionably adopts its language and imagery. Are they caught in the system or they are trying to break down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZBKgYgc7mw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoUIHBSiVAY

Filmmakers like Godard did a good job changing the signifiers (the meaning of the film) but the signified (the film itself) is in the capitalist system.

In order to operate against the prevailing ideology, signified and signifier have to be both against the system.

Even if it’s not political, even if it’s working against the grain, it’s still making a statement, political or ideological. Even if we’re operating against the system, were still a part of it.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE….

Go counter from within the system, but you can’t break it. Go to mars to break out of the system. It’s possible for a film to critique itself, but you cannot escape, there’s no point in trying.

The Video (Socialist) Revolution

The camcorder (and to some extent lightweight 16mm film cameras) broke down the division between the institutionalized power of broadcast television and the private viewing space of the home.

Video, vigilantes, and voyeurism, shows the prevalence of the camcorder, and it’s role in capitalism.

The camcorder helped to foster alternative information networks by enabling many different ideological groups.

Camcorders are also being used however, to commodify our lives, to brake down privacy and make surveillance part of normal life.

The economic development of a technology and the transformations it brings about cannot be understood separately (camcorder is a product…)

According to Marshall McLuhan, television created or brought to light, new forms of audience participation.

Video invites you to do it yourself, to experience more than you understand.

Canada turned out to be ideal for the proliferation of video because of it’s diversity and encouragement of democratic participation.

1967: Challenge for Change program at NFB. It gave disenfranchised and marginal communities a voice.

• https://vimeo.com/9568107

• http://www.nfb.ca/playlists/challenge-for-change/viewing/vtr_rosedale

• http://www.nfb.ca/playlists/challenge-for-change/viewing/vtr_st_jacques

Video becomes a mirror machine for people. It implements non-hierarchical forms of authority.

Video is media for the people.

Direct cinema and cinema verite begin to become popular, the “vision” of the director or “style” is removed in order to create a piece in which the camera is with the people, not interpreting them. The invention of portable sound equipment assists with this.

Direct cinema in theory is ideologically pure.

The Fogo Process: editing is kept to a minimum and intercutting between people based on issues was eliminated.

This style eliminated the idea of an outside, in theory freeing the content from the ideological apparatus.

It is the ethical rejection of style in favor of direct speech.

Direct cinema’s form shows that the director is not in-control of, or imposing his will on the events being recorded. This heightens the sense of objectivity.

Video also added an air of transparency to television. It was a manifestation of honesty and directness.

In direct cinema, you manage to break one ideological event, but you’re only breaking one filter. You buy into the same reality, just like in a feature, you don’t want people to be aware they are watching a film, they just want to be entertained. Direct cinema, purpose is to feel that you’re not watching a film, yet it still manages to create that numb feeling.

Hans Enzenberger proposed a socialist strategy – a cultural revolution – that would do away with the contradiction between producers and consumers. The masses need to organize themselves and use the new productive forces to secure evidence of their daily experiences and draw effective lessons from them

Ultimately, the Fogo process, and other types of “direct cinema” could not challenge or exist outside of the authority that it tried to obscure.

There was a very deliberated attempt on the part of Trudeau to use it to coerce Canadians into unity at a time when Quebec was trying to separate.

Also, the content eventually had to go to a broadcaster, like the CBC, who could in fact filter or outright suppress it.

YOU CANNOT ESCAPE….

Free Channels….

People’s Documentary gets further away from the system because it doesn’t have any sort of distribution. As Indies, we exist outside of the traditional model of the film school short, but to what degree is our work different?

Thank You