Solutions to Mediocrity

This could be seen as a response to responses to responses to Cameron Bailey's remarks calling for change or progress in the Canadian film industry or movies in general. Whenever I see the name Cameron Bailey, I don't first think of his impressive association with TIFF. Instead, personally, what leaps to mind is a hostile article he wrote about John Carpenter's Halloween attempting to roll back the clock to before the Village Voice gave it a good review and caused critics to re-think and give it proper praise. I may have sent him a letter at the time. I don't recall. Putting aside personalities and arriving somewhere near my point, whatever someone thinks of the premise or genre of Halloween it is objectively a well-directed film. In someone else's hands (which has happened many times over), the same premise would not be as engaging. In discussion of Cameron Bailey's article and subsequent arguments, there is the question of what is mediocrity? How does an industry (or more truthfully, individual filmmakers) get people stirred up about a new director, a writer, or a film/TV show? How do you coax them to be interested in a market that is overwhelmed with content? How do you get more diversity in front of and behind the camera, and is that what reduces mediocrity? Liz Braun recently published a blurb in the Toronto Sun (which I saw through one of the free subway papers) claiming the Oscars don't matter. This may or may not be true, but the explanation started with "Hollywood is a bastion of white male privilege." That's the level of thought. If anything, the Oscars are too willing to award people for "best choice of subject matter." Bret Easton Ellis argues on his podcast against the trend of ideology over aesthetic. As for content, where is the mischief? Most of my favourite films would likely wind up on someone else's guilty pleasures list. The best answer to the challenge of improving the quality of Canadian films and cinema in general is to reject the challenge entirely. Or Canadian "identity." That's another factor to reject. I may be nostalgic for SCTV, and even The Beachcombers but I don't expect every other person I pass in the streets of Toronto to have the same touchstones. In a cultural mosaic, or even generation gaps, one person's food can be another person's poison. There has to be a love of movies greater than a political impulse. Folks of my generation reveal their age with references to pop culture from the days when there were only a few channels and VHS was dawning. I saw damn near every movie in the theaters as a tween. And still found time to catch up on what was available on home video of one format or another. The movies I loved were not just a delivery device for social agendas and virtue signaling. Right now, the self-conscious filmmaker might ask whether he/she is making an "important" film. Ellen called The Dallas Buyers Club important. If had strong performances, but ultimately it adapts the true story of a bisexual man who catches AIDS into the story of a straight and homophobic man who catches AIDS, which arguably gives it more of a marketing hook. It's "important" that the lead be a white straight male, maybe. A pocket of supportive movie fans might make a point of following the "First Weekend Club" to support new small films right away. But is that on the principle of "support Canadian films" or in a market where there is so much competing for eyeballs and ears can we only truly get behind a director we like, a writer with a certain style, or a premise that looks intriguing? The Rez was a short-lived CBC show that could have been given more commitment, based on W.P. Kinsella's work and the Bruce McDonald film of Dance Me Outside. There have been campaigns come and go where people were encouraged to send books and creative supplies to isolated indigenous communities. There have been people given cameras and encouraged to express their authentic voice. Well, if that just means documenting despair and glue sniffing and suicide, overall it will be less effective in lifting people. Give a Native filmmaker the tools if he/she wants to make a monster movie or a silly comedy, maybe something that has nothing to do with truth. To flip the words of Truffaut, film is 24-lies-per-second. I would rather see a bullshit story that is lovingly directed. If a dumb premise - like the escaped mental patient being chased by his doctor before he can kill everybody - made with style and wit and clever use of the frame and the displacement of the edit can engage me then we are talking about loving cinema. I haven't learned much about the plight of Mexicans and Latinos from Robert Rodriguez movies, but what I have learned is that The Mariachi is cool, Machete Cortez is cool, the Cortez Spy Kids are cool, and Robert Rodriguez is cool. Rogue One is not nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars this year, nor I expect will any Star Wars movie (the 1977 film being the only exception). But it is the only film this past year that I saw twice in the theater. Previous year, that was The Force Awakens. I also attended a "roadshow" screening of Tarantino's The Hateful Eight. But you know something these films have in common? I was going to see them ASAP whether or not I saw a single trailer, and I carefully avoided any reviews. Because these films arguably didn't really need hype. If anything, the hype is off-putting and misleading. There are degrees of want-to-see. I was one of three people in the movie theater when I saw The Beaver by Jodie Foster on it's opening weekend. Months later, I bought the DVD. Doesn't mean that I want to see many movies about coping with depression with a puppet. When Sodderberg made Behind the Candelabra I saw it on-line right away, but I'll admit I would not have rushed to the theater for it. I will see any movie directed by Sarah Polley or David Cronenberg, but I admit I now generally see them on DVD. The 1980's are a maligned era of cinema, but most of the movies I own a copy of come from that decade. Nothing against Taxi Driver and the heyday of the Seventies, but would cinema really be better (or alive at all) if it was all about alienated loners feeding their psychopathy? If Hollywood has a formula that comes from Aristotle but is blamed on Rocky, Jaws and Star Wars, to me it is nothing more than charting engagement with a story. There is an accurate conceit as to where the audience is at any given moment. The more didactic or social-issue cinema (well-intended though it may be) might even regard style with suspicion. But in genres where style is vital, there is nothing to hide behind. There are some filmmakers who do exist in a rotation of boards that can keep each other in contention for grants. There are people obsessed with statistics as to how many women are directing or how many cultures are represented. That for me is a discussion separate from whether a movie is any good and whether a director has talent or is coasting on a social issue or a Director of Photography who may be the de facto co-director. I don't conflate those issues. I've seen each Ruba Nadda film, sometimes in a theater, and I go back to the days when I got her short 16mm films on VHS. She knows what she is doing and I've seen her work evolve. Jane Campion I respect because she storyboards, whether or not that is the popular view in the "no rules" cop-out era that yawns at the thought of film grammar. Are you making a movie or just recording the content of a scene with rote coverage. I don't much care for the John Cassavettes or Robert Altman loosy-goosey approach, but in the digital age those are the kinds of movies that can be made by anyone with a DSLR or a smart phone. Nobody will be harmed if you are merely recording actors and expressing yourself. No reason to suppress that impulse, talented or not. But as much money as The Blair Witch Project made nobody was chomping at the bit for what its directors would next shoot...because it wasn't much of a directing reel. I'd rather see people be more deliberate and not slavish to realism. When the Trumpster fire has been extinguished, hopefully not ALL energy has been expended stewing over the jaw-dropping flagrant corruption and evil presented unvarnished from the White House. I don't know if people in Flint Michigan can or should think about anything other than avenging the water situation there. But unless people are willing to use what's left of their lives plotting vigilante activism against so-called public servants, there is also going to have to be healing (not sedation), and appreciation for slight-of-hand, craft, and manipulations that can come from cinema. The movies have to come before over-arching and over-reaching mission statements about the film industry. And whether that observation comes from the trenches or the sidelines, it is feedback from the viewing public. If I like your writing, I seek it out. If I like your directing, I seek it out. If I like your politics, I click like on your Facebook post.

Kermode Uncut: Killer Concept

Film Appreciation: Directing rant

Film Appreciation: Directing

Adapt or Divest From Dying Technology

When the music industry introduced CD's, they were delighted to have something that took up less shelf space and was easier to ship than a record and could not be accidentally degaussed like a cassette. Instead of passing the value on to the consumer, they played up the premium technology angle and gleefully jacked up the price of the new format. When the technology to rip mp3s evolved, the music labels could easily have afforded to buy out Napster. They didn't. They could have taken the lead instead of making it adversarial. When digital technology began to take over photography, Kodak - especially the printing arm - insisted on staying with photographic emulsion. They could have incorporated a digital aspect to their business model. Instead, they faced some struggle. Energy companies that seem to be dominated by fossil fuel concerns could easily begin to shift their focus to solar and wind. Nuclear could also do this, so they are not completely out of the loop when there is finally more of a hard cut than a dissolve to new technology. My fear is that they are and will continue to, as a way to undermine those technologies. Projects such as oil pipelines with guaranteed leaks and fracking that causes earthquakes will be seen by wealthy investors as "fleas that come with the dog," the dog being profit. They won't care about Natives and anyone directly impacted by contaminations until they force people to resort to vandalism - destruction of pipelines with incendiary devices, for example. It is remarkable how civilized and how tolerant protesters have been while they are gradually killed off by the ivory tower class. Obviously labor and police get caught in the middle somewhat. But something has to be done to put a proverbial gun to the head of the gun-loving conservative investor. Divestment en masse needs to happen. Perhaps if it is made clear that pipelines and fracking operations will be destroyed as a matter of principle, divestment will me the logical option for financial self-preservation.