sick of films

[lobelia321]

I've only been in my new job since September. I am an art historian by trade, tradition and inclination. But the art historians were all made redundant and last September I was moved over to the film studies department. (Some of you know this already, of course. I apologise for redundant repetition.)

I've been teaching film full-time since October and it is just not me. Yesterday, I was so sick of it I realised that if someone came to me and said: "Either all the films in the world will get burned tomorrow, or all the works of art", I'd choose films every time. Preserve the wonderful gold-backed mediaeval altarpieces, the Renaissance ceilings and the Buddhist statues of Aghanistan. But who cares about the endless chattering blah-blah-blah of movies...

I am tired of cramming in all these films I have to catch up on every week, the industrial and commercial nature of it all, and above all: the utter sameyness of films.

The sameyness arises from the lack of history of the medium. Motion pictures have been around for (give or take) 114 years. This is nothing. Art has been around for at least 3,000 years. Art lets your mind travel into different eras and different horizons of experience for human beings. If you think about it: the Renaissance lasted for around 200 years, and movies have only been around for 114, so film-wise, we are stuck somewhere in the middle of the Renaissance! We are trapped in modernity and modern mass culture and capitalism, and there is no way out!

There are no films with patrician patrons. There are no films that are worshipped by monks and nuns. There are no films that play around with the representation of realities and forge abstraction.

And films are so immaterial. What I love about art is the materiality of it. It can be touched. It takes up space. It has, as Benjamin put it, an 'aura'. Except Benjamin was suspicious of that aura and I'm loving it.

Ah, there was a reason why I studied what I studied.

I won't even go into the sameyness of the theories about film. I may have to have a vomit attack if I did.

Comments

[azewewish.livejournal.com]

Well, within certain periods of art, there's also a sameness to a lot of the pieces.

At any rate, I get your frustration, but I think you hit it on the head. You're comparing one art form that's been around for thousands of years to one that's been around for a little more than a century. And that sort of makes for an unfair comparison, when you think about it. It'd be like comparing American history to Greek history.

All the same, I hope you can get back to teaching art history soon. *g*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes, within certain periods of art there is sameness but then I can go to OTHER PERIODS OF ART. In film, however, there are NO OTHER PERIODS. Everything is TRAPPED in modernity.

I'll have to take some sort of drug and live to 1,300 and see what happens.

But even so: film is so immaterial. You can't touch it. It MOVES all the fucking time. I don't know, the whole medium just gets on my nerves at the moment.

And exactly, I am comparing old to new and find the new wanting.

[msilverstar]

That sounds awful, and I'm sorry. Maybe it's worst right now because of all the cramming? I hope it gets better.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am so bored with watching all these films every week and reading the crappy stuff that film theorists write about them! I want my ART!!!

[kathputli-girl.livejournal.com]

Well, I do like art but I gotta say that a Shah Rukh film is gonna make me feel better than any painting I can think of just now. ;)
But I know what you're sayin.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Nope, I am sick of everything. I did watch a bit of Barsaat yesterday and it was sweet but then I looked at some pictures of Renaissance altarpieces and then I looked at some recent installation and then I looked at some floor plans of buildings and I thought, I just like looking at things I can actually touch, things that do not pretend to be real, things that are old.

If there's any film I can still bear watching, it's an SRK film, I'll grant you that, *g*, but at the moment I'm just a bit sick of the whole lot of them.

[bunnysquee.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry to hear that you're unhappy with work ... would moving to california help? i mean, you can find something else to teach, like literature maybe?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is the thing: in California, I would be able to teach my own subject again. I would be able to show SLIDES and not CLIPS, and do visual analysis, and take students to gallery visits. it would be such FUN!

You've hit the nail on the head, Bunnychen. :-)