Comments on: The Filmosophy Manifesto http://www.thepaganagenda.com/2007/08/18/the-filmosophy-manifesto/ some kind of record Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:59:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.1 by: mike http://www.thepaganagenda.com/2007/08/18/the-filmosophy-manifesto/#comment-11032 Wed, 18 Apr 2007 15:36:01 +0000 http://www.thepaganagenda.com/2007/08/18/the-filmosophy-manifesto/#comment-11032 I would like to describe in further detail my issues with Tarantino by way of elucidating further my concept of 'tacit cinema'. If I were to think of it as a sliding scale with low and high-level, for lack of a better term, tacit signifiers, where low-level attributes operate at the near-unconscious level, and high-level attributes operate in a highly conscious manner like winks or signatures of the film/filmmaker, the primary difference is the low-level is primarily felt and unsteered whereas the high-level is usually something to be understood and much like an easter egg, uncovered. While I believe there are some enjoyable low-level tacit signifiers at work in, for example, Death Proof, in the ambiguously energized mis-en-scene of the bar for example, his films tend to rely heavily on high-level winking, which perhaps conditions one's mind to think through the film more so then feel it. Tacit cinema can be compared with the label, art cinema, exept I think tacit cinema is more exact, it is about the ambiguity of the sensations, the quality of preponderence in each filmic image which qualifies it as art. I think ambiguity is the chief trait of this... it is what distingishes it from winking, because there is nothing deliberate to wink about. The film/filmmaker select a particular performance, a particular view, and may not be able to ostensively explain why, but it is the revelry of tacit significance in the image that warrants selection. I think of Antoine Doinel in 400 blows, a transcendent quality of performance that enahnces the experience. Tacit cinema can be a conscious act, which I think Van Sant's trilogy is, to revel in the minutae of associations in each frame, to draw low-level emotive experience out of the voyeurism involved. This cannot be easily reproduced by just filming anything for lengthy periods... the film/filmmaker need to be cunning observers and know on an unutterable level when something is something as opposed to nothing. The tacit signifiers need to be ambiguous, transcendental, and naturally implicit, rippling through the film world. I think Tarantino at times employs this, but they become overshadowed by his high-level conceits. I would like to describe in further detail my issues with Tarantino by way of elucidating further my concept of ‘Tacit Cinema‘.

If I were to think of it as a sliding scale with low and high-level, for lack of a better term, tacit signifiers, where low-level attributes operate at the near-unconscious level, and high-level attributes operate in a highly conscious manner like winks or signatures of the film/filmmaker, the primary difference is the low-level is primarily felt and unsteered whereas the high-level is usually something to be understood and much like an easter egg, uncovered.

While I believe there are some enjoyable low-level tacit signifiers at work in, for example, Death Proof, in the ambiguously energized mis-en-scene of the bar for example, his films tend to rely heavily on high-level winking, which perhaps conditions one’s mind to think through the film more so then feel it.

Tacit Cinema can be compared with the label, art cinema, exept I think Tacit Cinema is more exact, it is about the ambiguity of the sensations, the quality of preponderence in each filmic image which qualifies it as art. I think ambiguity is the chief trait of this… it is what distingishes it from winking, because there is nothing deliberate to wink about. The film/filmmaker select a particular performance, a particular view, and may not be able to ostensively explain why, but it is the revelry of tacit significance in the image that warrants selection. I think of Antoine Doinel in 400 blows, a transcendent quality of performance that enahnces the experience.

Tacit Cinema can be a conscious act, which I think Van Sant’s trilogy is, to revel in the minutae of associations in each frame, to draw low-level emotive experience out of the voyeurism involved. This cannot be easily reproduced by just filming anything for lengthy periods… the film/filmmaker need to be cunning observers and know on an unutterable level when something is something as opposed to nothing.

The tacit signifiers need to be ambiguous, transcendental, and naturally implicit, rippling through the film world. I think Tarantino at times employs this, but they become overshadowed by his high-level conceits.

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