1970s: The last decade movies were any good.
action: Not a serious genre, unlike detective movies or musicals.
art: What all movies aspire to be.
art film: A genre within which the deficiencies of commercial cinema are treated as strengths.
auteur: Every director.
Bresson: "Transcendental."
budget: Something it's possible to have too little of, but never too much of. A small budget is called "low," but a high one is called "big."
Cassavetes: 100% improvised.
cinema: Has been either dead or dying for over 100 years.
clear delineation of space: "The mark of a good director" and a very easy way to defend a bad one or attack a great one.
close-up: Important if the film was made before 2000; unnecessary if made after 2000.
comedy: Easier to make than drama.
conservative: No good directors were ever conservatives. Good directors who say they are conservatives are all crypto-Leftists.
criticism: Either dying or useless.
deep focus: Invented by Renoir.
early films: Always a director's best.
Eastwood: Crypto-Leftist.
Eisenstein: Invented almost everything.
editing: The more obviously grounded in existing theories, the better.
experimental film: New and fresh even when recycling 80-year-old ideas.
film stock: Proof of seriousness. Looks better than HD.
French cinema: A genre.
Griffith: "While no straightforward, consistent political stance is in evidence in the Griffith oeuvre, there is a theme that runs through his major works. That theme is Family."
handheld: How we see the world.
horror: See "comedy."
innovation: Important in old films, to be ignored in new ones.
Japanese cinema: Contemplative, because of Buddhism or Shinto or whatever their religion is called.
Jia: The only director who understands our modern world.
late films: The less they resemble the early films, the worse.
literature: Denser and more complex than cinema.
long take: The pinnacle of filmmaking, even when the director is using it to save money and time.
Kael: A great critic.
Kubrick: Hated humanity.
maturity: What young filmmakers should aspire to. Called "out-dated-ness" or "senility" if the director is over 70.
metaphors: Always "obvious."
mise-en-scene: Only present in great films.
Modern Times: A silent film.
montage: Didn't exist until Eisenstein, who either invented it or discovered it.
movie theater: The only place were cinema exists.
novelistic: A great quality for films to have, since they're all just failed books anyway. See "literature."
Ozu: His films are slow.
poetic: Usually used to describe an idea that would be called bad in poetry but is considered good in a movie.
pure cinema: Somehow different from all other cinema.
religion: Always bad to have in films, unless you don't understand its theology.
Renoir: Invented everything Eisenstein didn't invent.
Rohmer: Made the same movie over and over again.
Russian cinema: One of many things invented by Eisenstein.
science fiction: The quality of a sci-fi movie is the inverse of its special effects budget.
slapstick: Only good if the performer never talks.
sound: Something no one wants to hear about or talk about.
stagy: A terrible quality for a movie to have, even worse than resembling a TV show. Opposite of "novelistic."
video: Not cinema.
voice-over: Unacceptable in a contemporary film.
Welles: A failure. Didn't even make Citizen Kane himself.
when you were young: The time when movies were better.
wide shot: See "maturity."
youthful energy: What all older filmmakers should aspire to. If the director is under 40, then they're to be ignored.
zoom: Despite being something that can only happen in a moving image, considered "uncinematic."
Saturday, April 3, 2010
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5 comments:
This is definitely a great collection, and in many cases I couldn't agree more on far too many of these.
A true work of genius ! I howled with laughter !!
i drew up up one such list a few years back, after reading this i tore that up. A great post.
Thanks, all. I'm humbled by the response (and the sheer amount of linking-in) to something typed over half a cup of coffee.
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