wastelandnumberseven

So 3-D cinema is the next big thing.. bollocks, bullucks, boulogs. Crap! It's not a progression not in any way shape or form, unless progression is removing us even more from our own lives, because that's what has happened, the idea of cinema being some sort of 'great escape' has pushed it to where it is now. But cinema can be other things too, it can be entertaining at a distance, like a good friend. Or rather than taking over life, it can comment on the one we already have, it can be art.

People seem to think that 3-d is better than 2-d, panavision better than 3:4 ratio, sound better than silence, colour better than black and white. But this is rollercoaster ideology, in which the 'best' ones are also the tallest and longest and scariest. It's pushed along, mainly, by money. Because no, sound film isn't better than silent, there is still room for silent cinema, as there is for black and white. Sunrise, one of the greatest films ever made, and still is, is b&w and silent.

Money is the cause of this ignorance of past cinema, we don't do the same for music or painting or more 'serious' art. But that more serious art has a mystique simply because it doesn't make much money, the businessmen aren't lining up to get a piece of the latest Operatic revolution, for example. But they would do if it generated the same kind of money. With the invention of the synthesizer people didn't throw down their instruments and only allow the great classical composers to be heard through an electronic sound, they wouldn't fucking dare! (though they might without realising as mp3 gains ground..) But a similar thing is happening to cinema. There is room for 3-D, there is room for digital and digital projectors, but there is no room for these idiots to play a film such as It's A Wonderful Life through a projector that only projects in panavision, cutting off half the bloody picture, which is what i've seen two years running at my local multiplex.

The only cinema's i've been to that showed good films, and did not equate good with new, that had respect for cinema, were independent cinemas. There was one in Yale when i visited once, i forget the name, but it had an Orson Welles season before i arrived, and i remember seeing a Mizoguchi and an Ozu and Once upon a time in the west while i was there. The Cornerhouse in Manchester is another, the Lighthouse in Wolverhampton used to be quite good, but it slipped. The Electric though, in Birmingham, makes up for it, and the MAC has just reopened. There's also the National Film Theatre in London.

Call me a nostalgic, call me whatever you like, but i don't think i am, cinema has a language, and silent cinema is as valid as any other. More valid as cinema, in my opinion, because it was simply about what was visible, the story was told through shots, edits, camera movement, acting. And it was Brechtian, it wasn't trying to blind you, or lull you to sleep, it didn't try and make you feel you were in that moment on screen to give you some great cathartic release, because that is totally unnecessary, instead it treated you like an actual thinking person, who can make up your own bloody mind without it being rammed down your throat. Who felt, but didn't try and cloud your judgment with these feelings.

I've still never watched a 3-d film, not out of disgust, i would if i could be bothered to get inspired by any of these films coming out... but like when i looked at the faces of the EDL supporters in the Dudley News this week, i can't connect.