2007_11_01_archive

A QUESTION AND A REQUEST

A QUESTION:

My posting has been admittedly sparse as of late. I could explain why,

but I doubt anybody cares all that much, as this is a blog about film,

and not about me! Regardless, I've encountered something recently that

warrants thought.

Part of the reason that I haven't posted much lately (here I go

again...) is that I've been throwing myself into contemporary critical

theory. I find it fascinating, and aside from inspiring a number of

ideas for my many creative endeavors, it's becoming a lot easier for

me to discuss concepts that before I had to spend paragraphs trying to

explain. In fact, it's raised a sort of problem.

In terms of the reviews that I post here/will be posting when the

website is launched (more about this below), one of my main goals is

to translate the idea of no-brow culture into criticism. What I mean

by this is that I want to talk about and discuss the films that I'm

writing about in a manner that isn't obtuse and utterly academic, but

I also don't want to ignore the "academic" elements in the films

reviewed, as for me that is part of their major fun.

Of course, I should clarify the way I'm differentiating between

academic and "academic." By academic (without quotes) I'm obviously

implying writing on film written for the academic world, academic

journals, etc. While a lot of this specific strand of writing is

enlightening, most of it (in my mind, I may eventually re-evaluate my

ideas about this) serves only to perpetuate ideas within the academic

realm itself; almost intentionally refusing something that a

non-academic would have any comprehension or interest in reading-- and

this isn't meant to be condescending, oftentimes I myself find these

essays and articles obtuse; there is a point where ideas can get lost

or obscured by too much jargon and academic wankery (if you'll pardon

the somewhat vulgar term).

By "academic" I mean to imply the elements of these films that are

ostensibly more "intellectual" than a reductive cinema incorporates.

Take, for example, the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet. Traditionally

there have been two opposing ways to read his films (and very rarely

do these readings overlap). The first way is to ignore the

"intellectual" elements of the film and focus on the genre elements;

vampirism, eroticism, le fantastique. The second method seems to

ignore or pay little attention to the genre elements and their

contextual implications, choosing rather to focus solely on ideas of

critical theory; narratology, structuralist construction, montage.

Alain Robbe-Grillet is probably the most blatant example of this

cross-pollination of readings, but obviously there are many other

films and directors that fall into this divide.

My goal, which has hopefully become clear, is to read the films from

BOTH perspectives, allowing the "low-brow" and "high-brow" readings to

play off each other in order to create a much stronger way to think

about the film. The reason for this introduction is that by engrossing

myself within critical theory recently, I've encountered a lot of

terms that specifically refer to a specific concept/idea, and this

word/signifier serves to short-cut the paragraph long explanation that

would normally otherwise follow.

So the question that I've come up with is this: would a more regular

use of a critical theory lexicon alienate readers? Or is it

condescending to directly avoid certain terms especially for this

reason? If I start using this specific language, and I ignoring my

original ideas of establishing a no-brow criticism?

The conclusion I've come to is that if the articles don't go overboard

with a reliance on academic language, there's not a problem. Ideally

the context of the term/word would reveal at least something it

implies, and if it's something that's really unfamiliar, the internet

allows virtually instant access to a plethora of knowledge. I'm not

totally sure though. I mean, obviously the point of establishing this

no-brow criteria is a desire to appeal to as large an audience as

possible, to get people from ALL areas of film-love to start thinking

about these often neglected films.

So what do you think? I'd really like to hear. If this is a stupid

question that I've spent far too much time thinking about, also tell

me that.

A REQUEST

As I mentioned above, I am planning to launch the ESOTIKA website on

January 1st, 2008. While it would be interesting, to say the least, if

I ended up writing absolutely everything for the site itself, I feel

I'd be limiting that information that could be there. The site would

become more about MY opinions on film, and less about the FILMS

themselves. This is not what I want.

I believe that there is a large community of individuals who love this

specific, indescribable sort of film that I am personally obsessed

with. I've never been able to come up with a term for it, but

hopefully the idea is clear through the selection of films that I've

written about throughout the 11 months I've been keeping this film

blog. The point is, of course, I want ESOTIKA EROTICA PSYCHOTICA, as a

website, as opposed to as a blog, to become a COMMUNITY and an

extensive source of information. Most of the films I obsess over I've

found very little about in the ways of information (most of the time,

not always) either in books, or on the internet, or at least in

English.

What I'm driving at here is that I'd love to have some help. The point

is, if you feel passionate about the sort of films that I've obsessed

over in this blog, to the point where you want to share this passion

with readers all over the world, I would love your assistance.

I'd like to get a bit more content generated to debut with the website

in the beginning of January, which is why I'm putting out this "call

for entries" now-- it gives potential authors about a month to pull

something together. So if you'd be interested in helping out either in

writing, providing promotional images (poster scans/ press books /

etc), please email me at

mikekitchell(at)gmail(dot)com

Also, if there is anybody who is bilingual and wants to help out by

means of translation that would also be much appreciated! There are

many great articles on the internet and in books that are in French,

German, Italian, Japanese, etc. that could gain a much larger

audience, and I've found that in many cases original authors are more

than willing to have their writing exposed to a larger audience. So if

you'd like to help out in any way, please let me know!

Addendum:

Just to clarify--since Tim brought it up in the comments--I got

permission from the author to translate the only article that is