I'm talking about this topic because it came up in discussion sometime ago on a forum. As everyone I know furthers their education, they begin to have ethical opinions about the relevance of academia for future filmmakers. Some take consideration of academia, but aren't driven to truly study it. Many filmmakers even disregard it. I'm unique among them because I come more from a critical perspective, but I'm trying to understand both sides. What follows is a post on a forum about the subject.
First off, I don't believe academia is essential for all filmmakers. Most up and coming filmmakers I know want to film personal stories. They have ambitions to stylize their work in the shadow of their favorite filmmakers, but they still want to tell their own stories. They do not have serious ambitions to make films that compare and contrast different cinemas and histories. All they want to do is develop a good understanding of the approaches to the filmmakers they like. You can read general criticism and watch a lot of movies to achieve that. The major questions for these filmmakers is how good they are as a filmmaker, storyteller and commentator on life. That isn't something you find in a class or a "how to" book.
But, academia is essential to film as an art. Academia is prevalent in every other major art and has been the reason that many of them have carried over to still have resonance today. People over estimate the value of public perception for doing this, but it's academia. The value of thought and the relationship a work of art has to theoretical ideas gives it a better chance to carry over into the next century and still be meaningful. That's true because theories develop and advance, but many new films and works of art are still being looked at under some very old terms of critical thinking. The fact that many films are able to be understood in the context of how other arts is being judged is what is making it be considered a legitimate art form. Of course the details of how films are judged is different, but there are basic theoretical similarities.
Bernard Shaw said a work of art was only meant to be meaningful to the public for a hundred years. I think that basic idea has a special relationship to film. Films like Casablanca and It's A Wonderful Life are considered classics, but will they be as acclaimed as they are today in 500 years? The reason these movies still survive has more to do with public sympathy and memory, but generations of people are dying and the next generations are being further removed all the time. The disparity will only continue to grow. The chance that these movies drop off the face of the movie world becomes even more likely considering numerous films are made to replicate the emotions in those films. The newer films will have a better chance to carry over because they will be made for that generation and time period. This also takes into account many accomplished dramas and independent films. They too have as many things about them that are just made for the time period that can later become irrelevant.
If a filmmaker does open himself up to academia, he can make films that are conscious of the history of art like other artists have done. In literature, James Joyce's Ulysses will survive until the end of the novel itself does. Not because it was just the best work of its era but because it had the greatest structural innovations ever found in a novel. It's not studied for what it had to say about Joyce the man or his time period, but for its revolution to the novel. Academia is the main area for study of an art. Most filmmakers aren't interested in those details, but some are. Many of those filmmakers were prevalent in the 1960s and are still making films in different pockets around the world. The filmmakers ambitious enough to make films that are studies of its film art are getting fewer, but it is still important work.
That being said, it's a crap shoot what films will be truly remembered. Not all good films by filmmakers conscious of film art will be remembered and not all films made for public emotion will be forgotten, but luck will have more to do with that process. By true remembrance I mean the films that can be easily identified by everyone as a known film. But, great works by filmmakers who are ambitious to challenge the bounds of their art will help forward ideas for future filmmakers and film artists. Even if God doesn't exist, Robert Bresson gave himself an everlasting life with the books and articles he wrote. He will always be studied and known. And a film like Citizen Kane has no chance to be forgotten.
There is a quote by Werner Herzog, "...for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion". I hate the quote. It is stupid because it makes the word passion resonate only to emotion. As I figure, passion has as much to do with the mind as it does the heart. Does Werner Herzog believe filmmakers who aspire to make academically sound films are passionless? Hans Jurgen Syderberg makes films that are tough for everyone relate to, but he attacks his subject with as much fervor as anyone else. He just so happens to have an academic brain and relates his subject back to its theoretical and societal roots.
People want to pigeonhole films by saying the methods of their favorite filmmakers is the only way to make a great film, but there are many ways to make a great film that involve both logic and emotion. Academia is helpful to understand many different filmmakers and films. It also isn't reducing some films to look at them from an academic perspective. For many great filmmakers, that was the intention in the first place.
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