Just came upon your blog :) curious about your opinions on some stuff. I was reading about how most good writers are also voracious readers and that books are made out of other books. Do you think this holds true if you translate it to making movies? Do you think novice filmmakers bring anything unique to the table by sidestepping film history? I don’t rlly have an example of this ready and think we might see it more soon considering technology is a tad more accessible to younger people.
in the west, yes. I think it’s absolutely important to be conscious of the history of cinema. we’re often exposed to art which is the most accessible to us and canonized by pop culture, the status quo. so it’s important if you want to create art to at least have a cursory knowledge of it’s context. I do think filmmaking in the realms of non-narrative/experimental filmmaking don’t need to mind the context n rules because they’re frequently challenging the conventions and breaking the rules of cinema so it doesn’t hold as much relevancy. as aforementioned, i do hold the opinion it’s relevant to have context in the case of narrative filmmaking tho.Â
do I think consuming as much media within ur respective medium equals a quality of output? not particularly. I can think of examples of filmmakers, especially those in countries which don’t have as many resources (such as archives, etc) who aren’t cinephiles and are more than capable of making great cinema than those who are highly knowledgeable about the history of the craft n the preconceptions of what cinema is. one filmmaker that instantly springs to mind in such a mold is abderrahmmane sissako.Â
(i hope that answers it? i’m not much of a writer)Â
