I'm editing what passes for programming at Current TV right now, and although I am happy to be receiving a paycheck for my services, I must admit that it's embarrassing what the definition of content has become. Filmmaking and media making used to be considered an artform when it was all about celluloid and black and white. These were mediums that were actually extremely difficult to manipulate, let alone learn how to use them to craft an effective story. Whereas I'm all for the democratization of making art, I really feel that segments such as the ones I'm editing tonight do a detriment to my professional field. Viewers' abilities to decipher between good and bad production value will suffer in the end when the majority of "content" is made by any joe schmoe on the street with a digital camcorder and iMovie. And then places like Current buy these segments for cheap and air them.
So before I came to work today, I squeezed in a matinee. Inspired by the Radiohead cover of Ceremony, I went to the Clay Theater to see Control, the biopic about Ian Curtis of Joy Division. This film is a refreshing reminder that filmmaking is an art, and literally made me want to destroy my digital camera and any notion of creating media for small screens and on the cheap and devote my life to filming the old fashioned way. It was an interesting choice to film Control in black and white. I believe the result was effective, shades of black and white symbolizing the way Ian Curtis may have seen the world--love and hate, life and death. If it was filmed in color, this movie might have become another "24 Hour Party People" or an "Almost Famous;" instead we are given a beautiful and memorable portrait of a bygone era and the life of a bygone artist.
Excellent performances as well. Very well made and artistic film.
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2 comments:
Hey! I liked '24 Hour Party People'!
I liked it too, but not as much as Control. I didn't LOVE it. It was kind of light and campy. Not artistic.
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