I think it was peter Kemp that told me during cinema studies that repetition and variation on repetition is what comes to define a directors style.This process of repeating one element, altering it and repeating it again can apply to almost every element of mis en scene. I think this premise would have also made an interesting final project, perhaps including analysis of what elements other directors repeated in their styles.

To change direction a bit I recently visited the legacies of television exhibition at the NGV which had some interesting pieces in it. The one which really caught my attention most was a piece by Tracy Moffat and Gary Hillberg called Artist which was essentially a super cut of Hollywood’s depiction of the artist, here is a little info page I found on it. It has a loose narrative structure which is based archetypal voyage of the artist, the creation, the criticism and the destruction – from what I can remember. Somehow it reminded me of the Martin Arnold and his films like Alone Life Wastes Andy Hardy, perhaps it was just just on my mind but it made me think of the film in relation to repetition.

I guess you could say that the epiphany this week was then that Artist is kind of like a meta stylistic record except instead of the focus being defined by a director and the text it is defined rather by the industry and the subject. So the Artist is a meta stylistic representation of the depiction of the artist in Hollywood films. Although now I write that out the word ‘style’ feels wrong perhaps is it wrong for me to apply it in that context.