Assignment #2 Canon Fodder-Manifesting Challenges to the Canon
Hysterical, disappointing and flat out unknowledgeable. The Canon of film can be summed up by myself in these words as just a complete mess, well that’s my opinion of course. If you didn’t know what the film canon is it basically means and explores the greatest films of all time, but who is to decide all of this? Critics, that makes a lot of sense doesn’t it.
As the semester break vastly approaches for myself and my classmates, i realised that this studio is a great working space with conversation, expertise, uniqueness and speciality amongst my classmates and myself approaches to the film canon. With one of the biggest classes of this studio for a long time, i believe that with the mix of film taste we can all argue different ways to overflow, fix and elaborate the film canon.
This is just something i want to say about Film canon and just ranking this anyway, i believe that everyone has their own thoughts, favourites, passions, relaxations for films whether it’s for particular genres of romance, comedies, actions etc, and i think if you ask someone what their top five favourite films are each person will probably have a complete different list, whether its their own comfort films or their just acclaimed best films but how is it fair to just listen to a complete different category of critics worlds and make everyone follow their list, can you not like your own movies? Yes, you can and there should be a list where the best films ever should be, but why just involve critics, why not the ones who are making the films? This can be said in other canons other than film, who are the best artists, authors canon, even the greatest songs.
In Week three of the studio i myself was fascinated by the screening of the feature film Citizen Kane. Why is this? On the sight and sound poll which is completed every ten years to decide the greatest 100 films this film was number 2 (Vertigo #1) which made me interested on how a film that was made in 1941 still holds its place and ive got to say i thought i myself was watching The Simpsons as there was various parallels to the character Mr Burns, plus it really interested me as the director who also stared as Charles Kane (main character) created this film at a young age of only 25 which shows his creativity of making this universal film. Plus, after the film i discussed in another class where at the start the teacher asks us what we have watched i told everyone i watched it and they were all like wowed that i just watched it and all wanted to see it again for the first time, which i didn’t really come to terms in. My opinions of the film are as follows, yes, it’s a great film, i loved it the characters, the pacing was beautifully done but i think if i watched it a couple more times i would understand it more and enjoy it more but honestly i think it has aged not the best as its obviously a very old film.
Continuing, in week 3, by reading Paul Schrader’s piece ‘Canon Fodder’ early in the studio, it made me realise and understand the real meaning of the Canon. Schrader goes into analysis about how the film canon demises from the history of art before film was invented, from paintings to books to plays to then film. A thing that stays with me that he states is his repeated examples on how to understand where things come from and how you can learn from it, for example “to understand the canon is to understand its narrative…the universe is a narrative, to understand the universe is to understand its history. Each and every thing is part of a story-beginning, middle and end.” Also, my standpoint follows of what Schrader states later about the film canon which includes “there is no agreement about what a canon should include but there is no agreement if there should be canons at all” which comes to terms about what type of films should be included and why some should be ignored but my real question of consideration is, what makes them canonical?
Moving on, during this class, we have watched various short films recently and three of them that really surprised myself include Night on Bald Mountain (1933), Powers of Ten (1977) and Begone Dull Care (1949) respectively. Firstly, the 1933 hit Night on Bald Mountain flew into my attention firstly because of the time period, 1933 you wouldn’t expect a piece like this for the time period, it’s a very dark sort of thing to watch and looks like a sort of stop motion piece that could be made in modern times and defiantly ahead of its time. Secondly, my viewing of Powers of Ten was my favourite watch out of all the short films due to it raising my eyes into how big this world is and how small things like our body have different layers that can go on for a very long time and just made me realise that how small we are but how big we are as well which doesn’t really make sense. Lastly, my viewing of Begone Dull Care was chosen to represent the three as it did not make any sense to myself as i didn’t really know what was going on but i wanted to keep watching as the piano made me stay plus looking at when it was made it really intrigued me.
Now, the main event of the recent weeks which really struck a nerve for myself after the viewing and made me really question cinema. I think its directed by Julian Rosefeldt but 2015s film ‘Manifesto’ staring Kate Blanchett going bonkers for 90 minutes. This film obviously showcases Kate Blanchett as she changes from a homeless man to a news host, a mother praying at dinner, woman at a funeral speaking a ventriloquist of different historical figures, a teacher blasting her students about what should be in films and many more that if you think you’ll probably get right. With outstanding cinematography of high shots and wide, this film surprised me without its script. But with its script is where myself and my class lost control, as Kate speaks various historical manifestos about what ‘art’ should be if art is real and about authorism and various other issues with the world, we were stunned to even think what happened in the film. I was speechless and i think to understand it more and better watch it more times which i may need to do. This film led me to then be intrigued about the future of the studio in the study of manifestos.
When reading manifestos for class it made me very engaged into wanting to create my own for the future about how to overthrow the film canon which is an assignment in the future. Two manifestos that stuck with me in week 5 include the Dogme 95 which in 1995 various filmmakers founded a group in which they exclaim their ideas on how to make film and the films rules. Out of ten rules a couple of them include “shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in.”, “The camera must be hand-held.” “Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.” And “the director must not be credited” which really caught my attention as every Dogme film made credited a director for the film, this manifesto at the time of film would have been very popular as in 1995, film has been around for around 100 years and maybe these filmmakers thought that the new generation needed something new. Moving on, the manifesto made my Jesse Wente named ‘Doing All Things Differently’ exposes the lack of sovereignty of land for indigenous people on the screen which i chose as it was made recently in 2019 and focuses to “normalise” and “humanise” the indigenous people as recent studies of films/different publicly seen media were “told by people outside our communities” the themes of change represent the authors point of view and what the author and their followers hopes to help modify the representation and viewing of indigenous qualities of North America especially Canada.
Finally, shortly, i just want to say that this studio has quickly become my favourite class to attend, each week i continue to learn and explore the film canon and what i can do in order to change and to adapt the canon to understand if it is even needed or should there be alternate alternatives to rank or rate films or any other type of media. I am looking forward to the future of the course and learn the ways to overthrow the canon.
Resource list:
Paul Schrader, “Canon Fodder (Links to an external site.)” in Film Comment, vol. 42, no. 5, September-October 2006, pp. 33-49
Dogme 95, “Manifesto”, 1995, hosted at http://www.dogme95.dk (Links to an external site.). http://www.dogme95.dk/dogma-95/ (Links to an external site.) & http://www.dogme95.dk/the-vow-of-chastity/
Jesse Wente, “Doing All Things Differently (Links to an external site.)” in Film Quarterly vol. 72 no. 3, Spring 2019, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2019, pp. 42-43.