Untuk PNB.

Video pendek untuk PNB, projek dengan kengkawan rapat...

iskkk bagi ler 20K....haha..

Poin-poin makan Biskut dan memikir Apokalips sang auteur

1. Bertolt Brecht memanjangkan 'alienasi' Marx (sosial alienation) ke dalam teater, dengan tujuan penonton tidak terbuai ke dalam 'cerita' (dikhayalkan). Godard, pernah juga menggunakan semangat 'alienasi' ini (sama seperti Brecht) dengan cubaan 'jump cut' (suntingan) untuk memutuskan tali kontinuiti agar penoton sedar yang mereka sedang menonton filem. Apabila penonton berjaya 'dijarakkan' dengan cerita, makanya penonton akan sedar bahawa mereka sedang menonton 'filem'. Dan tidak terperusuk khayal ke dalam dunia cerita. Dan ini menjadikan penonton masih dalam keadaan 'sedar' dan cuba (secara sedar) memahami imejan visual (dalam konteks ini filem) yang sedang ditayangkan di hadapan mereka. Bagi pengarah teater dan filem (Brecht dan Godard) pro-Marx inilah yang cuba dicapai...iaitu keadaan 'keterasingan' itu..antara penonton dan medium (filem atau teater)...dan mereka perlu menikmati 'seni' dalam kenadaan 'sedar'... ini rentetan dari pandangan bahawa kaum proletar/marhaen seringkali dieksploitasi oleh golongan kelas pemerintah/borjuis/kapitalis yang cuba mencandukan mereka dengan hiburan yang bersifat eskapis agar melupakan 'struggle' sebenar yang berlaku dalam kasta/kelas sosial...ok, lupakan hal-hal teori Barat yang dibenci oleh seorang pengkritik filem tua ini, berbalik kepada filem Mamat... dua buah filem terbaru (dan ini bermula dari Husin, Mon, Jin Pakai Toncit) sebenarnya ada kecenderungan Mamat mula menghasilkan filem yang 'menjarakkan' penonton dari dunia cerita Mamat.

2. Ada pendapat mengatakan Mamat sengaja dalam hal ini. Ada pendapat mengatakan tidak. Aku cuba untuk bersangka baik. Lagipun Mamat adalah pengarah feveret aku. Aku pilih untuk bersetuju dengan pendapat yang pertama. Namun apabila aku menonton Apokalips X yang lebih baik sikit dari Antoo Fighter dan Kapoww Azizi Chunk, aku mula tidak berfikiran sedemikian.

3. Zombi (maksud aku cerita zombi) adalah parodi. Memparodikan parodi jatuh ke tahap main-main. Filem Zombi Kilang Biskut jatuh ke dalam kategori ini. Filem main-main. Ini sangat menggusarkan.... Mamat sepatutnya macam Anakin Skywalker, yang dipilih untuk menyelamatkan filem melayu, namun dia jadi Darth Vader, dengan join sebelah darkside, mula buat filem yang sama sahaja macam Azizi Chunk, macam Bob Ismail...cuma, ya, bagus sikit sahaja dari mereka. Tapi trend filem yang diarahkannya menunjukkan ianya bergerak ke arah yang menggusarkan.

4. Adakah Mamat cuba berBrechtian atau berGodardian dalam filem beliau? sudah tentu tidak... macamana stail yang lahir dari tradisi marxist ini bergerak dalam suasana arus perdana yang sememangnya berkiblatkan kapitalis...ini dikuatkan lagi dengan pandangan cuba 'menjatuhkan melayu' dan 'mahu penonton datang wayang dan sokong dalam pembelian tiket'. Ini secara filosofinya tidak kena langsung....

5. Mencari 'Apa yang cuba diperkatakan oleh Mamat dalam filemnya'... secara parodi...atau secara satira... ya, memang dua buah filem ini ada benda yang diperkatakan...ianya sangat 'obvious'....tapi cerita? tiada. none. Nada. ilek.

6. Lagipun kalau nak hantar mesej, baik bagi teks sahaja bukan? lagi senang.

7. Kalau nak 'preachy' sangat macam Apokalips X pun, Tentang perpaduan, tentang budaya dan pentingnya sifat tolak ansur... buat PSA sahaja...lagi senang dan ringkas bukan?

9. Adakah Mamat cuba mencipta keterasingan antara filemnya dan audiens kerana mahu penonton fokus kepada 'mesej' (aku benci nak guna ayat mesej ini tapi ya, aku rasa itulah yang Mamat cuba fokuskan). Aku rasa mungkin ya, tapi dengan mengambil lewa cerita langsung...ianya bukan lah satu strategi yang bagus...

10. Adakah aku kecewa dengan dua buah filem Mamat yang aku tonton baru-baru ini? ya. Adakah aku cuba menjatuhkan pengarah melayu seperti Mamat?. Adakah aku pro kapitalis dan berfikiran Barat? abah kau!

11.Zombi Kilang Biskut, merupakan  Kampung Pisang chronicles yang masih berlatar kampung pisang, idea  yang dikitar dengan eksekusi yang menjadi semakin bosan dengan ketiadaan hala tuju. Ianya menjadi semakin 'cheap' dan tidak menarik lagi. Tidak sepadat Hantu Kak Limah dan lebih tiada tujuan dari Husin dan Mon.

12. Apokalips X cedukan cow zero berlatar pasca-apokalips, tanpa cerita... hanya babak gaduh yang lebih banyak dibantu gerak kamera dan sudut tangkapan aksi dari koreografi bergocoh. Karekter tidak jelas. Ada bau-bau triad society di sana sini, bagi mereka yang familiar dengan benda benda organisasi bawah tanah/jenayah tempatan. Bagi yang melihat dari kacamata politik, boleh tebuk dan tafsir suka suka gigi macam pengkritik filem tua itu buat.

p/s- Aku masih tunggu filem-filem Mamat yang lain seperti 'Rentas' (ke rentaz?) dan apa ntah tajuk yang belakangnya '... 'pergi ke laut' itu...see, aku masih tak putus beri sokongan pada filem dia.

KIL

KIL (2013) Nik Amir. Ini bukan rebiu. Aku cuba mengupas filem ini. (Makanya ada Spoiler. Berambus sekiranya belum tonton).

Sinematografi cantik? ya.... tapi lebih dari itu. Filem ini ada daya intelektualitinya. Itu yang mahal, dan segar. Dengar khabarnya bajet lebih kurang 100K. Sial. Ianya 'lebih' serba-serbi dari sampah-sarap yang memenuhi panggung sekarang ini. Makan apa budak-budak ni?

Lakonan, pengarahan, art direction, yadada yadada... Tak perlu aku ulang semua pujian. Ya, semuanya memenuhi keperluan yang harus dan patut ada bagi sebuah karya 'sinema'. Barisan pengkarya mudanya terdiri daripada mereka yang punya 'pencerahan' tentang sinema.

Tapi bukan itu yang aku kagumkan.

Aku teruja pada konsep, tema dan bentuk cerita.

Dan yang paling 'cantik' adalah gaya cerita ini diceritakan. Di mana 'masa' itu dipersembahkan dalam suasana yang 'tidak' lurus, huru hara. Lepas dan sekarang, dipersembahkan dengan penuh semangat 'tidak berstruktur'. Ini bukan sesuatu yang baru di dalam sinema, tetapi, ianya baru di

Ini adalah satu bentuk sinema 'rebel' dari anak muda. Memori dan ingatan Akil, selaku 'imejan-virtual' /'Mental-imej' dipersembahkan tanpa dipisahkan dari garis masa 'kini/sekarang'. Ya, mudah kata, bukan secara teknik flashback yang biasa kau lihat (contoh:sephia, grainy, hitam-putih). Adegan ini yang seharusnya merupakan babak-babak imbas balik (flash back) seperti Akil berbual telefon bersama ibunya, dan, adegan dia menasihati adiknya supaya tidur, tidak divisualkan terpisah 'dari' masa kini / 'real-time' cerita Akil ( Di mana, Ibu dan Adiknya sudah mati akibat kemalangan).

Dari rentetan visual yang menunjukkan kecelaruan dan huru-hara 'ruang-masa' ini, penonton dapat merasai emosi, perasan,fikiran 'karekter' Akil dengan lebih mendalam. Bukan sekadar lakonan Redza Minhat itu sudah cukup bagus, malahan dengan gaya penceritaan sebegini, ianya menjadi satu kaedah penceritaan sinematik (dari pengarah) yang membawa penonton (dengan memasuki kondisi emosi-fikiran Akil) untuk merasai sengsara dan 'harapan' (ya, HARAPAN) Akil yang penuh rasa penyesalan, dan tidak dapat menerima kenyataan ibu dan adiknya sudah tiada secara 'subtle', dan mahu mereka, masih hidup bersamanya... tanpa meleweh-leweh dengan 'dialog' dan adegan yang tidak perlu.

Menyelit kata Deleuze "The time-image places the identity of character, plot, etc, into crisis".

‘.. It becomes questioning, responding,objecting, provoking, theorimatising,experimenting, in accordance with thelogical list of conjunctions (‘or’, ‘therefore’,‘if’, ‘because’, ‘actually’, ‘although’..)  

                                                                                                            (cinema 2, p.23)

Mungkin aku lupa nyatakan, aku cuba melihat filem KIL ini dari konsep time-image Deleuze. Selain elemen-elemen Non-Rational cut dalam Time-Image, seperti pelanggaran undang-undang (bongok)180 degree line sewaktu babak Akil dan Awek yang hendak bunuh diri atas bangunan. ianya membawa penonton melihat watak Akil dalam ruang dan dimensi 'istimewa'. 

Akhirnya apa yang hendak dicapai adalah satu gaya penolakan terhadap 'norma' klise dan stereotaip dalam filem secara amnya, filem melayu secara khususnya.Ini satu bentuk 'pemberontakan' sinema yang cantik.   

Ini sama impaknya dengan apa yang Dain Said lakukan dalam BUNOHAN.

Kerana untuk menghasilkan sinema yang ada daya intelektualiti ianya harus mencabar /'memberontak' dan 'melanggar' undang-undang sinema 'moden' (seperti kontinuiti masa:Klasik hollywood) dengan pengetahuan, serta konsep (jelasnya seperti time-image ini).

Tapi jaga-jaga, ada beza dengan tahu tapi langgar, dengan tidak tahu dan melanggar.

Ini yang aku suka di dalam filem ini. Ada beberapa perkara lagi, sekiranya aku rajin untuk berkontekstualisasikan filem ini, mahu melihatnya dari sudut 'gambar yang lebih besar'... bukan di entri ini, entri lain mungkin. Entri ini aku tulis dalam tergesa-gesa kerana libido intelektual aku menegang sebaik sahaja menonton filem ini dan ya, ini cuma satu peronanian intelektual, terima kasih kerana mahu membaca.

P/S : Dan ya, Zara (Christine) sangat menawan. 

Cerita Kita

Aku bukan penonton filem 'cinta', apatah lagi filem cinta tempatan, tambahan lagi filem itu dihasilkan oleh sebuah tangki septik bernama MIG.

Tapi apabila kelas filem kau dibatalkan, dan kau tiada arah hendak pergi, pertaruhan yang paling baik untuk membuang masa adalah dengan menonton wayang. Dan entah karma apa yang menyebabkan nasib aku begitu buruk, pada waktu yang terdekat itu, hanya ada sebuah tayangan filem.

Cerita Kita, arahan Pierre Andre,lakonan Pekin Ibrahim dan Yana Samsuddin.... dengan tagline " Kalau awak tanya apa yang saya mahu dalam hidup ini, saya akan kata saya mahu awak".

Duh....

Filem ini mengangkat konsep melodrama yang diberikan sedikit semangat moden oleh Pierre. Mujur Pierre yag arah, kalau Hashim Rejab, memang tidak lah aku menontonnya. Baik aku habiskan masa aku di arcade.

Percintaan tiga segi yang menghalang percintaan antara dua orang sahabat yang confuse iaitu diantara Pekin dan Yana. Konflik pula datangnya dari keperluan material dan stabiliti si heroin, di mana dia jatuh hati pada Fezrol Khan, yang kelihatan lebih gentle dan berkeyakinan, serta of course lebih banyak 'duit' dari si Pekin yang kerjanya mencuci kereta.

Apa yang diharapkan dari sebuah kisah percintaan yang penuh keklisean ini? tiada. Dan sememangnya sebuah filem cinta hanya perlu mengitar semula formula yang sememangnya sudah terbukti berkesan. Filem ini berakhir juga dengan penuh keklisean.

Apa pengakhiran yang dimahukan penonton kalau tidak seorang lelaki dari golongan kelas bawahan ini mendapat sedikit kebahagiaan dengan berjaya memiliki 'cintanya'. Tak perlu risau akan spoiler apabila membaca 'hint' yang diberikan aku ini. Apa yang kamu harapkan dari sebuah melodrama yang klise?

Cuma aku suka pada lakonan Yana. Dia ni seorang pelakon yang berbakat, pandai bawa watak gadis manja, mungkin kerana dia hanya jadi dirinya sendiri? haha...

Pekin pula lakonannya sangat lah mediocre... Pekin berlakon watak Pekin. Dia memang terkenal dengan watak nampak 'art' dan coolnya. Aku akui juga, selepas watak hero dalam cerita 'Aku Hidup Dalam Blues', Pekin merupakan seorang brader pencuci kereta yang cool.

Lakonan Feroz Khan.... macam lakonan pelakon lelaki Malaysia yang lain. If you know what i mean...

Yang mungkin boleh menyebabkan filem ini terselamat dari menjadi cerekarama TV adalah kemampuan Pierre dalam memberikan sentuhan sinematik dalam filemnya ini. Sinematografi boleh dipuji... Persekitaran Flat yang memberi penekanan kepada pasangan 'kelas' pekerja di Kuala Lumpur yang menjadi watak utama dinyatakan dengan begitu tegas dalam masa yang sama romantik. Terutamanya Long Shot Pekin berjalan di balkoni flat yang kosong dan kelihatan kusam itu.

Ianya sebuah karya romantisme working class yang boleh dipuji.

***

Aku melihat filem ini ada momen yang menyentuh hati, mungkin sebab pengalaman-pengalaman peribadi aku. Melihat Pekin, yang sanggup bersusah payah untuk membeli sesuatu yang sebenarnya dia tidak mampu kepada seseorang yang dicintainya, juga penampilannya dirinya ( berambut panjang, berpakaian lusuh) dihakimi sebegitu rupa, serta segala soal material yang berkaitan dengan masa depan dan stabiliti kehidupan...dipertikaikan...serta kemampuan kau untuk 'membahagiakan' itu dipersoalkan...

Ya, aku sedikit sebanyak mengaitkan dengan pengalaman aku. Cuma, cerita aku tidak berakhir dengan si heroin pulang ke pangkuan aku.

Walau bagaimanapun, hidup bukan filem, filem hanya cebisan dari realiti, dan bila realiti hidup kau lebih pahit dari filem yang ditonton.

Ianya merupakan sebuah lagi tragedi yang lain.

:)

Rock dan momen momen personal.

Muzik rock kapak/glam rock merupakan pengaruh muzik terawal dalam hidup aku.

Mempunyai seorang bapak yang meminati muzik. Aku membesar dengan pelbagai genre muzik, iatu pengaruh secara tidak langsung dari apa sahaja yang keluar dari corong radio jenama Aiwa bapak aku.

daripada Santana, Bob Marley ke Deep Purple, Dari Jefrydin, M. Shariff dan ke Search, Wings dan Lefthanded.

Kadang kadang aku terdengar dia pasang lagu lagu Bee Gees, dan The Carpenters... itu kesukaan mak aku.

Tapi M. Daud Kilau dengan S.M Salim takde...tak... uu uhh... Itu bukan muzik jenis bapak aku suka. 

Aku pula, lewat 80-an, berseluar pendek tidak berbaju sering bermain kaut-kaut pasir di belakang rumah aku. Rumah aku pada waktu itu terletak betul-betul di pekan Parit. Sebuah pekan koboi yang agak terkenal di daerah Perak Tengah, Perak.

Berhampiran timbunan pasir itu terletak sebuah rumah yang agak misteri. Rumah kayu, yang dindingnya terconteng conteng dengan perkataan-perkataan yang aku tidak fahami. masa itu aku berumur 7 tahun, aku tidak boleh membaca sehinggalah aku berusia 9 tahun. Oleh itu aku tak faham apa yang dicontengkan di dinding rumah tersebut.*

Selain dari keadaan rumah yang tidak senonoh ( dan agak creepy) jika dilihat dari luar. Satu perkara yang aku ingat tentang rumah tersebut adalah penghuni rumah tersebut seolah-olah pekak. Mereka akan memasang radio dengan kuat. Aku yang sedang bermain pasir itu boleh dengar lagu yang mereka pasangkan berulang kali. Antaranya adalah lagu ini.

Ya, lagu dari kumpulan Crossfire. Setelah beebrapa kali mendengar lagu ini dari rumah tersebut sewaktu seronok bermain pasir, aku dapat menghafal lagu tersebut.

Yang peliknya, aku jarang dapat lihat kelibat manusia yang menghuni rumah tersebut, dari radio yang terpasang. Aku yakin rumah tersebut berpenghuni. Kadangkala hanya dengar nyaringan bunyi gitar dari rumah tersebut. Betul-betul bunyinya seperti ini.

Setelah sekian lama diselubungi misteri, akhirnya aku dapat juga melihat kelibat mereka yang menguni rumah tersebut. Dan ya, mereka semua, ada 4 orang kesemuanya, sebiji seperti mereka ini. Tapi tak la akai baju macam tu. haha...

Berambut panjang, berbadan kurus, seluar ketat, dengan aksesori di tangan dan leher. Mereka adalah mamat-mamat rock kampung yang terpengaruh dan menjadi sebahagian dari fenomena rock yang melanda negara pada waktu itu. Mereka sangat cool... walaupun sebenarnya penampilan mereka memang mendatangkan curiga kepada mak aku. 

Diaorang tu hsiap dadah. cakap mak aku. Aku tidak tahu apa itu dadah pada waktu itu, tapi seringkalinya dadah dikaitkan dengan tengkorak. Ya, ianya snagat menggerunkan. Bukan dadah, tapi tengkorak tersebut.

Pada waktu itu, kalau bapak aku bawak aku berjalan ke Ipoh untuk aktiviti makan malam yang menjadi rutin bulanannya sebaik sahaja dapat gaji, tidak dapat tidak aku akan bertembung dengan mamat-mamat dan minah-minah rock ini kawasan Super Kinta dan Yik Foong, atau di depan Stesen Kereta Api Ipoh, di mana tempat yang menjadi tempat tumpuan masyarakat Ipoh pada waktu merewang di malam minggu, atau di TKK ( Taman Kanak Kanak) yang menjadi tempat tumpuan makan-makan setiap lapisan marhaen di Ipoh. Ada satay Endut yang agak famous pada waktu itu disini.

Kalau tidak di Ipoh, aku sering bertembung dengan mamat dan minah rock ini di kedai bundle arwah tuk aku. Arwah tuk aku adalah seorang peniaga bundle yang famous pada waktu itu. Kedai bundle dia terletak betul-betul di tengah pekan parit. Menawarkan pelbagai jenis pakaian second hand dengan harga mampu beli, tidak hairan ianya menjadi 'port' mamat-mamat rock dan minah minah rock membeli jeans lusuh dan koyak mereka di situ.

Antara kenangan yang tidak boleh aku lupa adalah aku terjatuh hati dengan seorang Minah Rock yang sering datang ke kedai bundle arwah tuk aku ini. Ahhh... begitu salahnya psikoanalisis Freud yang mengatakan bahawa budak lelaki berumur 7 tahun tiada keinginan terhadap gender yang berlainan dengan mereka sewaktu di tahap represi seksual itu.

Atau aku yang tidak normal? hahahaha

Mungkin ianya bukan 'cinta', ianya hanya 'suka' seorang kanak-kanak kepada seorang perempuan yang nampak sempurna. Yang kelihatan sempurna itu adalah seorang minah yang seakan akan seperti gambar di bawah. Haa... yang belah kanan sekali tu....

Aku masih ingat eye shadow dan gincunya yang merah menyala. Serta seluar jeans ketatnya. Suaranya pun aku masih ingat. Bila dia datang untuk beli jeans dan alter jeans tersebut. Aku pasti akan menyibuk. dan dia tidak lupa membelikan aku sesuatu, dan biasanya sesuatu itu adalah ice cream potong kacang merah. 

Waktu itu, sudah masuk tahun 90, dan lagu ini pernah berkumandang sewaktu minah rock, yang sampai sekarang aku tidak tahu namanya itu, datang ke kedai bundle arwah atuk aku. May, Sketsa Sebuah Cinta.

Selain itu, dari segi fesyen, untuk budak berumur 7-9 tahun, apalah yang boleh di rock sangat. Bapak aku akan pastikan macha tukang rambut memotong rambut aku dengan kenipisan No. 2. Cuma kalau ada sedikit yang rock yang boleh aku gayakan adalah, bapak aku tak kisah kalau aku pakai seluar jeans koyak lutut. 

Budak 8 tahun dah rasa cukup rock dengan seluar berkoyak di lutut, dan yang paling seronok adalah bapak aku belikan kasut ini.

ya, kasut Aliph! ini adalah satu item rock yang sangat lokal. kasut ini dihasilkan oleh anak syarikat Sime Darby kalau tak silap, dan pernah menjadi satu item cult bagi mat rock dan minah rock di Malaysia. Tapi kasut Aliph aku adalah kasut sekolah... bukan kasut jalan jalan..hahaha... lebih kurang macam gambar kat bawah ( aku ambil gambar ni dari blog orang)..

Muzik rock dan mamat-mamat bermabut gondrong terus menjadi sebahagian dari hidup aku sehinggalah arwah atuk aku sakit tenat, dan terpaksa menutup kedai bundle nya. Pada waktu itu, sudahpun tahun 95 kalau tidak silap, aku masa itu darjah 6. 

Pada waktu itu juga, muzik rap telah menular dengan Nico dan 4U2C menggantikan kegilaan seluar jenas ketat dan koyak dengan seluar-seluar baggy. Dari muzik yang nyaring dengan guitar kepada muzik yang entah apa-apa.

Setelah beberapa tahun... Mamat Khalid telah menghasilkan filem Rock dan kemudiannya baru-baru ini, sequelnya telah dikeluarkan. Kenangan-kenangan zaman rock tersebut datang menjengah-jengah.

Ianya menyimpan bayak memori yang boleh disenyumkan dan diketawakan. Selain itu, tidak kurang juga yang hampir menitiskan air mata. Apabila pengaruh budaya rock yang turut diasosiasikan dengan dadah itu telah menyebabkan aku kehilangan pak cik aku. Dan adegan Saiful Apek hilang nyawa O.D di tepi longkan benar-benar mengingatkan aku kepadanya. 

Walaupun, untuk review, aku memberi negatif review pada filem Rock Ooo itu... tapi secara peribadi, aku ucapkan terima kasih kepada Mamat Khalid yang memberi ruang aku mengimbau balik memori-memori tersebut.

Rock oo - Tanpa Seks, Tanpa Dadah, Rock N Roll orang Timur

Sequel dari filem Rock (2005)

Filem ini merupakan kesinambungan perjuangan band rock Rimba Bara. Pelakon utama filem Rock yang lepas iaitu Hasnul Rahmat tiada di dalam filem ini. Fokus adalah kepada rocker wannabe kampung yang nak jadi vokalis band rock lakonan yang paling aku tak suka oleh Que Haidar.

Dengarnya, Mamat Khalid sendiri bengang dengan tahap lakonan Que dalam filem ini. Aku pula bengang dengan tahap pengarahan Mamat dalam filem ini.

Ini masalah filem yang ada sequel.... penonton mahu lebih baik, atau setidakya mahu sama tahap dengan filem yang pertama.

Kalau filem yang kedua itu tidak mencapai 'jangkaan'... aiseh, ini sangat 'menghampakan'.

Bagi aku filem Rock ( yang pertama) dapat dilihat keseimbangan diantara kemerapuan dan keseriusan dalam berhumor, filem itu adalah sebuah filem yang nostalgik, dipersembahkan untuk mat rock kangkang/kapak merasa terhibur dengan kenaifan, kerebelan zaman muda.

Dalam masa yang sama dilema watak utama, samada hendak meneruskan perjuangan rock atau memilih kehidupan normal, sangat menusuk kalbu, tambah tambah lagi bagi aku yang turut berjuang dalam dunia seni ini, walaupun bukan dalam muzik. Filem itu sangat memberi kesan.

Tetapi, berlainan dengan filem Rock oo yang baru ini...

Filem Rock ooo, terlalu memain mainkan nostalgia bagi aku, sehingga ke tahap, aku mula rasa, " apa ni Mamat, lu dah terover la main main..."

Mungkin lakonan Que yang patut dipersalahkan, mungkin juga...aku jadi annoying dengan watak dia, tapi kalau memang itu kehendak Mamat, dia berjaya, sebab aku memang rasa 'menyampah' yang teramat.

Sebagai sebuah cerita, ianya anti klimaks bagi aku... sayangnya kan..., kerana filem ini ada satu 'punch' yang betul betul memberi kesan pada emosi aku. Ya, adegan yang aku maksudkan adalah adegan Saiful Apek itu. (Ini bagi aku satu perkara mulia yang Mamat lakukan, dengan menyerlahkan kemampuan Saiful Apek untuk berlakon watak serius, mungkin ada pengarah lain boleh cuba tampilkan karekter Apek yang serius di lain masa).

Oh, ya, aku tidak mahu beritahu apa yang berlaku kepada Saiful Apek, itu snagat potong stim, pergi tengok sendiri. 

Yang mana aku rasa, selepas adegan itu, dengan pelbagai rintangan dan kekecewaan, Rimba Bara (dan juga penonton) berhak mendapat satu 'pengakhiran' yang lebih serius dari penutup secara montaj dilatari V.O Que Haidhar, tentang kejayaan Rimba Bara berjaya masuk ke Juara Lagu Muzik-muzik.

Atau mungkin aku terlalu serius, untuk filem yang tidak dibikin untuk terlalu serius? 

Mungkin apa yang aku mahu tengok adalah filem rock klise, macam Rock Star ( 2001), atau This is Spinal Tap (1984), hahahahahahhaha...

Pendek kata yang aku maksud kan adalah Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll punya attitude. Ok, itu yang aku tak puas hati sebenarnya, filem Rock ooo Mamat ni begitu clean untuk sebuah filem rock. Bagi aku, itulah rock... rock adalah dadah... dan dadah yang ada di dalam filem Mamat ini, adalah versi 'Belia benci Dadah' punya PSA.

Mungkin ini 'rock' versi Timur, atau rock melayu yang berbudaya yang cuba Mamat ketengahkan. Dan jika dilihat dari sudut yang lebih 'mulia', betul lah tu...

Ini rock tak main dadah, tak minum arak...

Ini rock versi Faizal Tahir. Hahahahahahahahahhaahaha... Bukan SYJ. 

hurrm...    ok aku tak mahu teruskan pendapat aku tentang 'rock', sebelum aku dilabel sebagai 'dajal'...

...ok abaikan, berbalik kepada filem.

petikan petikan lagu yang ada di dalam filem ini lebih 'nostalgik', begitu juga 'cameo' atau 'tribute' pada band band seperti SYJ, dan kepada Allahyarham SYJ sendiri. Begitu juga, bashing pasal tiada lagu 'May' dalam filem Rock yang pertama, dalam filem Rock ini, lagu May antara lagu terawal yang melatari scene di dalam filem ini.

Filem ini boleh juga dilihat sebagai sebuah filem muzikal, dan perca perca MTV yang berselerak. Di sebabkan terdapat banyak plot yang dibina khas untuk 'fit' perca perca muzik video yang berselerak, plot plot ini tidak berupaya membentuk satu perjalanan cerita yang tersusun dan lancar kesinambungannya, impak terhadap adegan-adegan ini jadi tidak terasa. 

Kecuali, ya...adegan masterpiece Apek itu tadi. Aku menangis.

Sayangnya, secara keseluruhan... tiada keseriusan yang lebih dari Mamat untuk mengangkat filem dan zaman ini ke tahap yang sebenarnya...

Tapi itulah, 

kenapa aku yang nak serius sangat?

P/s- aku tonton dua kali filem ini... dan baru aku menulis ini. Dan ya, aku menulis review ini tidak terlalu serius, oleh itu, seperti filem ini, jangan ambil serius sangat apa yang aku tulis. :)

A.B membitching pasal filem terbaik.

Pencalonan Akhir Festival Filem Malaysia 25 sudah diumumkan. Beberapa tahun kebelakangan ini Festival ini sebenarnya satu program kelakar, Paling kelakar tahun lepas bila ada satu organisasi yang mencalonkan peneraju tertinggi untuk menang anugerah juga...memang lah merepek... tapi kat Malaysia, macam Mamat Khalid sindir-sindirkan lah dalam filem filem zombi dia... Merepek itu perkara yang diraikan... harap tahun ini tidak kelakar sangat... harap lah....

Haha,

Ok ini senarainya... aku bitching pasal Filem Terbaik dulu kot, kategori lain hari lain...




Dari senarai ini, Aku lihat SAM paling underdog dan diikuti oleh Ombak Rindu. Sebenarnya aku tak faham kenapa SAM perlu ada dalam senarai ini? Hahahaha... Ok, pilihan aku dan aku syak sememangnya menjadi pilihan popular adalah Bunohan.

Kenapa Bunohan? Selain mendapat pengiktirafan dari luar, filem ini lengkap sebagai sebuah filem yang 'bagus', Filem yang bagus adalah diceritakan melalui 'visual'. Bunohan ini mempunyai semangat 'sinema' yang sangat 'menegangkan' libido sinefelik aku.

                                                                              Power!....


Popular di kalangan pengkritik, celik filem, skolar dan budayawan. Sampai sekarang, filem ini masih diperkatakan. Bagai manapun, ianya tidak popular di kalangan penonton makan bertih jagung.

Ini polemik yang agak tolol sebenarnya, nak cakap tolol pun kadang kala rasa semacam juga...kalau tak takkan si professor pakai Goggle pun bitching tentang filem ini yang dikatakn syok sendiri... ini skolar ni... ni jenis jenis yang memang mudah dipanggil jadi juri untuk festival macam ni.

                                                                    #$%^&&%$$#


Selain itu, kena faham juga, penganjur dan penganjuran festival filem kadang kadang berselirat dengan kronisme dan favouritisme. Kat negara luar pun sama... ini bukanlah satu persoalan yang penting pun... siapa menang pun tak penting sebenarnya...

Macam aku cakap tadi lah...seronok sahajalah festival nak buat gelak-gelak...

29 Februari bukan tidak bagus. CGI. Kat Malaysia ni kadangkala 'bagus' itu dilihat dengan penggunaan teknologi. Ada teknologi baru dalam sesebuah karya ( walaupun sebenarnya tidak lah baru mana) orang dah cukup kagum. Betul lah tu, perpindahan teknologi boleh memajukan industri. Tapi jauh mana boleh pergi? Kahkahak..kena tanya itu juga? Gah dalam negara, tapi tak lepas kemana pun tak perlu juga...ngabihkan boreh yo....paling takut kalau kepakaran teknologi itu pula rata rata tenaga kerja luar. Ok, ini dah terkeluar dari topik.. berbalik kepada 29 Februari, filem in CGI bagus, teknologi kesan khas memang lah kekuatan KRU, dengan backup duit yang...hahahaha... ok, bagus bagus..bukan tidak bagus, cerita pun bagus. Tapi masih nilai 'ketinggian' karya itu di bawah 'Bunohan'.

Kalau Forest Gump boleh buat 15 tahun lepas...takkan KRU tak boleh? teknik baru ni...hahaha

Tapi kalau juri tengok pada teknologi...hah.. tak boleh nak cakap apalah kan?
Kalau juri tengok pada KRU? hah lagi lah tak boleh nak kata apa kan? hahahaha


SAM pula bagus, pop corn yang sedap, budak Shafiq ni buat filem yang boleh dilayan, sinematografi dengan suntingan sangat moving. Tapi untuk menang...bukan lah kot. Dapat top 5 pun lu kira dah dahsyat la Shafiq... filem thriller ini secara peribadi aku suka...boleh lah layan...

Sam dan Lisa ( Familiar tak dengan filem yang hero dan heroin dia guna nama sendiri? hah? resipi kejayaan bro... resipi kejayaan ..hahahahaa)

                                                          Awwww... Syafiq ( ye ke pun dia)
Ombak Rindu?

Ini masalah... Aku tak layan filem romantik. Kalau aku bagi pendapat pun sebenarnya 'bias'. Mungkin kalau tengok dari sambutan, filem ini paling mendapat sambutan. Tapi takkan nak tengok kuantiti dari kualiti. Ini tanya juri. Aku tak tengok pun filem ni...sampai sekarang ada DVD pun..aku bukak, tak sampai setengah jam Aku tutup balik. Aku just tak boleh layan.

                                              Tuhan tolong keraskan hati aku untuk tengok filem ni...


Songlap, aku ada review juga, sila lah cari, dan ini jatuh nombor dua pilihan aku. kiusah masyarakat marjinal yang divisualkan dengan semangat yang 'raw'. Visual dan Naratif dibancuh sama adil, sama sedap. Filem 'kasar', visual kena lah 'kasar'. Senang kan? Oleh itu, Songlap juga boleh dilihat sebagai sebuah filem yang bagus.

                       Walaupun aku tak rasa Sam pegang baby betul...dan ini trivia..tapi masih..filem ini power.



Ini pendapat aku lah...

Ok, nak pekena teh tarik dan telur separuh masak dulu... nanti esok sambung balik...

Husin Mon & Jin Pakai Toncit

Husin Mon dan Jin pakai Toncit, filem ketiga bagi triloji Kampung Pisang.

Penonton, dari sebiasa mat rempit, sehinggalah yang dianggap skolar dalam filem... tahu bahawa Mamat tidak bikin filem biasa.

Mamat merapu, dan merapunya ada makna. Ada pengkritik melihat Mamat melawak dalam keadaan subtle, atau bahasa biasanya... tersirat. Tapi heck! Mamat tidak berselindung... segala sindiran itu baik politikal, atau kritikannya terhadap peel orang melayu itu sangat jelas.

Aku tidak mahu mengulang apa yang pengkritik lain tulis, atau bebelkan di laman sosial FB atau Twitter... Mereka sudah mengupas filem ini dari konteks yang lebih besar. Mereka bla bla bla tentang politik, sosial, ekonomi, budaya, sehinggalah agama (kepercayaan tahyul dan superstitious) masyarakat melayu. Sehingga ada yang menyentuh tentang industri filem.

Lantok ke demer...

Demer tu yang power giler baca filem ni dah sentuh bab-bab tersebut.

Kalau kamu cari, pasti jumpa blogger filem lain yang sudah mengupasnya dengan best giler...

Kat sini, Aku cuma mahu menyentuh pengalaman dan apa yang aku rasa dari sudut yang lebih personal iaitu aku dapat rasakan semacam satu bentuk 'kemarahan' dan 'frustrasi' di dalam diri Mamat yang terzahir dalam filem HMDJPT ini.

Mamat bagi aku adalah seorang sinefelik yang tahu kerja dia. Aku follow filem dia dari Lang Buana sehinggalah ke HKLBR, tapi.... aku berani kata... Filem HMDJPTyang  ini.. adalah filemnya yang paling chaotic dan anarchy!

HMDJPT ini tidak seperti HKLBR, ianya penuh dengan 'kekacauan'... flow film ini tidak smooth dan tidak organik, melompat dan terpisah. Terasa gap atau jurang dalam babak-babak yang membentuk filem ini.

Kontinuiti masa  terasa melompat lompat. Apabila kontinuiti antara plot ini disambung (diiedit) secara kasar, penonton dengan sendirnya akan rasa teralienated atau terasing dari 'cerita' atau 'dunia' kampung pisang yang sedang mereka tonton.

Ini ditambah 'chaotic' dengan sound yang juga seperti visua..., di design secara kasar, baik kesinambungan dialog antara babak sehinggalah sound (muzik) latar...dimana  yang paling kasar dan paling nampak adalah sewaktu scene 'video klip'... lagu seperti cepat sedikit temponya, hahaha...

dengan ketidak kesinambungan bunyi yang organik dan smooth. Penonton dengan sendirinya, tidak dapat 'masuk' ke dalam filem ini.

Apabila penonton tidak terbuai dengan 'dunia' filem yang mereka tonton, atau dalam bahasa yang lebih sofistikatednya, penonton terlalienasi dari skrin...maka, penonton dengan mudah sedar bahawa dunia Kampung Pisang di hadapan mereka adalah sebuah filem.

Ianya cereka. Dan mereka mula lebih aktif dan sedar dan seterusnya cuba mencerna apa yang berlaku di hadapan mereka ( baca: di dalam cerita tersebut). Dan dari plot yang huru hara, ditambah lagi terdapat beberapa alam yang tidak selari masanya...iaitu alam 'bunian' yang mistik dan terpisah dengan realiti, di mana siang di alam bunian tidak sama dengan malam di alam manusia... ianya serba 'chaotic' dimana garis masa yang kelihatan tidak selari ini, ( masa kini-masa dahulu, masa realiti, masa di luar realiti) saling memberi kesan kepada 'manusia' ( baca : penonton).

Ok, aku tidak mahu berDeleuzian di sini. Cukup aku katakan bahawa, apa yang berlaku di dalam skrin (persitiwa dan masa) itu adalah refleksi apa yang berlaku di luar skrin. Atau vise versanya.

Di sinilah style visual dan sound yang bagi sesetengah pengkritik lihat sebagai satu bentuk kelemahan di dalam filem ini, sebenarnya adalah satu style atau kekuatan sinematik Mamat yang aku lihat di kelasnya tersendiri.

Mamat sedang menghidangkan satu karya yang penuh emosi kepada penonton. Mamat telah menggunakan segala 'tools' yang ada di dalam filmaking... editing, bunyi, sinematografi dan lakonan, dalam membentuk sebuah karya yang penuh 'kemarahan', 'kekecewaan', 'kekeliruan' dan 'kesedihan'...

Penonton mungkin gelak pada kebanyakkan adegan di dalam filem ini. Namun, aku percaya, Mamat menyogok humour itu dengan sindira.

Melalui watak utamanya, iaitu Husin...ini bukan Husin dalam Zombi Kampung Pisang, atau Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah. Husin ini, tidak ceria, kecewa, keliru dan lebih banyak berdiam dari bercakap. Peduduk Kampung Pisang terlalu 'riuh'. Semua ingin bercakap... siapa yang mahu dengar?

Siapa orang yang macam Husin ini untuk mengutarakan idea?

Seperti yang aku cakap tadi, aku tidak mahu pergi ke kontek yang lebih besar dari ruang lingkup filem ini... aku lebih teruja mahu melihat 'autur' yang berada di sebalik 'karya' ini.

Secara textual dan contextual, kita tahu, bahawa filem ini 'politikal'. Tiada siapa yang mahu nafikan ini. Aku cuma menyatakan pendapat aku, apabila ada sesetangah pendapat mengatakan Mamat tidak berhati-hati di dalam filemnya kali ini... apa yang aku maksudkan dengan tidak berhati hati itu adalah dari segi keseluruhan 'bentuk' filem ini yang dikatakan tidak organik.

Kerana bagi aku itulah kekuatan yang paling terer giler Mamat di dalam filem ini.

Lakonan yang tidak seimbang diantara pelakon, huru hara, terlalu banyak orang nak bercakap, plot melompat lompat, bunyi yang tidak synch, sebab akibat yang samar.

Seriously, chaosnya film ini...adalah refleksinya, chaosnya perasaan Mamat.

Ajer nyer ye.

SONGLAP

SONGLAP sebuah kisah rantaian neraka bagi watak-watak yang terlibat di dalam naskah realis/jenayah Effende/ Fariza Azlina yang berlatar belakang Kuala Lumpur.

Kisah serpihan dan sisipan gelap manusia-manusia pariah kota yang terpinggir dan perlu duit untuk hidup dan menikmati hidup, dan untuk mendapatkan duit, manusia-manusia di dalam SONGLAP ini bergelut dengan undang-undang manusia dan Tuhan, dan isunya yang berkisar tentang sindiket perdagangan manusia, tampak mencabar moral, dimana baik dan salah itu bukan dapat dilihat seperti hitam dan putih. Yin dan Yang. Ianya bergumpal. Dari penganiayaan seorang manusia telah memberi harapan kepada manusia yang lain.

Dari seawal scene long takes (scene pertama) ntelah digambarkan bahawa hukum kehidupan manusia ini wujud dalam satu sistem yang bizar. Seorang bayi diserahkan kepada pasangan kaya yang mengambilnya dengan rasa gembira. Kadangkala, kebahagian sesetengah pihak haruslah diragut dari kesedihan dan kecelakaan yang menimpa pihak yang satu lagi. Ianya satu sistem yang 'divine' sifatnya. Suka atau tidak, hidup ini adalah rentetan celaka... baik... celaka yang tersusun dan bersifat seperti roda.

Kuala Lumpur tidak jelita di dalam filem ini, watak-wataknya terasing dan keterasingan tampak bernyawa dengan lakonan kelas tinggi hampir dari semua aktor dan aktres yang terlibat. Dari watak utama sehinggalah ke watak sampingan, pelakon menumbuk kalbu dan mengelirukan penonton diantara batas realiti dan fiksi dunia di luar dan di dalam layar.

Shaheizy Sam, Shafie Naswip, Normah Damanhuri, Omar Abdullah, senarainya berterusan... telah menyumbangkan bakat dan memberikan satu kerja seni yang baik kepada filem ini. Selain itu, tidak dilupa, Haris Hue Bin Abdullah yang memberikan satu perspektif emosional terhadap visual yang kaya depth of field. Secara serius memanipulasi lensa kamera agar efek realis dapat diserap penonton sehinggalah kepada memaksa penonton mencerna setiap emosi dan perasaan sasaran fokus kameranya.

Penonton dibawa untuk memerhati objek dan subjek yang difokus, dibantu dengan aspek lakonan yang hebat. Emosi watak dapat dikongsi oleh penonton, walaupun kadangkala, ianya dipraktikkan secara berlebihan sehingga mengganggu kembali keadaan dan hukum realiti 'mata' tersebut. Namun, secara keseluruhannya ianya adalah satu kerja kamera yang bagus dan memberi impak yang besar terhadap keseluruhan filem melalui penceritaan secara visualnya yang selektif.

Selain itu, bukaan lebar syot yang dominan di praktiskan di dalam filem ini sehingga menunjukkan keterasingan watak dengan dunia di sekelilingnya yang memang tidak nampak indah. Close up jarang-jarang digunakan untuk menggambarkan perasaan dan emosi dalaman watak di dalam filem ini. Malah, bukaan syot yang luas lebih memberi impak terhadap keadaan emosi dalaman watak, sebagai contoh, scene long takes yang diambil secara long syot diantara Ad dan Razak dalam suasana suram (penghayaan yang low key) memperlihatkan keadaan kesuraman emosi dan keterasingan kedua watak muda tersebut yang bergelut dengan eksistensi dan realiti kehidupan mereka yang celaka.

Filem ini tidak diletakkan apa-apa justifikasi, dan tidak juga cuba membantu watak-wataknya agar mereka lebih bahagia. Ingat, dari awal, filem ini menerapkan bahawa kebahagiaan itu adalah hasil dari kecelakaan manusia yang lain. Lalu begitulah sehingga ke akhirnya.

... dalam botol

Saya sudah menonton filem '... dalam botol' (dir. Khir Rahman)yang memperalatkan persoalan taboo dan provokatif ini hampir 3 atau 4 bulan yang lepas. Saya teragak-agak untuk mengulas filem ini kerana saya tidak berpuas hati dengan kualiti visual yang dipancarkan kepada saya ketika majlis pratonton filem tersebut di FINAS.

Saya fikir yang dipertontonkan itu adalah sebuah filem yang masih lagi tidak siap. Oleh itu saya mahu menunggu untuk menonton produk akhir filem tersebut. Baru ianya adil untuk saya menembak kekurangannya. Harus diingat, masalahnya disini bukan pada stail independent atau lo bajet yang kita tahu akan mempengaruhi stail visual yang minimalis tetapi apa kejadahnya interlaced video keluar bersepah-sepah. Itu saya langsung tidak boleh terima. Itu dosa besar dalam sinematografi dan suntingan.

Saya harap ianya sudah diperbaiki apabila filem '... dalam botol' ditayangkan di panggung kelak.

Dan saya berjanji saya sendiri akan menonton filem ini lagi, saya akui saya tidak puas menontonnya pada majlis pratonton tersebut. Ianya bukan sahaja disebabkan trajedi interlaced itu, tetapi ada dua perkara yang lainnya.

Satu, saya hanya duduk di tangga sewaktu menonton filem tersebut akibat tempat duduk sudah penuh,ini adalah sesuatu yang sangat bangsat bila terpaksa menonton dalam keadaan yang tidak selesa, dan keduanya-tumpuan saya sedikit sebanyak terganggu apabila ada satu makhluk yang gasar perangainya yang bercakap-cakap sewaktu filem sedang ditayangkan.

Sudah lepas 10 tahun milenium baru, makhluk macam ini masih ada lagi di Malaysia. Terima kasih kepada Nazim Masnawi yang menjadi hero dengan men 'carutkan' makhluk tersebut.

Tentang filem ini, saya fikir ianya sebuah karya yang sederhana, ianya tidak seberani tajuknya (yang saya fikir adalah untuk meraih perhatian) tetapi Khir selaku pengarahnya telah memberikan satu atmosfera baru kepada penonton filem komersil. Iatu sebuah filem 'art house' yang jarang dapat ditonton dan dinikmati melainkan filem-filem digital yang dihasilkan oleh Da Huang Picture.

Filem ini mempersembahkan tentang kisah hidup seorang gay yang berubah menjadi seorang transeksual, Arja Lee, yang berhadapan dengan nasib celaka apabila dia telah membuat satu keputusan yang 'bodoh' demi pasangan homoseksualnya kerana tersalah faham akan hasrat dan maksud permintaan kekasihnya itu yang kononnya mengharapkan dirinya di dalam bentuk seorang perempuan.

Dia potong 'kote'nya itu. Simpan dalam botol (rasanya ada satu scene yang ternampak prop balang kaca ini) namun respon dari kekasihnya itu bukanlah seperti yang diharapkan melainkan 'kenapa kau buang benda alah tu? aku dah tak stim lagi dengan kau'.

Filem ini kemudiannya adalah berkisarkan tentang Arja Lee yang terpaksa mengunyah pahit maung kesilapannya itu dan secara tidak sengaja telah melukakan perasaan orang-orang yang menyayanginya dan cuba memberikannya harapan baru.

Dan ya, saya tidak mahu meneruskan sinopsis. Sila tonton filem ini yang akan ditayangkan hujung bulan ni.

*

Saya sedar bahawa filem ini adalah sebuah filem yang dikategorikan sebagai 'art film' atau bahasa melayunya 'filem seni'.Dan disebalik beberapa kenyataan dari pengkritik filem yang mengatakan bahawa filem ini bukan filem gay atau dikategorikan sebagai filem 'queer', saya berpendapat sebaliknya.

Filem ini adalah filem 'Queer'. Ianya mengetengahkan protagonis atau subjek yang mempunyai orientasi seksual yang di luar normal. Iaitu homoseksual. Persoalannya juga tentang nasib transgender ini iaitu Arja Lee dalam meneruskan kehidupannya yang tidak mempunyai 'jalan balik' lagi.

Dan bertitik tolak dari poin inilah saya agak terkilan dengan 'statement' atau pemaparan seorang transeksual di dalam filem ini yang tidak membawa apa-apa perubahan dan patuh dengan stigma sosial masyarakat. Ianya satu percubaan yang berani-berani takut. Arja Lee diseksa dengan ketidak tentuan dan kekecewaan terhadap dirinya sendiri.

Moral seringkali berlingkar di dalam masyarakat kita sehingga satu jalinan naratif yang alternatif tidak berani dipersembahkan di dalam filem ini. Klise.

Saya jadi skeptikal sudahnya dengan tajuk '... dalam botol ini' yang pada asalnya dicanang-canang sebagai 'anu dalam botol' kerana ia hanyalah sebuah tajuk yang cuba bersandarkan pada kontroversi sahaja.

Mujur. Mujur Khir telah cuba mempersembahkan satu bentuk stail visual yang alternatif yang secara tidak langsung menjadikan filem ini sebagai sebuah 'filem' dan bukannya telemovie. Sinematografi dan suntingan di dalam filem ini telah menyuntik satu atmosfera 'keterasingan' terhadap watak Arja Lee (yang juga telah dilakonkan dengan baik oleh beliau). Terdapat beberapa babak yang mempunyai kuasa sinema yang kuat di mana visual sahaja telah mampu bercerita.

saya 'salute' dengan kekuatan visual tersebut.

Filem ini juga dibarisi oleh para 'pelakon' yang sememangnya 'pelakon'. Pelakon-pelakon ini memberi jiwa kepada watak masing-masing yang menggerakkan filem ini hingga ke akhir. Tahniah kepada sesiapa sahaja di belakang tabir yang telah memilih pelakon-pelakon yang betul ini.

*

'... dalam botol' mempunyai kekuatannya sebagai sebuah karya filem. Tunduknya naratif filem ini kepada stigma masyarakat mungkin disebabkan bahawa ianya sememangnya bermotifkan sebegitu. Dan kepada saya, padan muka, kerana mahukan sesuatu yang berbeza.

MERONG MAHAWANGSA

Merong Mahawangsa (dir. Yusri Abd. Halim) terbitan KRU menerima publisiti yang meluas dan sangat disebut-sebut, terlalu hype. Ini merupakan filem Melayu pertama menjengah ke pasaran 72 buah negara (kalau tidak silap fakta). Rekod dicipta. Kehebatan CGI dan Setnya diwar-war. Sesuai dengan bajetya yang menggila. Katanya RM8 Juta.

Mari kita lihat adakah filem ini benar bak dikata.

Saya fikirkan ianya sebuah filem lagenda yang epik sifatnya. Saya salah disini. Tanpa perlu saya mengulang poin-poin dari pemblog filem ini, secara pukalnya saya bersetuju dengan kesemua poin-poin yang beliau hamburkan tentang mutu lakonan, dan ianya telah dilakukan dengan penuh bersopan. Secara peribadi saya beranggapan meletakkan Stephen Rahman untuk watak ini adalah satu kesilapan. Saya sangkakan dengan menggunakan hero impot, ianya akan memberikan saya satu persembahan mutu lakonan yang meyakinkan. Saya kecewa. Hampir kesemua cast yang bukan melayu di dalam filem itu, kecuali Nell Ng, gagal berlakon dengan baik.

Ini bukan kenyataan rasis, maaf kata, bagi saya Wan Hanafisu dan Khir Rahman, apatah lagi si Gandalf Rahim Razali malahan si bibir ngiur Ummi Naziera, berlakon lebih baik dari mereka itu. Moralnya, alang-alang dah ambil pelakon luar, ambil lah yang berjenis sikit.

Namun yang paling mengecewakan, saya kesal filem ini, tidak mampu, tidak berjaya, gagal, secara visual walaupun dengan ruh komersil dan popular, menonjolkan keunggulan dan kehebatan heritage dan susur galur Raja Melayu (Kedah). Contoh filem 300, walaupun digarap secara komersil tambah surreal, tapi dipersembahkan dengan penuh heroic visualnya.

*

Stephen Rahman dari seorang gelandangan pelaut yang assholes dan playboy, mendapat peluang kembali ke Semenanjung Emas, bagi membantu seorang putera Rom yang dilakonkan oleh Gavin bagi menemui pengantin perempuannya iaitu Puteri Raja China iaitu Jing Lusi. Kedua anak raja China dan Rom ini dikahwinkan atas dasar politik. Lokasi perkahwinan adalah di Utara Semenanjung Emas, dan lokasi ini dipilih atas sebab Feng Shui dan kerana berada di tengah-tengah laluan diantara Barat dan Timur.

Stephen Rahman berjaya membawa Gavin ke Semenanjung Emas namun kehadiran mereka telah dapat dihidu oleh kumpulan Lanun Geroda yang diketuai oleh Wan Hanafisu dan Khir Rahman (Khir Rahman dan Stephen Rahman bukan adik beradik, wajah mereka jauh beza,jangan keliru).

Geroda menyerang dibantu oleh ilmu hitam Wan Hanafisu, Jing Lusi berjaya diculik oleh Khir Rahman,manakala Stephen Rahman yang nyaris maut di dalam serangan itu telah diselamatkan oleh Rahim Razali dan anak angkatnya Ummie Naziera. Rupa-rupanya Stephen Rahman adalah orang yang ditunggu-tunggu oleh Rahim Razali dimana dengan kehadirannya, puak mereka akan berjaya disatukan dan seterusnya Geroda yang selama ini melanun mereka akan berjaya dihapuskan.

Seterusnya adalah sebagaimana yang telah dinyatakan di dalam buku sejarah The Malay Annal, dimana Merong Mahawangsa diangkat menjadi raja dengan menubuhkan sebuah kerajaan yang bernama Langkasuka.

*

Tidak banyak yang dapat diulas dari sebuah filem sebegini. Ianya ringan, walau terdapat beberapa simbolisme politik, namuan untuk mentafsirkannya secara politik, ianya tidak keruan dan keliru di penghujung filem.

Tiada pemberat yang dapat diperkatakan, kalau diteruskan ulasan ini akan dipenuhi dengan kutukan demi kutukan, cuma mungkin kalau mahu digali juga, pujian harus diberikan kepada KRU kerana terus mencuba menghasilkan sebuah filem CGI sebegini bagi tujuan pembangunan dan perkembangan teknologi dalam pembikinan filem.

CUN.

Menonton 10 minit awal filem CUN (dir. Osman Ali), tidak dinafikan bahawa hati saya cukup gusar. Permulaan 10 minit filem ini mengingatkan saya kepada komedi-komedi janaan A. Razak Mohaideen dan Aziz M. Osman, tapi tiada salahnya disitu, mungkin saya secara peribadi telah meletakkan Osman Ali di tahap yang lain dari pengarah-pengarah komersil veteran tersebut.

10 minit yang penuh What the fuck ini bagaimanapun berubah selepas memasuki minit ke 15.

Maya Karin, seorang personaliti TV, hos program gosip popular MELETOP melarikan diri dari kehidupan penuh plastik ( <-- agak geli menggunakan perkataan ini!!!) di Kota akibat kecurangan tunangnya, Jehan Miskin. Dalam satu adegan komedi gelap yang menghiburkan, Maya telah ter-mengkantoikan Jehan bersama Marsha Londoh sewaktu mahu sahaja memulakan foreplay kinky seks kostum mereka, dihadapan krew MELETOP dan seterusnya merasa sedap dan nikmatnya gosip itu apabila terkena ke batang hidung sendiri.

Dengan satu keputusan terburu-buru, Maya meminta Faezah Elai membawa mereka lari sebentar dari isu panas tersebut dan destinasi yang menjadi pilihan adalah Kampung Mata Air yang juga merupakan Kampung Faezah Elai.

Kampung Mata Air ini adalah sebuah kampung ceruk lagi terhulu yang sangat menepati khayalan dan imajinasi sebuah kampung idaman bagi mamat dan minah-minah kota yang tidak mempunyai kampung apabila disebut akan perkataan kampung itu.

Di kelilingi sawah padi saujana mata memandang, berbukit bukau dan bertali air. Maya telah bertemu cinta sebenarnya iaitu Remy Ishak sepupu kepada Faezah Elai. Satu watak lelaki yang naif tapi baran yang sangat pandai dilakonkan oleh Remy. Keseluruhan hampir 90 peratus adegan kekeluargaan, percintaan di kampung inilah yang menjadikan filem CUN ini menjadi sebuah filem yang sangat CUN dan manis untuk ditonton.

*

Filem CUN ini merupakan contoh sebuah filem romantik komedi screwball . Pada dasarnya adalah klise seperti Notting Hill, tapi kerana kepandaian Osman Ali mempersembahkan satu jalinan lakon layar yang menarik disokong oleh kekuatan lakonan dari barisan pelakon utama berserta skrip yang bersahaja, filem ini naik satu tangga ke hadapan dari kelompok romantik komedi melayu yang sedia ada.

Inilah yang dikatakan bahawa tidak peduli seklise mana idea sesebuah penceritaan itu kerana bagaimana cerita itu dipersembahkan (plot) dan diceritakan akan menjadikan filem itu ok atau tidak ok. Komedi di dalam filem ini nampak lebih segar berbanding filem Hatta Azad Khan seperti Senario Asam garam dan Kembar Siang. Ini mungkin faktor umur atau faktor citarasa komedi yang berbeza diantara mereka dan saya selaku golongan yang masih muda lebih cenderung dengan komedi-komedi yang lebih segar sebegini.

Walaupun begitu, terdapat juga beberapa hal yang kelakar dan boleh dipertikaikan terutamanya pada Watak Faezah Elai seperti hal takut gelap, (perempuan kampung yang dibesarkan dalam suasana kampung terceruk begitu tak akan takut pada kegelapan malam), dan sewaktu adegan dia bertemu dengan Remy dimana Remy tidak mengenalinya, oh damn... mereka berdua ini membesar bersama (melalui apa yang dikatakan oleh Kartina Aziz) tak kan boleh tak cam kot. Berapa tahun Minah ni tak balik kampung?

Begitu juga dengan keadaan dan suasana kampung yang agak dibesar-besarkan oleh Osman Ali, tapi apa ada hal. Ini kan filem?

*

Saya sangat terpesona melihat Maya Karin di dalam filem ini, kualiti bintangya semakin bersinar. Lakonannya semakin baik dari sebuah filem ke sebuah filem. Maya tolong jangan jual roh mu kepada David Teoh.

Saya juga sangat impress dengan Remy Ishak. Alternatif hero Melayu bagi Shaheizy Sam dan pilihan yang lebih bagus dari wajah hero tak berkarekter Farid Kamil. Remy tolong jangan jual jiwa kepada David Teoh.

Gandingan kedua pelakon ini menimbulkan tarikan kimia yang sangat kuat dan memukau. Dan yang pastinya mereka berdua ini sangat - CUN!

HISTORICAL POETICS - DAVID BORDWELL

Historical Poetics of Cinema by David Bordwell

Historical Poetics of Cinema
by David Bordwell


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From The Cinematic Text: Methods and Approaches, ed. R. Barton Palmer (New York: AMS Press, 1989), pp. 369-398.




1. Introduction

The volume you hold in your hands belongs to a genre that came into currency during the postwar boom in college literary criticism. In the late 1940s, two major works, Wellek and Warren's Theory of Literature and Stanley Edgar Hyman's The Armed Vision, set forth the premise that literary studies played host to distinct "methods." Intrinsic/ extrinsic; textual/ contextual; sociological/ psychological/Marxist/psychoanalytic/archetypal/formalist/ deconstructionist/ reader-responsiveness: as such categories have accumulated over the last forty years, the literary institution has believed itself moving beyond the doctrines of New Criticism. While the field was being carved up methodically, the "anthology of approaches" moved into the library and the classroom. The genre became a going concern in the 1950s and 1960s, and it continues to flourish. This volume reminds us that film studies has, as part of its entry into the academy, come to subscribe to critical Methodism--an affiliation testified to by the title of one of the most popular anthologies, Movies and Methods. A recent collection of approaches to television criticism may signal the legitimation of tv studies under the same auspices.

There would be much to remark on in this process, not least the extent to which film and television studies may seek to establish their seriousness by asserting that, whatever the intrinsic importance of the object of study, a set of up-to-date approaches constitutes adequate credentials. But I sketch this institutional background for another reason: to establish that historical poetics does not grow organically out of this history, and this for a very good reason. What I shall be discussing is not a method at all.

In film studies, as in its literary counterpart, "method" has been largely synonymous with "interpretive school." An interpretive school, I take it, consists chiefly of: (a) a semantic field with which particular theoretical concepts are associated; (b) a set of inferential procedures that render certain features of films salient and significant on a priori grounds; (c) one or more conceptual maps of textual progression across which salient features enact a transformation of the semantic field; (d) a set of characteristic rhetorical tactics for setting forth the writer's argument. For example, the psychoanalytic critic posits a semantic field (eg, male/ female, or self/ other, or sadism/ masochism) with associated concepts (eg, the deployment of power around sexual difference); concentrates on textual cues that can bear the weight of the semantic differentiae (eg, narrative roles, the act of looking); traces a drama of semantic transformation (eg, through condensation and displacement the subject finds identity in the Symbolic); and deploys a rhetoric that seeks to gain the reader's assent to the interpretation's conclusions (e.g., a rhetoric of demystification). Every recognized "method"--phenomenological, feminist, Marxist, or whatever- can be described along these lines. They all aim to produce interpretations--that is, the ascription of implicit or symptomatic meanings to texts.

A historical poetics of cinema does not fit this description. It does not constitute a distinct critical school; it has no privileged semantic field, no core of procedures for identifying or interpreting textual features, no map of the flow of meaning, and no unique rhetorical tactics. It does not seek to produce interpretations. What, then, does it do?


2. Poetics and Historical Poetics

Aristotle's fragmentary lecture notes, the Poetics, addressed what we nowadays recognize as drama and literature. Since his day we have had Stravinsksy's Poetics of Music, Todorov's Poetics of Prose, a study of the poetics of architecture, and of course the Russian Formalists' Poetics of the Cinema. Such extensions of the concept are plausible, since it need not be restricted to any particular medium. "Poetics" derives from the Greek word poiesis, or active making. The poetics of any medium studies the finished work as the result of a process of construction--a process which includes a craft component (e.g., rules of thumb), the more general principles according to which the work is composed, and its functions, effects, and uses. Any inquiry into the fundamental principles by which a work in any representational medium is constructed can fall within the domain of poetics.

By adding the predicate "historical" I mean to narrow the field somewhat. Poetics of literature has long been the province of sterile taxonomies and dogmatic prescriptions. In the twentieth century, German-language art studies and Slavic literary theory laid the groundwork for a historical poetics. Heinrich Wolfflin, Alois Riegl, Erwin Panofsky, and later E. H. Gombrich showed how one could systematically describe forms and styles in painting and go on to explain their changes causally. The Russian Formalists--most notably Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynianov, Boris Eikhenbaum, and Roman Jakobson--and the Prague Structuralists--e.g., Jan Mukarovsky and (again) Jakobson--proposed both concrete analyses of literary works and larger explanations for how they functioned in historical contexts. This tradition has been alive in film studies as well, crossing periods and doctrinal schools and recently emerging as a significant force in academic work.

A historical poetics of cinema produces knowledge in answer to two broad questions:

1. What are the principles according to which films are constructed and by means of which they achieve particular effects?

2. How and why have these principles arisen and changed in particular empirical circumstances?

Historical poetics is thus characterized by the phenomena it studies--films' constructional principles and effects--and the questions it asks about those phenomena--their constitution, functions, consequences, and historical manifestations. Poetics does not put at the forefront of its activities phenomena such as the economic patterns of film distribution, the growth of the teenage audience, or the ideology of private property. The poetician may need to investigate such matters, and indeed many others, but they become relevant only in the light of more properly poetic issues. Underlying this hierarchy of significance is the assumption that, while in our world everything is connected to everything else, one can produce novel and precise knowledge only by making distinctions among core questions, peripheral questions, and irrelevant questions.

Andre Bazin's "Evolution of the Language of the Cinema" can illustrate how a project within historical poetics works. The essay relies upon some fundamental conceptual distinctions, such as inter-shot effects vs. intra-shot effects, types of montage, distortion vs. fidelity, spatiotemporal unity vs. discontinuity, shallow space vs. depth. Bazin holds these to be principles determining the stylistic construction of any film whatsoever. They yield categories which permit the analyst to correlate devices with particular effects--eg, a linearization of meaning with "visible" montage versus a more natural conveyance of meaning through Welles' or Wyler's depth of field. Furthermore, Bazin offers a historical account which employs these categories to trace the development of Western cinema from primitive filmmaking to Neorealism. Bazin argues for a dialectical movement whereby the struggle between a realistic style and a more distorted style reached a compromise in the Hollywood decoupage of the 1930s, and then was transcended by a new synthesis in the deep-focus style.

While Bazin's remains the most influential history of film style currently available, I am not here concerned with the persuasiveness of his argument; the point is to show how the essay exemplifies the possibilities of a poetics. For one thing, it self-consciously constructs its analytical categories while also referring to a range of data by which the arguments can be assessed. Bazin supplies concrete historical evidence that subjects his claims to revision or rejection. This appeal to empirical evidence, or "facts," does not make poetics an "empiricism," at least, in any interesting sense of that term. A poetics can be rationalist or empiricist, Kantian or phenomenological, deductivist or inductivist, idealist (as Bazin probably was) or positivist (as Barry Salt seems to be). Insofar as a poetics seeks to explain historically existing works, whatever its ontology or epistemology or discovery procedures, it requires an appeal to intersubjectively accepted data which are in principle amenable to alternative explanation. Just as in the philosophy of language, a Chomskyan nativist must confront the fact that people seem to acquire significant aspects of language through experience, so even the post-Structuralist film theorist must recognize the existence of apparent motion or characterization or editing. Every enterprise within film study necessarily draws upon facts in this sense. Whether such facts are "socially constructed" is an open question. (Indeed, it is partly an empirical question.)

Bazin's "Evolution" essay also illustrates the extent to which a poetics takes as its object a body of conventions. Conventions, in film as in other domains, lie at the intersection of logical distinctions and social customs. Admittedly, Bazin's realist aesthetic leads him to range stylistic devices along a continuum whereby some are less "conventional" than others. Nevertheless, he is studying constructive choices which have collectively recognized functions within definable contexts; editing and deep-focus, he argues, constitute reciprocal choices in the history of Western cinema. These conventions can be regarded as leading to preferred choices--that is, norms or rules, two more concepts valuable for a poetics.

Bazin's essay exemplifies still other aspects of a cinematic poetics. He refuses a division of labor among theory, history, and criticism; the essay is all three at once. It mixes intensive scrutiny with extensive viewing. Bazin considers both "texts" and "contexts" (technology, genre). He offers descriptions, analyses, and explanations: he seeks to establish what happened, how it happened, and why it happened. Finally, Bazin presupposes that the phenomena he studies are the results of filmmakers' choices. (Welles could have cut Citizen Kane as if it were It Happened One Night.) A historical poetics will thus often be concerned to reconstruct the options facing a filmmaker at a given historical juncture, assuming that the filmmaker chooses an option in order to achieve some end.

My initial questions and my exposition of Bazin should raise several questions. What, for example, is the status of the "principles" studied by poetics? At what level of generality are they pitched? Are they conceived as "specific" to cinema in some sense? My replies here must be brief. I would argue that the principles should be conceived as underlying concepts, constitutive and/or regulative, governing the sorts of material that can be used in a film and the possible ways in which it can be formed. The degree of generality will depend upon the questions asked and the phenomena to be studied. If you want to know what makes Hollywood narratives cohere, "personalized causality" may suffice as one constructive principle; if you want to know what distinguishes the Western from the musical, that principle will not do the job. For some poeticians, some principles are held to be "laws" on the model of covering laws in physical science; but one need not push this far. One could assert that a concept or category--eg, intra-shot/ inter-shot relations--is conceptually stable but that the constructive principles that utilize it are so historically variable that they constitute empirical generalizations or tendencies.

On the matter of specificity, suffice it to say that although certain poeticians have assumed a distinction between the cinematic and the non-cinematic, this is by no means constitutive of poetics as such. One could assume that any film could be studied by poetics, with no film lying any closer to the essence of the medium than others. One could, however, argue that the distinction is not a substantive but a functional one, to be filled out in different periods with different content. Or one could use the cinematic/ non-cinematic distinction in an explanation by seeking to show that in particular circumstances this pair of concepts entered into the norms of filmmaking practice.

Since poetics is often assumed to be merely a descriptive or classificatory enterprise, the range of explanations it offers also requires some elaboration. There is no need to assume any one model of causation and change. Bazin argues for a suprapersonal dialectic through which cinema evolves toward an ever more faithful capturing of phenomenal reality. This is a teleological explanation. One could also propose an intentionalistic model that centers on more localized acts of choice and avoidance. Two collaborators and I have argued for a functionalist model of explanation, whereby the institutional dynamics of filmmaking set up constraints and preferred options that fulfill overall systemic norms.

Nor need poetics confine itself to "immanent" explanations that refuse to leave the field of cinema or art or signifying practice. Nothing prevents the poetician from arguing that economics, ideology, the class struggle, or inherent social or psychological dispositions operate as causes of constructional devices or effects. There is likewise no need to cast poetics as offering "scientific" explanations (although, again, some poeticians have done so). Poetics has the explanatory value of any empirical discipline, which always involves a degree of tentativeness about conclusions. On the other hand, one should not discard "scientific" pretensions too quickly, since there are many sorts of science, such as geography and meteorology, which are low in predictive power but high in ex post facto explanatory power. Poetics can, in short, be considered either as a science offering knowledge in some strict sense, or as a discipline that aims at Verstehen, or "understanding."

Finally, explanation in poetics does not confine itself to issues of what films mean. Of course, meaning in one (very general) sense comprises a big part of what poetics describes, analyzes, and explains; but meaning in the more specific sense that is the product of film interpretation ("readings") can be considered only one domain of inquiry. Films produce many effects, ranging from perceptual ones (eg, the phenomenon of apparent motion, the perception of color or shape) to conceptual ones (eg, how we we know that X is the protagonist) that film interpretation never seeks to explain. Historical poetics offers explanations, not explications. In the modern critical institution, of course, explications need explaining.


3. Domains and Tendencies

The core questions of poetics have led to the formulation of distinct domains and tendencies within the field. Traditional poetics distinguishes among three objects of study.

1. Thematics considers subject matter and theme as components of the constructive process. Not every study of such matters automatically qualifies as a contribution to poetics, since many such studies are unconcerned with films' constructive principles; the film may be ransacked for discrete items of "content" (eg, the representation of social stereotypes) which are then used to answer questions about, say, the film industry or cultural values. Thematics would study motifs, iconography, and themes as materials, as constructive principles, or as effects of constructive principles. For example, several scholars have revealed how genres present recurring imagery, myths, and themes, while other writers, inspired by art-historical research, have shown the importance of iconography in popular cinema.

2. Constructional form. We lack a term for those trans-media architectonic principles that govern the shape and dynamics of a film. The most prominent research domain here is the theory and analysis of narrative, which is a fundamental constructive principle in films. Current interest in this subject should not, however, lead to a neglect of other compositional principles, such as argumentative form, categorical form, associational form, and abstract form.

3. Stylistics deals with the materials and patterning of the film medium as components of the constructive process. Bazin's "Evolution" essay is a model of stylistic history.



We could carve up the domain of historical poetics in still other ways. Following R. S. Crane, we could distinguish studies of precompositional factors (sources, influences, cliches, received forms) from compositional ones (normalized principles of combination and transformation within works) and from postcompositional ones (effects, reception, varying responses in different contexts). For example, Noel Burch's To the Distant Observer treats Japanese cinema as the legatee of stylistic practices from earlier centuries, while Vance Kepley's In the Service of the State, using a different precompositional focus, traces more proximate influences on Dovzhenko's films. The work of Charles Musser, Tom Gunning, and Andre Gaudreault has demonstrated that pre-1915 films obey coherent compositional norms. And recent work in reception by Janet Staiger has revealed how audiences' varying construals of the same film presuppose historically variable viewing conventions. In my own studies of Dreyer and Ozu, I have tried to relate the three domains by suggesting historically determinate gaps among them. In the works of Ozu, for instance, source material and contemporary conventions are transformed by specific compositional procedures, but the results have been appropriated differently by various audiences.

Recognizing that linguistic analogies are notoriously shaky in film studies, I will risk one more mapping of the field. Like linguistics, film poetics has its "semantics," the study of how meaning is produced. It has its "syntactics," the study of rules for selecting and combining units (with respect to style, Raymond Bellour's micro-analyses; with respect to compositional form, Thierry Kuntzel's study of openings, Peter Wollen's applications of Propp, or Rick Altman's "dual-focus" narrative). And poetics has its "pragmatics," the study of how relations between viewer and text develop in the process of the film's unfolding (e.g., accounts of narration or of filmic "enunciation"). Meaning, structure, and process--these three aspects of any representational system are also central to poetics.

These equable mappings of the terrain conceal, of course, how much territory is in dispute. I have already suggested several issues about which poeticians wrangle; two more divergences seem to me worth brief discussion.

Across history, poetics has had to steer a course between strictly "immanent" accounts and strictly "subsumptive" ones. Few poeticians have been willing to accept the consequences of an utterly intrinsic account of constructional processes; even Wolfflin, mistakenly treated as the model of the pure formalist, explained changes in artistic styles partly by changes in a culture's visual habits. On the other side, very few poeticians have sought to account for every phenomenon by appeal to processes in other social domains; even the Zhdanovite recognizes some special quality in art. For most poeticians, the constructional principles studied are not self-sealed, but they are also not in every respect subsumable to other principles.

Assuming that the escape hatch of "relative autonomy" is of no help, we can distinguish two tendencies within poetics. One tendency hypothesizes that the phenomenon we study has a considerable degree of self-regulated coherence. The early Shklvosky seems to hold this view; he seeks to explain the laws of fairy tale composition by purely poetic principles like repetition, retardation, and so forth. He gives theoretical priority to such factors. In film poetics, perhaps Burch's Theory of Film Practice approaches this position. The second tendency, articulated by the later Russian Formalists and the Prague Structuralists, gives immanent factors only a methodological priority. For example, as Tynianov and Jakobson point out, even if the immanent evolution of literature can explain the direction of change, it cannot explain timing, which must be governed by extraliterary causes. A comparable position is taken by Staiger, Thompson, and myself in studying the history of the classical Hollywood cinema. Here the analyst looks first to the "immanent" factors that might be the most proximate and pertinent causal factors but also assumes that virtually every explanatory task will require moving to those mediations that lie in "adjacent" domains.

To continue the geographical metaphor, poetics is less a field with distinct boundaries than a kind of Alsace-Lorraine constantly being claimed by interested neighbors. On one side is Aesthetics, which, in the eighteenth century, replaced the study of poetic praxis with a concern for the philosophical problems involved in the creation and appreciation of beauty. On another side lies Semiotics, which seeks to subsume poetics into a general theory of the production of meaning. Interestingly, poeticians have been drafted into both camps. Aristotle, the Russian Formalists, and the Prague Structuralists can play roles in the history of aesthetics, as in Beardsley's survey history, or they can be promoted to the rank of proto-semioticians, as Peter Steiner does.

In my view, the tension between semiotics and aesthetics has been immensely fruitful. There remains, however, a core of questions and issues that cannot be wholly absorbed into the adjacent areas. It is useful to differentiate between the practical theory of an art and the philosophy of it. The "practical theory" of music or poetry, for instance rests upon a posteriori questions, involving empirical generalizations about conventions and practices in these arts. From this perspective, film poetics is a systematizing of theoretical inquiry into cinematic practices as they have existed. The philosophy of an art, on the other hand, inquires into the a priori aspects of it; it involves conceptual analysis of its logical nature and functions. On the whole, aesthetics concentrates upon such matters. As for semiotics, it concentrates on matters of meaning, which is only part of the effects for which a poetics seeks to account; on the other hand, if semiotics seeks to explain "the life of signs in society," it encompasses far more than any poetics can. Yet one should not discourage border crossings; if Barthes' S/Z offers a semiotics and Goodman's Languages of Art offers an aesthetics, both are splendid contributions to poetics.<



4. Neoformalism

One trend within the domain of historical poetics has been dubbed by Kristin Thompson "neoformalism." It is associated with research she and I have done over the past dozen years or so. The trend derives principally from Slavic poetics, particular the Russian and Czech thinkers, but it is also influenced by the more or less oblique "return to Slavic theory" one finds in Todorov, Genette, the 1966-1970 Barthes, and contemporary Israeli poeticians like Meir Sternberg. It draws heavily upon the writings of Bazin, the Soviet filmmakers, and Burch, without being committed to a "phenomenological" or "materialist" or "serialist" theory of film. In fact, neoformalism is not a theory of film at all, if we take that to consist of a set of propositions explaining the fundamental nature and function of all cinematic phenomena.

Neoformalism has even less in common with what has been called "Grand Theory," that development in the humanities that has embraced ever more wide-ranging intellectual programs. Under these auspices, the study of film has become "only a part" of the theory of ideology or of sexual difference or, most abstractly, of "the human subject." The principal issue here is not whether there is something "inherently filmic" that must be addressed, for, as mentioned above, the specificity of cinema may be conceived as more social and functional than substantive. The point is that concepts constructed at this level of generality and abstraction are not well suited to answering questions pitched at lower levels. Neoformalism, which addresses the latter sort of questions, is thus not a general theory of film, let alone a Grand one.

Nor is it, once again, a method. It is a set of assumptions, an angle of heuristic approach, and a way of asking questions. It is frankly empirical and places great emphasis on the discovery of facts about films. Since recent film theory usually claps the word "fact" within sneer-quotes, my claim is apt to seem a recourse to naive empiricism; but this conclusion, already jumped to by one writer, is itself naive. As I indicated above, any poetics---indeed, any descriptive or explanatory project--is committed to some grounding in intersubjective data. Furthermore, one can consider a fact to be an accepted claim about what there is in the world, including theoretical or unobservable entities--something that positivism rules out. Moreover, there is no question of letting the facts speak for themselves. Neoformalism presumes that one cannot discover factual answers to questions about films' construction without carefully devising analytical concepts appropriate to these questions. But it also assumes that not all concepts are equally precise, coherent, or pertinent, and so we may evaluate competing conceptual schemes; it also assumes that not all concepts explain the data with equal clarity, richness, and economy; and, crucially, it assumes that we are not complete prisoners of our conceptual schemes, that we may so construct them that anomalous and exceptional phenomena are not invisible but actually leap to our notice. In sum, neoformalist poetics makes theoretically-defined, open-ended, corrigible, and falsifiable claims.

This is a direct result of its not being a general theory of film. If I am bent on substantiating the belief that every film constructs an ongoing process of "subject positioning" for the spectator, nothing I find in a film will disconfirm it. Given the roomy interpretive procedures of film criticism, I can treat every cut or camera movement, every line of dialogue or piece of character behavior, as a reinforcement of subject positioning. The theory thus becomes vacuous, since any theory that explains every phenomenon by the same mechanism explains nothing. On the other hand, I can ask how Hollywood films secure unity among successive scenes, and answer with something more concrete--say, that one scene often ends with an unresolved causal sub-chain that is soon resolved in the following scene. Here I have said something that is informative: it is not self-evident, it is not discoverable by deduction from a set of premises, and it is fruitful, leading to further questions. (Does this suggest some hypotheses about the nature of narrational norms in Hollywood? Do films in other filmmaking traditions utilize more self-contained episodes?) Most important, the answer I supply is empirically disconfirmable. If it is disconfirmed, I need to rethink the data and indeed, the question itself. Shklovsky's counsel of skepticism should be our guide: "If the facts destroy the theory--so much the better for the theory. It is created by us, not entrusted to us for safekeeping." Neoformalism's hypotheses are grounded in a theoretical activity rather than a fixed theory. This theorizing moves across various levels of generality and deploys various concepts and categories. It does not presume global propositions to which the researcher pledges unswerving allegiance and which automatically block our noticing recalcitrant data.

In being question-centered and focused on particular phenomena, neoformalism does resemble the practices of science as many theorists are coming to understand them. Stephen Jay Gould writes:

Progress in science, paradoxically by the layman's criterion, often demands that we back away from cosmic questions of greatest scope (anyone with half a brain can formulate 'big' questions in his armchair, so why heap kudos on such a pleasant and pedestrian activity?). Great scientists have an instinct for the fruitful and the doable, particularly for smaller questions that lead on and eventually transform the grand issues from speculation to action....Great theories must sink a huge anchor in details.

This is not to grant neoformalism the status of a science, only to suggest that as compared with Grand Theory, its approach and spirit are closer to certain scientific practices. It is in this frame of reference we can best understand Boris Eikhenbaum's defense of the Russian Formalist group:

In our studies we value a theory only as a working hypothesis to help us discover and interpret facts; that is, we determine the validity of the facts and use them as the material of our research. We are not concerned with definitions, for which the late-comers thirst; nor do we build general theories, which so delight eclectics. We posit specific principles and adhere to them insofar as the material justifies them. If the material demands their refinement or change, we change or refine them.

With no set point of arrival, committed to no a priori conclusions, seeking to answer precisely posed question with concepts that will be refined through encounter with data, neoformalism deploys "hollow" categories. While the "Oedipal trajectory" or "looking equals power" carry interpretable meaning whenever they appear, other concepts mark out fundamental constructive principles that have effects but not a priori meanings. An instance of such a "hollow" principle that of norms. The neoformalist assumes that every film may be placed in relation to sets of transtextual norms. These operate at various levels of generality and possess various degrees of coherence. For instance, in most studio-made narrative films, the credits sequence characteristically occurs before the first scene, but it may also, as a lesser option, occur after a "pre-credits sequence." Such norms, while "codified," are not reducible to codes in the semiotic sense, since there is no fixed meaning attached to one choice rather than the other. And no particular meaning automatically proceeds from Godard's decision, in Detective, to salt the credits throughout the first several scenes.

A great deal of theorizing about norms remains to be done. (Are there, for instance, fruitful distinctions among convention, norm, and rule?) But even at this stage neoformalist poetics has put forward fairly detailed and comprehensive accounts of norms of narration and style in Hollywood cinema, "art cinema," Soviet montage cinema, and other modes. These are not definitive analyses; they are attempts to chart the range of constructional options open to filmmakers at various historical conjunctures, and the results are always open to revision. At this point, however, several analytical concepts seem well-founded. For example, Neoformalist poetics has established the usefulness of distinguishing between stylistic or narrative devices (e.g., the cut or the motif) and systems (e.g., spatial continuity or narrative causality) within which they achieve various functions. Establishing a unified locale is a function which different devices and different systems have fulfilled in various ways across history. But even this function is not historically invariant. (Some norms do not make unity of locale a salient feature.) In practical research terms, neoformalism's emphasis on historically changing norms, devices, systems, and functions requires that the analyst complement the scrutiny of single films by studying a wide range of films.

An orientation toward transtextual norms allows the analyst to be sensitive to the abnormal. Neoformalist poetics has been especially interested in how, against a background of conventions, a film or a director's work stands out. Kristin Thompson has been concerned to demonstrate how the works of Eisenstein, Ozu, Tati, Godard, Renoir, and others provide not wayward deviations from norms but rather systematic innovations in thematic, stylistic, and narrative construction. Neoformalism balances a concern for revealing the tacit conventions governing the ordinary film with a keen interest in the bizarre film that, subtly or flagrantly, challenges them. Accordingly, new concepts will often have to be forged. To account for Ozu's editing, Thompson and myself had to propose the concept of the "graphic match" and to spell out how Ozu's across-the-line shot/ reverse-shots do not sporadically transgress rules but rather achieve perceptual functions within a larger, idiosyncratic system of 360-degree space.

The construction of concepts in accord with empirical data leads to historical explanations for the phenomena in question. Neoformalist poetics has relied upon three explanatory schemes, adjusted to cases at hand: a rational-agent model, an institutional model, and a perceptual cognitive model. The first follows from the concept of the filmmaker's choosing among constructional options. Here the task becomes that of reconstructing, on the basis of whatever historical data one can find, the choice situation which the filmmaker confronts. This is not to say, however, that the filmmaker becomes the sole source of the film's construction and effects.

The institutional dimension--most proximately, the social and economic system of filmmaking, involving tacit aesthetic assumptions, the division of labor, and technological procedures--forms the horizon of what is permitted or encouraged at particular moments. It is not just that the filmmaker's choices are constrained; they are actively constituted in large part by socially structured factors. In the Hollywood studio system of the 1920s and 1930s, for instance, the continuity script not only became a way to rationalize production but also encouraged workers to think of a film as assemblage out of discrete bits (shots, scenes), and the individual filmmaker found choices and opportunities structured accordingly. By the same token, an institution centered conception would seem the most promising basis for the study of how spectators use appropriate films in different historical contexts (though I would argue that the "microfoundations" of such a study would have to include some rational-agent assumptions).

Most recently, a perceptual-cognitive model has been used to describe and explain the effects of various constructional tactics. I have proposed that a Constructivist theory of psychological activity yields the most discriminating and detailed explanation of such narrational principles as syuzhet/fabula construction and such stylistic processes as continuity editing. In a work in progress, I consider how the routine practices of film interpretation can be partly explained through principles of inference and problem-solving set forth by cognitive theory. In all cases, the models are not absolute; the neoformalist poetician does not treat individual phenomena as instantiating laws but rather as demanding an inferential argument "to the best explanation," which always remains in principle corrigible.

Some discussions of Godard's Sauve qui peut (la vie) provide a convenient occasion to exemplify the richness of the neoformalist approach. For example, in his review of the film Colin MacCabe followed the conventional journalistic format: teaser (description of the notorious "sex machine" scene), one-paragraph plot synopsis, background on Godard's career (over a page), mention of themes (town vs. country, prostitution, masculine vs. feminine), discussion of "form" (the image track dominates the soundtrack), reflections on the author as person (Godard's dissatisfaction with the familiar "economic and aesthetic constraints," as confided to MacCabe), and a final, unexplained invocation of "the exhilaration of actually watching the movie." As in his contemporaneous book on Godard, MacCabe's discussion relies upon a straightforward thematics (Godard's fetishization of woman) and an "empty" formalism (e.g., the celebration, in all contexts, of moments when sound dominates image).

Or, to take a more substantial example, consider the articles on Sauve qui peut (la vie) gathered in Camera Obscura. Although more detailed than MacCabe's, they are plagued by errors of description; several also make some questionable assumptions (e.g., that the protagonist Paul Godard stands for the director, or that all cuts "cannot be seen"). One essay, by perhaps the most influential textual analyst, describes the film's editing this way:

The images seem to hit each other, musically, pictorially, striking each other admirably and thus making impossible any continuity of movement which would produce, the moment it is a question of bodies and of the sexes, an imaginary ideality that has simply ceased to exist.

It must be recalled that 1970s film theory never tired of attacking exactly such writing as "impressionistic."

In its commitment to explaining difficult films precisely, neoformalist poetics offers signal advantages. Kristin Thompson's lengthy analysis of Sauve qui peut (la vie) sets out to answer some specific questions: what makes the film so complex, and how and why have critics made it seem far simpler than it is? She situates the film within its institutional context, that of the promotion of a new, apolitical, "accessible" Godard. She goes on to show how the recurrence of characteristic themes (e.g., prostitution) and attitudes (e.g., misogyny) lent the film an easy recognition along the lines that MacCabe in fact took. She argues that Godard deliberately solicits art-cinema comprehension strategies, of exactly the kind that the Camera Obscura writers employ (without displaying any awareness of those as normalized strategies). Thompson goes on to reveal how gaps and dislocations in the syuzhet prompt such thematizing. In place of MacCabe's hackneyed country/ city opposition, Thompson shows that the film employs a continuum of settings: a city, a town, a village, a farm, and the countryside. Instead of a plot synopsis, Thompson offers a segmentation that points up the temporal construction of the syuzhet. Rather than positing a form and a content, Thompson argues that the film transforms its thematic material by means of an overall organization of parallel parts which compare different characters. Having established all these macrostructural factors, Thompson is able to explain functionally what most critics ignore or interpret atomistically: the stop-motion sequences that interrupt the film and (contra MacCabe) the insistent and ambiguous organization of sounds. It is not just that Thompson's analysis of narrative, narration, and style has a finesse not approached by any other discussion. The real point is the range and depth of the conceptual scheme she employs. Neoformalist poetics, while concentrating on historical context, narrative form, and cinematic style, does not exclude thematic interpretations. It absorbs them into a dynamic system--here, one that reveals why discrete meanings can be the bait at which critics will snap, and how a clever filmmaker has set the trap for them. Historical poetics, in its concern for constructional effects, thereby comes to include the study of the conventions of film criticism itself.



5. Grand Theory, SLAB Theory, and Poetics

Although Grand Theory and historical poetics operate at different levels of generality, they invite comparison, if only because most people studying film have been influenced by one particular version of the former. This version treats cinema study as an instance of the study of the "human subject," employing tenets based upon Saussurean semiotics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Althusserian Marxism, and Barthesian textual theory. I shall therefore call this version, acronymically and a little acrimoniously, SLAB theory. SLAB theory is most clearly identified with the main current of work in Cahiers du cinema during the early 1970s and Screen later in the decade. It is handily codified in Rosalind Coward and John Ellis' Language and Materialism. Most subsequent survey texts, such as Dudley Andrew's Concepts of Film Theory and Kaja Silverman's Subject of Semiotics, treat this trend as central to contemporary film studies. Although SLAB theory is subject to internal revision, and although it now seems close to a skirmish on its left flank with the burgeoning area called "cultural studies," I shall treat it as the mainstream position within film theory at present. I am not here concerned with laying out conceptual problems in SLAB theory as such, only with contrasting its intellectual modus operandi--its methods, if you like--with the aims of a historical poetics.

1. Whereas poetics is problem- and question-centered, SLAB theory is doctrine-centered.

SLAB theorists assume that they possess a general theory of social and psychic life which can subsume cinematic phenomena under broader laws. But this theory constitutes an ad hoc assemblage of pieces from various thinkers' works: some chunks of Lacan, a little of Althusser, etc. Hence Jonathan Rée's description--the nouveau melange. The effect is most clearly seen in those syntheses or textbooks that cut up pieces of doctrine and then provide an exposition that patches them together.

Likewise, SLAB theory changes by adding on new pieces of doctrine. The fact that one bit of any thinker's work can always be linked, somehow, with a bit of any other's underwrites the project of theory as bricolage. The absorption of a few terms from the Christian, anti-Freudian, and neo-Kantian Mikhail Bakhtin into psychoanalytic, feminist, culturalist, and orthodox lit-crit "methods" is only the most recent example. Even a single word can trigger the bricolage impulse. Teresa de Lauretis finds that both the physiologist Colin Blakemore and the semiotician Umberto Eco use the term "mapping." She concludes from this that both theorists' works support the idea that "perception and signification are neither direct or simple reproduction (copy, mimesis, reflection) nor inevitably predetermined by biology, anatomy, or destiny; though they are socially determined and overdetermined." This is an unwarranted inference from Blakemore's discussion, which stresses physiological invariants and evolutionary adaptation; a commitment to the social overdetermination of perception is hard to square with Blakemore's assertion: "Human perception depends ultimately on activity within the nerve centers of the brain." De Lauretis might reply that even if Blakemore does not believe in the social construction of perception, his evidence supports it. But then one could counter that he has marshalled the bulk of his evidence, which she does not examine, to demonstrate exactly the opposite position, which she denounces but does not attempt to refute.

It is thus not surprising that challenges to SLAB theory are typically cast in the form "My Continental thinker can lick yours": Deleuze against Lacan, Benjamin against Althusser, Frankfort versus Paris. Since doctrines age faster than ideas, there emerges an urge to stay on the cutting edge. How the SLAB theorist does so is, again, most clearly seen in the summarizing texts. Here the author functions as a tipster, assuming that having the most recent word in a debate means having the last word on the subject. In a review of Language and Materialism, Rée describes many kindred efforts:

In fact most of Coward and Ellis' fallacies are of a slightly different kind: they involve not so much referring to a particular authority, as watching the ways in which the currents of opinion are flowing: a kind of punting on what future authorities will say, based on ideas of what can be "seen" and seen "only now."

In its grim determination to keep abreast, SLAB theory reveals its only open-ended side: almost anything may become grist for the doctrinal mill.



2. Poetics, in its contemporary form, conducts systematic research; SLAB theory does not.

Systematic research consists of posing questions, reflecting on the historical factors that lead to the questions' becoming salient, broaching alternative answers, and weighing them in the light of evidence; it also presents arguments that seek to demonstrate that some answers are better than others. By these canons, SLAB theory does not constitute systematic research.

As a rule, SLAB theory does not ask particular questions and reason out possible answers, rejecting and refining them and weighing the comparative advantages of competing explanatory frameworks. The writer instead starts with a doctrinal abstraction and draws on cinematic phenomena as illustrative examples. Thus Silverman's Subject of Semiotics employs filmic and literary texts as audio-visual aids in laying out claims about the Oedipus complex or condensation and displacement; she does not, by and large, cite evidence that would establish the claims as holding good about general human phenomena of the sort that the theory aspires to explain. Nor does she consider how the same cinematic processes might be explained by rival theories. Nor does she consider counterexamples that might challenge her premises or inferences. The point is important because any belief, including astrology and a trust in dowsing rods, can be illustrated by particular phenomena. Marshall Edelson calls this "enumerative inductivism," the notion that adducing instances of a hypothesis will support it; in fact, such a notion is vacuous because any number of hypotheses can be supported by a set of instances. The real test involves "eliminative inductivism": "No conjecture about the world is in and of itself confirmed by evidence. It is always evaluated relative to some rival. The degree of its acceptance is simply the extent to which at any particular time it is considered better than its comparable rivals."

The focus upon doctrine can blind one to the most obvious counterinstances. Instead of asking what the everyday ideology of vision might be, John Ellis starts from the premise that the cinematic institution necessarily imitates a phenomenological model. So he informs us that projection in a movie theatre "exactly parallels" our ideology of vision, "one that thinks of the eyes as projecting a beam of light, like a torch-beam, that illuminates what we look at, making it visible and perceptible." Ellis' commitment to SLAB theory has apparently made him oblivious to people's habit of switching on the lights when they enter a darkened room.

If SLAB theory is largely uninterested in posing questions and examining a range of evidence, it is no more keen on doing homework in the history of its concepts. Its canonical texts arrive untainted by any larger context (save perhaps that of "1920s Soviet culture" or "Paris after 1968"). Freud is not situated within the history of psychology, nor Saussure in the history of linguistics; Lacan's ties to Surrealism are passed over, as is Althusser's complicated relation to the French Communist Party. In the endless exposition of these texts, the writer has license to remake history. One can skip from a schematic account of Descartes' conception of the "subject" to an account of Freud's, as if everyone in the intervening centuries, including minor thinkers like Hume, Kant, and Hegel, were blundering about in rationalist darkness. To read SLAB theory, one would never know that such books as Sebastiano Timpanaro's Freudian Slip or B. A. Farrell's Standing of Psychoanalysis or G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence exist.

Such provincialism cripples SLAB theory as an intellectual endeavor. Any theorist who really wanted to pose questions about language would grapple with the work of Locke, Humboldt, Sapir, Whorf, Wittgenstein, Quine, Chomsky, Montague, Grice, Putnam, Kripke, Davidson, Dummett, Searle, Katz, and Sperber. Any theorist claiming an interest in psychology would certainly need to consider the contending ideas of Piaget, the Russian reflexologists, Vygotsky, Bruner, Fodor, et al. Any theorist seeking the sociopolitical functions of cinema cannot ignore Weber, Durkheim, Mauss, Parsons, Elster, and Giddens. A theorist who pronounces upon whether semiotics or psychoanalysis is a science ought to be familiar with the history and philosophy of the sciences. Yet inspection of current "theoretical" texts in our field reveals an embarrassing ignorance on all these scores. As it stands, SLAB theory constitutes a convenient way of not knowing a lot of things. Paradoxically, a movement that makes novelty its chief appeal seems unaware of recent developments in the fields to which it lays claim. SLAB theory wants to be new without being current.

The rhetoric of SLAB theory can be seen as a strategic concealment of the conceptual problems I have noted. Despite its persistent use of the phrase "X argues," SLAB theory does not characteristically offer arguments. Argument presupposes a dialectical confrontation with potential or actual opponents. Assuming that s/he writes for a skeptical reader, the writer anticipates objections, refutes antagonists, and advances her/ his thesis as the most plausible candidate. SLAB theory is instead largely expository, summarizing and synthesizing claims made by previous theorists. There was a short flurry of pseudoscientific rigor in the early 1970s, but this, which enraged so many opponents, now emerges as a momentary vogue. Once Barthes rejected his pre S/Z work as tainted by "scientificity," he ratified a movement back to the intuitive belletrism we have already seen in the Sauve qui peut (la vie) discussions and which comes virtually second nature to people of literary training.

SLAB theory has found its most comfortable rhetorical mode in a form of commentary whose components include the following: exegesis through quotation and paraphrase, the rectification of this or that point in the light of recent developments (Rée's "only now can we see" syndrome), the extrapolation of other points on the basis of conceptual or terminological association (e.g., de Lauretis on "mapping"), the interpretation of illustrative examples from films, and above all the striking of a stance that means business. The essay, chapter, or book is likely to end with some tough talk, when the writer invokes something new and dangerous: a recently translated book demanding to be assimilated, a just-finished film to be interpreted, or a new mode of filmmaking.

What the exposition-rumination-illustrations format blocks, of course, are the massive critiques that have been launched at SLAB theory and its cinematic adherents. Reading SLAB work, one could not learn that there are standard arguments against Saussure, Lacan, Althusser, and Barthes, for no SLAB theorist bothers to defend these thinkers' ideas in any engaged way. One would scarcely know that many writers have pointed out conceptual difficulties in SLAB arguments about film. Unlike Shklovksy, SLAB expositors usually regard theory as entrusted to them for long-term safekeeping. Still, if one holds some power, as SLAB theory does, ignoring all opponents, however complacent it may seem, is the safest rhetorical recourse.



3. Whereas poetics uses concepts to construct explanatory propositions, SLAB theory uses concepts to construct interpretive narratives.

If SLAB theorists are uninterested in debating their views within wider contexts, it is for the very practical reason that theorizing seldom lies at the center of their concerns. Theory becomes not explanation but a guide for explication. As applied to cinema, SLAB theory tells stories. Or rather, a story with few variants--the tale of stable personal identity, lost and (perhaps) found (but differently). This is a perennially popular tale among humanist academics, and SLAB theory draws upon psychoanalysis (that trove of great stories) in order to deck it out in different costumes. By means of traditional interpretive tactics, such as analogy and personification, any aspect of a film (setting, camera position, editing) can be assigned a meaning within this drama of subjectivity. SLAB theory yields a scheme for interpreting films that is close enough to traditional semantic fields (order/ disorder, identity/ loss of identity, self/ other, male/ female) to seem comfortable but also new enough in its particular working out to rejuvenate thematic criticism (as when the Mirror Stage underwrites critics' penchant for looking for reflections and doublings). SLAB theory as theory can escape scrutiny because it is made to be used, to let the critic come to the desired conclusions about this text's conventionality or that text's transgressiveness.

Historical poetics needs no such stories to guide its work. It offers explanations, not the recasting of films into the form of a master narrative; and insofar as metacriticism is part of its purview, it may take as part of its business the study of how SLAB theory has become geared toward interpretation.

As SLAB theory has incorporated many diverse ideas into its bricolage, so has it included historical poetics. Characteristically, however, the evidence mobilized by the Soviet filmmakers, the Russian Formalists, Arnheim, Bazin, and more recent poeticians have become, in the hands of SLAB theorists, yet more illustrations of the same received doctrines. True, the theorist often gets it wrong--shot/ reverse shot and point-of-view editing seem surprisingly difficult to grasp- but even in the muddles, there is a recognition that if SLAB doctrine is to be mapped onto cinema, it needs at least the vocabulary and concepts provided by some poetics.



In light of these points, I conclude that contemporary film studies, thought to be dominated by abstract theory, is actually quite untheoretical--if theory is understood not as the routine exposition of cryptic doctrines but as an active, open-ended enterprise that poses clearly-defined questions, seeks empirical evidence that will help decide them, analyzes alternative explanations of that evidence, and systematically argues for the best answer. Film theory, I take it, demands wide reading, constant reflection, intimate acquaintance with the history of the problems posed, and a degree of skepticism that compells the researcher to seek out difficult challenges, either in the data or in the form of opposing arguments. But these qualities are not characteristic of SLAB theory. Its doctrinaire quality has led to dogmatism; its inadequate research has made it blinkered; and its streamlined schematism has rendered it simply another method for interpreting films. Unfortunately, this modus operandi is encouraged by several institutional factors, most recently those publication ventures which reward academics for dashing off homogenized summaries of Grand Theory aimed at student consumption. This might be called the Methuenization of the humanities.

SLAB theorists commonly counterpose "theory" to "history," as if historical research could not also be theoretical. I propose a more informative opposition. SLAB theory and its offshoots, in their deepest assumptions and their concrete practices, have consolidated a new scholasticism, a ceaseless commentary on authoritative sources. Poetics, on the other hand, frankly offers scholarship--an open-ended, corrigible inquiry that respects the reciprocal claims of conceptual coherence and empirical adequacy. Lacking a substantive doctrine, it does not have the answers ready before anyone has asked the questions.

To commit oneself to scholarship is, at this point in history, openly to commit oneself to academic institutions. Although SLAB theorists have been reluctant to acknowledge it, their theory depends crucially upon the university; indeed, Saussure, Lacan et al. produced most of their work in academic circumstances which were, by contemporary American or English standards, leisurely. Historical poetics can succeed only if colleges, universities, and archives give the researcher the resources to work steadily on questions that cannot be answered from the depths of the armchair.

I am certainly not recommending that we embrace a cozy professionalism. What matters now is that we exploit the academicization of film study for scholarly ends. If we recall that Bazin and the Formalists produced brilliant insights within academic conditions we would consider materially barren, we can appreciate the enormous opportunity which most Grand Theorists of film neglect. We can, for the first time in history, study cinema according to the stringent demands of scholarly inquiry. We have the time to fight with each other about ideas and enthusiastically pursue answers to truly demanding questions. We can do this best, I think, by transcending that Methodist division of labor initiated in Hyman's and Wellek and Warren's time. In this respect, historical poetics becomes not one method but a model of basic research into cinema. It offers the best current hope for setting high intellectual standards for film study.