Karakuri Babble is a daily column by the editors of i360.com, usually on topics tangentially related to anime and cosplay.

In the past we have endorsed many things; in the future we shall support many others.

Reading The New Cult Canon over at the Onion A.V. Club, by Scott TOBIAS.

It's very good -- I've been reminded of a bunch of films I love, and have several more that I now need to see as soon as convenient -- but I did take some exception to his commentary on a quote by Abbas Kiarostami:

I make one film as a filmmaker, but the audience, based on that film, makes 100 movies in their minds. Every audience member can make his own movie. This is what I strive for. Sometimes, when my audiences tell me about the mental movies they have made based on my movie, I am surprised, and I become the audience for their movies as they are describing them to me. My movie has only functioned as a base for them to make their movies."

So far so good, right? But then Tobias goes on to say:

For someone weaned on Hollywood movies, the thought was heretical, especially in reference to a film as difficult as The Wind Will Carry Us: Why can't Kiarostami finish his own movie? Aren't we, as audience members, entitled to see a filmmaker's complete vision? And isn't this just a ready-made excuse for work that's half-conceived and half-executed?

The thrust of my disagreement with Tobias is simple: From my perspective, it's impossible to disagree with Kiarostami. There's nothing "heretical" or "radical" about it. It's an old idea, rooted in McLuhan's comments on participatory media, and as natural to any writer as night following day.

Perhaps it is a bit daring with regard to film, which McLuhan classed among his "hot", non-participatory media -- but even there, I think his position belies and undermines his occupation as a film critic. The role of the critic is to extract meaning from film, to distill it to its essential purpose and make a recommendation. To claim that that's not a fundamentally transformational, even alchemical process -- that's just deluding yourself.

Or, as I read once and can't seem to source, no matter how I search: "It's a poor reader, or viewer, or listener who can't take from any work more than the artist has put in." If you take nothing else from my ramblings, remember that sentiment. It's the basis of nearly everything I say.

words from chris, 2009-04-29 01:43:05, los angeles