This document discusses different theories about what makes a film political and good. It also covers topics like mediated reality, film technology advances, the relationship between film and reality, and how new technologies have empowered individual film producers. The document analyzes quotes from James Monaco's book "How to Read a Film" about the dialectical nature of film theory and how technologies are shifting power to producers.

1. April 26, 2011

2. What Makes a Film Political?
 Depends on what theory of the relationship between
films (popular culture) and politics you are using.
 For some, only explicitly political films are political
 For others, all films are political
 In short, you get to decide this for yourself

3. What Makes a Political Film Good?
 Depends on what films you consider political and
that in turn depends on your own political beliefs.
 However, there are aspects of film-making and film
criticism that can be described in purely formal
ways.
 Some films are more innovative,
conservative/subversive, than others.
 A good film always tells a story that the audience
finds compelling, worth watching.

4. James Monaco on Film Theory
“The job of film theory is truly dialectical. As a
fully matured art, film is not longer a separate
enterprise but an integrated pattern in the warp
and woof of our culture. Cinema is an expansive
and far-reaching set of interrelating oppositions
between filmmaker and subject, film and
observer, establishment and avant garde,
conservative purposes and progressive purposes…”
(How to Read a Film, p. 424)

5. Mediated Reality
 One of the most common themes in discussion of
films is the relationship between film and reality.
 We now understand that film, like all other
media, is an interpretation of reality that is partly
controlled by the filmmaker and partly by the
viewer.
 Most of us are more dependent on media now
than we were in the past.
 This makes our ability to “read films” and other
media much more important.

6. Film Technology: A Moving Target
 Film as an art form was originally quite restricted
by its inability to portray color, sound, outdoor
images, and certain kinds of motion.
 Film technology developed progressively to
reduce the restrictions on the ability of the
medium to portray reality.
 More recent technology allows filmmakers to
“enhance” reality in ways that early filmmakers
could only dream about.

7. What Have We Gained and What Have We
Lost?
 We have become more dependent on film and video
for entertainment and less capable of entertaining
ourselves.
 As passive consumers of high-quality sound and
imagery, we may even be losing our ability to process
abstract ideas via text.
 Are multimedia and the Internet the answer to this
problem?

8. Power to the Producer
 Cheap cameras, cheap editing, cheap
distribution
 Positive indications:
 AtomFilms.com
 IFilm.com
 Blair Witch Project
 Negative indication: continued dominance
of large conglomerates in media industries

9. Production Values and Potential
Audience Size
Small audience Large audience
Lo value
Videos of my dog Chris Crocker
on YouTube
LonelyGirl15
Sanctuary; other TV programs
Hi value
HD content Movies

10. Another Quote from Monaco
“For more than half a century, first film and
then television inculcated that suffocating
passivity that so concerned Aldous Huxley
and others. But the balance is now shifting.
Not because we heeded the warnings of the
social critics and took action, but because
the image and sound technologies that are
now maturing bring the power of
production to us.” (p. 515)