Henri Langlois: “An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world. The problem with cinema today is the dearth of troublemakers…We’re fresh out of “bad students.” You’ll find students masquerading as bad ones, but you won’t find the real article, because a genuine bad student upends everything.”
This piece I found on the web ( https://canadianart.ca/features/video-2005/ ) says that my Martin Heath of CINECYCLE sold me on digital. What sold me on digital was the medium itself. Martin had nothing to do with it and, in fact, is lagging behind me in embracing it. From the piece: “Let me tell you a story about the difference between film and video. Martin Heath, a long-time film purist and expert film and video projectionist, who runs the experimental-film venue Cinecycle in Toronto, asked me if I had seen video projected using one of the new Texas Instruments chips. The Texas Instruments system is called DLP, Digital Light Processing. Martin told me it looks just like 16mm film, only better. I believe the first time Martin saw a DLP projector in use was at my CINEFORUM.
“Heath advised Reg Hartt, the renowned film historian and archivist, to buy a DLP projector for his home theatre. Hartt was encouraged to keep his projection-screen size relatively small to maximize the intensity of the DLP video projection. Heath was there the first night Hartt fired up his new home theatre. Hartt had an archival DVD of The Iron Mask (1929), directed by Allan Dwan, starring Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. This DVD release is state-of-the-art film on video (the disc was made in part from a pristine 35mm print of the film held by the Museum of Modern Art). Heath and Hartt sat down to evaluate the performance of the DLP projector. In the first scene of The Iron Mask, Fairbanks emerges from a castle door, sword in hand. To the horror of Heath he could see the castle was made of papier mâché plastered over chicken wire. The video projection was too good. The splendid digital video image had shattered the illusion of the film. The castle looked totally fake.”—Tom Sherman.
There are a couple of things wrong here that could easily have been corrected had Sherman taken the tine to speak to me directly.
First off, let me state that the castle in Fairbank’s THE IRON MASK does not in the least look fake. The story began in what clearly was a set made of papier mâché plastered over chicken wire. The quality of that opening set was meant as a springboard for the imagination to leap into the magic of the main story. Douglas Fairbanks was rightly renowned for spending the money required to bring his stories to life. Once when his financial backers urged more restraint
Fairbanks replied, “I only know one way to do these things.” The money is on the screen and looks it.
Martin Heath is a great friend. He had, however, nothing to do with my transition from film to digital. What it came down to was simple. I could not get my 16mm equipment properly serviced. The technology was dead. VHS never appealed to me as the image lacked vitality. I was using Roberts Film Service out of Montreal to service my 16mm projectors. They suggested digital as an alternative.
I saw the film, FRIDA, loved it, loved the soundtrack and bought the soundtrack. Seeing the dvd for THE CURSE/NIGHT OF THE DEMON (a favorite) I bought that as well. Looking at it on my computer monitor screen I saw at once the vast superiority of the image and heard the even vaster superiority of the sound. I had seen my 16mm print of that film (as well as all my 16mm titles) so often I could at once spot the superiority of the digital image. I saw the old door closing and a new door opening. In transition I contacted two Canadian libraries which, between them, handle just about everything ever made since the dawn of film. I negotiated contracts which I renew every year giving me rights to their catalogs (though I barely use them).
Film printing has been a difficult thing at the best of times. A friend who worked for the lab that produced prints for first run exhibition informed me that only five really good prints can be made from a negative. He also informed that prints made for use in Toronto came after those first five (which went to New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Rome). 16mm film printing could and often was very good but it could never match or surpass 35mm.
Digital for the first time allows for one tremendously good print to be made. From it are then made digital copies that remain consistent from copy to copy.
After decades of lugging around 16mm prints that were prey to physical damage (breaks in the film, fading color, emulsion scratches, warping) and which could never by their nature possess the enhanced sound digital offers my transition was not even a Damascus road experience. I saw the light at once. I embraced it.
I love the freedom of copy/paste. I love that my originals do not have to be tampered with (as my 16mm prints had to be physically spliced, unspliced and respliced into programs).
Then I got a digital 3D system installed here using the wireless shutter glass technology created by Lenny Lipton. That led to getting digital a 3D camera. That led to getting several more cameras, better quality projectors (I use a BenQ SP920 for my 3D Presentations. It puts twice the light on the BIG screen) plus a sound system that really puts all the bells and whistles to work.
Jean Cocteau wrote that when the tools of the cinema become as inexpensive as pencil and paper the medium will finally become an art form. Digital cinema is a huge leap in that direction. The only problem is that people (especially the young) are still tied to an out of date technology. Statements I have made saying D. W. Griffith, Eisenstein, Chaplin, Keaton and the rest would enthusiastically embrace not only digital film making but also 3D are met with cries of outrage from film Luddites. Of course they would. For them content ruled over form. Given the tools to express that content more forcibly they would embrace them at once.
Currently I am using a SONY HDR TD10 3D camera which enables me to film in 2D/3D at once using available light. I filmed THE VILETONES AT THE PHOENIX in 2D/3D on August 15. Steven Leckie, when I showed him the footage, said, “I had no idea it would be this good!”
To properly study film I learned long ago that a paying audience makes the hardest and, therefore, best teacher. My screenings have been my classroom since 1968.
I bought anaglyph 3D copies of classic films (HOUSE OF WAX, etc.), hared the ghosting and plunged at once into the new world of digital 3D. In addition to putting in place here the most advanced technology for 3D presentation in the country I also researched the medium getting copies of every important film in the history of motion pictures I could lay my hands on as well as every major and minor publication (I do the same with animation, silent films, etc.,).
My screenings evolved out of the Rochdale College experiment where there were resource people but not teachers. Each Rochdalian was called to be their own teacher. My CINEFORUM is simply put, the best school for the cinema on the planet.
I do my best to encourage the young to stay out of the classroom. Once in a while someone comes along who can do that. Then the fun starts.
I also refuse to use grants. That sets me apart from the majority who are eager to suck on the government teat and constantly whinging about not getting enough.
The film medium is a story telling medium. The best way to learn to tell stories is to tell stories to strangers. Unlike friends, if we bore them and thus lose them they feel free to get up and walk out.
Much of what passes for film making (analog, digital or whatever) is simply masturbation with a camera. That is fine because we can not satisfy others until we learn what satisfies ourselves.
I remind the young that when Charles Chaplin arrived at Mack Sennett’s KEYSTONE FILM STUDIO in 1914 Sennett was then seen as the King of Comedy. Sennett told the 24 year old Chaplin, “We have no scenario–we get an idea then follow the natural sequence of events until it leads up to a chase, which is the essence of our comedy.”
Chaplin wrote in his book, MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY, “This method was edifying, but personally I hated a chase. It dissipates one’s personality; little as I knew about movies, I knew that nothing transcended personality.”
It is interesting to know that the meaning of the word “soul” on the lips of Socrates, Plato and Jesus is “self,” “personality.” A person who has no soul has no sense of self, no personality.
We meet them all the time.
A sense of personality, however, will always lead us into conflict with others. It did Chaplin with Sennett who finally grew so outraged he wired his New York bosses, “Can I please fire the little limey prick.” They at once wired back, “Don’t you dare!”
Chaplin had quietly taken over.
The classroom produces legions of boys and girls eager to please the academics they learn from who are always out of touch. These people emerge from the schools devoid of character and angry that so few value what they sold their souls to acquire.
Sennett was Chaplin’s professor. He gave Charlie a failing grade. Unlike the student who may make one or two five minute films during their tenure that only their classmates and teachers see Chaplin at Keystone made over thirty short films, most one reelers, a few two reelers and one feature, TILLIE’S PUNCTURED ROMANCE that the entire world saw. The “little limey prick” became the hottest thing in the movies. No one has equalled his success let alone surpassed it.
At their height motion pictures (the best definition of the medium) were seen first run in theaters that could seat thousands. At that time film schools did not exist. People learned by doing.
Today schools exist in legions and theaters are built not to seat thousands but hundreds.
The movies have become soulless creations of people devoid of personality.
That does not mean the audience does not exist for motion pictures. It does and it is starving.
Henri Langlois: “An art form requires genius. People of genius are always troublemakers, meaning they start from scratch, demolish accepted norms and rebuild a new world. The problem with cinema today is the dearth of troublemakers…We’re fresh out of “bad students.” You’ll find students masquerading as bad ones, but you won’t find the real article, because a genuine bad student upends everything.”
Note to students at colleges and universities: Do not confuse the poor presentation you experience there with what people get here. A friend who teaches at one of Canada’s major universities asked if he could borrow one of my projectors for use in his classes. He now has his own. These people charge you enough, God knows, to take their classes. They nickel and time on equipment.
These are just a few of the books in the Cineforum collection. I bought them for myself. You are welcome to read them here. I do not loan them out. Long ago learned to not make that mistake.
To my mind, genius in a person is indicated by the hunger to know side by side with an unconscious discontent with the accepted forms of learning. We must always remember that our systems of everything are designed for the second-rate as the second-rate always form the vast majority. This is not elitism nor is it snobbery. Both of those are found in the second rate always. They are never found in first rate minds.
–Reg Hartt, 8/26/2015.
My first 3D camera opened up a new door of excitement. It cost $1,000.00 Canadian. I promptly broke it. My new SONY HDR TD10 cost the same and delivers WAY more.
“Invent nothing. Deny Nothing. Stand up. Speak up. Stay out of school.”–David Mamet. Too few have what it takes to do what he says. Those are the few who will do something.
Essential.