What a week so far. Freezing cold, snowing like hell, and a nice bit of Cecil B Demented stuff…
Chapter Moviemaker , you know the drill, first Monday of every month etc. I think I’ve been going for 4 years or so now since I moved to Cardiff, have showed several films there, met a lot of good people – basically it’s pretty good. And the variety of films is always pretty wide.
I always try to give everything a go, but have to confess to developing an aversion to what I can rationally call ‘Shit short films’. You might have seen some yourself , so I won’t go into detail. Filmmakers can do all sorts of things, slow, challenging, controversial, mainstream, story-driven and abstract, but a few things just piss me off –
Corporate interests, when Fiction Factory and people from the BBC arrive I just want to throw things. Oftentimes these are pretty pedestrian efforts which come and go , so it’s a case of grit the teeth and get the hell out.
Then there are people who are up their own arse. Assured (usually by their mates) that they are a godlike genius they come along and condescend to let us mortals glimpse a piece of their art. We’re all egotistical and a bit prone to, er, creative differences – but I’ve been getting bored recently when people just sit there in the audience not daring to criticise or say anything, or even display a reaction. I think in a past life I’d have been throwing seats at the screen in 1968 Paris.
So with one recent film I saw at Chapter which will remain nameless to avoid giving it publicity, although the director was one Michael Aaron (remember the name and run like hell. You lack weight and surprise.), after 15 minutes of smug examination of boredom, I’d had enough, Out I walked, surprised and pleased that it had wound me up to that extent.
Avant-garde? That’s not avant-garde. Fucking Whitehouse is avant-garde. Terence Davies, Andy Warhol, even Sally Potter has had her moments. Having seen it done a lot better in the past, I wasn’t prepared to sit there a moment longer, and out I walked for a coffee.
So, film watchers and filmmakers , a suggestion. If you don’t like, agree with, or otherwise beg to differ, let them know. And that includes anything I bring along for a screening also, the healthy back-and-forth of ideas, or artistic hissy-fit is surely preferable to ‘oh, that was ok .. ‘
So anyone reading this walked out in disgust of anything? I’d be interested to hear..