Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!bbn.com!rshapiro
From: rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: REVISED CHARTER for rec.arts.cinema
Message-ID: <50494@bbn.COM>
Date: 6 Jan 90 14:19:39 GMT
References: <7261@shlump.nac.dec.com>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 45

In article <7261@shlump.nac.dec.com> boyajian@ruby.dec.com (The Dread Pirate Roberts) writes:
>[reasons why it makes little sense to distinguish 'made-for-tv'
> movies from other movies]
>In article <50483@bbn.COM>, rshapiro@bbn.com (Richard Shapiro) writes...
>
>} The easy answer to these questons is to do what the serious "cinema"
>} journals started to do in the 70's -- include tv & video without any
>} constraints...
>
>I'm nervous about the "without contraints" clause, but can't say exactly
>why.

I should have been more clear on one point: the "seriousness"
constraint remains. It's just the "movie" constraint that's done away
with. 


> Maybe because it allows the potential for discussions of television
>material to dominant the group (however unlikely I'm sure that is). 


You're right that it's unlikely, if only because relatively few people
have a "serious" interest in tv. I wouldn't be surprised if many r.a.c
supporters don't watch tv at all.

In some ways, I must admit that I find some popular tv to be more
interesting and more adventurous than most popular cinema. Not as art,
particularly -- if the group sticks primarily to cinema as art, we
won't see many articles on tv. On the other hand, "art video" is a
topic we should be willing to cover, no? 

>would not like to see this happen. On the other hand, a "serious" article
>that examines the dystopic atmosphere of MAX HEADROOM in the same way that
>another might do for BLADE RUNNER seems to me to be more appropriate for
>this type of newsgroup than for r.a.tv.


I agree with this, but it may be opening up more than you think. Why
not an equally serious article on the different presentations of
gender relationships in "thirtysomething" and recent Woody Allen
films? To go even further: how about an examination of the way that tv
commercials borrow and "detourne" imagery from classical Hollywood
cinema? I don't know if I could write such articles, but I know I'd
like to read them, and I know there's nowhere to post them right now.
Can we include all of this in the term "cinema"?