Journal of film and magic

In the past few weeks of reading the Journal of Film and Video I have come to enjoy it’s material quite a bit. Even more so I feel bad that I like it so much, because part of this blog exercise is to find something you usually would not read as to broaden one’s horizons. My typical periodical that I read for arts and new media contexts is the New York Times, and to a point the BBC online. However, these are less in depth articles (except on Sundays) than the current periodical that I am reading for this class. These articles in this journal do not, though, review movies as in the times but rather has a more analytical approach such as in the article Making Light and Dark: The world of His Girl Friday, which I mentioned in one of my previous posts. Another contrast to the times is articles will also explore current cinematic movements such as Beur cinema in France, and Kino international a micro cinematic movement originating from Canada.
The two articles I chose to comment on for this assignment, are the two previously mentioned. I will start of with Kyle Conway’s article Small Media, Global Media: Kino and the Microcinema movement. This article discusses the role of small vs. large media, or Local vs. small. I thought it was a really interesting concept that these to poles were not exactly poles contracting off each other, but rather one composing the part of the other. Trying to define these small and big media, he talks about the obvious size of the medium Network vs. Public access, cinema screens to that of a slide projector. He elaborates, though, not just on the size of the medium but the role in the culture it creates. Small media is thought of to be an alternate, or more of a local movement. He made the example of revolutionary Iran when the Ayatollah sent around tape cassettes of religious revolutionary speeches to compel the masses to over throw the Shaw. But, the majority of this article was portraying the kino movement that derived from the Montreal film scene from the government subsidies that were given out to all types of filmmakers. In this case the big media device of the cinema was used as in a small media context. Filmmakers no matter what their status were able to show their productions on the large screen for the public to see. But, generally their was not a wide public for these gatherings instead the public mainly consisted of other filmmakers who were also showing, or devising to show a production. It was compared to the public access of cinema, but some of the differences being Kino mostly showed comedy and experimental types of modes where as public access tends to be more on the informative/political mode.
The other article I wish to talk about is Alison Murray Levine’s article Mapping Beur Cinema in the New Millennium. I always enjoyed finding new areas of movement or cliques, such as the underground punk in China. Klaus Nomi in New York, or the climate in which Throbbing Gristle came and created to be. The Beur movement, which some inside don’t like to call them selves, is a metropolitan movement within France. These filmmakers are of North African decent, but are 2nd or 3rd generation within France. This group made global headlines last year during the Parisian riots. The riots expressed how theses social groups felt that there was no upward mobility within the society in which they lived because of their ethnicity. These films express their “fractured, multilayered identity within the culture”. What I found most interesting about this social climate portrayed throughout this cinema is “not the dream of integration or belonging, but the desire to affirm”, or what else is quoted “a search for a third space that would transcend binary options”. Even though I have yet to see any of these movies, which came from this climate, I am already engaged. The last thing I wish to say the fascinated me about this was another quote form the article
Culture can be viewed not as territory at all, but as something constructed and lived by the individual.