By The Way...

Allow me to be a film geek for just a second and point out this (long) L.A. Times article on "film theory," which is an integral part of film school but which many people who work in the film industry feel take precedence over more useful aspects of the film process, including small details like writing, directing and producing. The author of the piece (who is not entirely coincidentally the father of a student at film school) openly wonders, given what his kid is learning in film school has so little to do with the film world itself, why he's spending so much money on it (there's an extra level of irony in that he's paying for his kid to be taught by Marxists, and that's a funny way to be alienated from one's labor).

I think the guy's got a valid point. Film theory is all very nice in moderation, but the fact of the matter is that film schools are basically trade schools -- in that the practical application of a film school education is to make, you know, films. It's not called the "film industry" for nothing. Just like you wouldn't want to go to a mechanic who only learned a political theory of labor but kind of skipped over that whole part where he or she changes a spark plug, so wouldn't you necessarily want to see a film made by someone who is laden with theory but didn't spend any time pointing a camera around. The film will end up heavy with symbolism but largely out of focus, and that's just no fun to eat popcorn by.

Film theorists will tell you what they do is a branch of philosophy, and therefore important, but speaking as someone who has a degree in philosophy -- and who was also a full-time film critic for a number of years and is not exactly ignorant of film theory -- there's only so far philosophy will take you. Eventually you just have to go out and do things. I do know that if I were paying for film school and all my kid was getting was a bunch of theory, I'd probably want some of that money back.

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• #1 Comment from cadfan17 
  9/14/03 6:45 PM | Permalink

  I personally find it amusing that when I studied philosophy in college, (political philosophy, poli sci major here) I did it through a mixture of social and humanist analysis. My professors would have found it an amusing idea that they should study Marx without analyzing not only what society he came from, but who Marx was himself. It is ironic that "its philosophy" is used as a justification for avoiding humanist analysis, when philosophy is so often studied from that perspective.