In Search of Cinema
Monday, April 21st, 2008 @ 03:15
Writings on International Film Art
by Bert Cardullo (2004)
A collection of selected Cardullo’s essays previously published in quarterlies, In Search of Cinema is divided into three parts: 1) Focus on Iranian Cinema, 2) Europe, the Americas and Beyond (concentrating on recent, “less well-known” cinemas from the continents) and 3) Form, Genre, Oeuvre and Other Arts.
I have not seen a lot of the movies discussed in part 2, and while this book has piqued my interests in some recent films of the regions, Cardullo sometimes regresses to annoying ostentatious analysis and superfluous remarks one suspects has more to do with knee-jerk anti-mainstream/Hollywood sentiments than the quality of the film itself. His frequent pointings of the blatantly obvious (yes, Hollywood wastes our money with their overblown budgets that is inversely proportional to the trashy (or trashy in the guise of artsy) duds of flashy special effects empty of god-knows-what artistic spirit to the power of billion dollars, a fact that needs not repeating every five paragraphs or so, can we move on to some other points please) to undeserving wax lyrical in the name of the “obscure” (Majidi’s Children of Heaven? Iranian cinema is definitely not immune to sappy moralisation) engender more misgivings than interests in his writings.
He provides cultural contexts that perhaps are intended to be helpful annotations to general readers, but instead comes across as pompous, other times Orientalistic (especially in his treatment of Iranian Cinema).
Then again, it could all be due to my own personal taste and prejudice. (I tend to be incorrigibly judgemental on this subject, and others.) The book is supplied with a generous further reading (on general, national cinema and directors) and selected directorial filmographies and at least, compared to other popular contemporary film review books, thanks to its quarterly publication format, In Search of Cinema is packed with informations of worthwhile contemporary films.
