“Art will not disappear into nothingness; it will disappear into everything”

Some might be quick to judge a filmmakers’ manifesto from 1969, addressing the problems of Cuban post-revolutionary cinema as having more a historic relevance than being a practical guide to digital-era filmmakers. After recently rereading Julio García Espinosa’s For an Imperfect Cinema, I’m gripped by excitement by the profound analysis of the film medium’s contradictions and possibilities, and not the least impressed with how every assertion seems to resonate with my own practical, and every-day experiences.

There are two principal reasons for why the manifesto is still relevant but hasn’t faded away as a testament of a certain time and place. These are:

1) It is truly artistic: It does not attempt a superficial subjection of art to abstract æstetics (prescribe technical, structural or other methodological schemas for films) nor is a masquerade for sectarian justification for a typical bohemian artist cast (me and my friends are better because we do this kind of art). Rather it seems to me to address art as realm of human consciousness, or “having a special cognitive power”.

2) It is truly revolutionary: Ok it will reveal my orthodox-surrealistic leanings that I consider the second point to be the same as the first, only from another direction. Let’s say that without being very technical or theoretical, the manifesto approaches the questions of art in what is equal to a dialectical-materialistic approach. It sees the development of art in the context of society as a whole, without, of course, the stupefying subjection of Art to social causes.

The approach the manifesto takes towards cinema, is that of the relationship between the varying players in it. It dwells upon the roles and categories of filmmaker and spectator, and speculates about the developments of these categories:

The real tragedy of the contemporary artist lies in the impossibility of practicing art as a minority activity. It is said — and correctly — that art cannot exercise its attraction without the cooperation of the subject. But what can be done so that the audience stops being an object and transforms itself into the subject?

Julio García Espinosa starts off his essay as rejecting “technically and artistically masterful” cinema as “almost always” reactionary. This he calls the perfect cinema. The first was more quickly grasped by me.

The “technically superior” cinema will under present conditions of Capitalism generally be reactionary, because the standard of technical excellence will by material conditions always be set by the big centres of entertainment-capital (Los Angeles, Mumbai, etc). The glossy look that the audience gets used to and becomes an unconscious barrier for approval of mindless consumption can only be achieved with the giant budgets that only a monopoly operation can manipulate.

The “artistically superior” cinema is a slightly bigger temptation to the ambitious artist in the margins. In reality, for someone working in marginal areas (of the third world, for example. or minority language zones like Iceland), the realm of Art-house cinema is the most accessible one because the perception of obscurity is a sought after feature (“I was watching Icelandic films before it was cool”). I’m speaking of kind of films that get awarded at Berlin but then not really showed anywhere else, the one’s that get “the applause and approval of the European intelligentsia” as Espionsa puts it. He is speaking from the third world then, but suspicion of approval from the same intelligentsia must resonate for anyone thinking about films made in Iceland today. There are films made which seem to have no purpose other than to grab attention at film festivals, and only after that, relate in some way to the community they were supposed to have come from – bearing the authority of the European approval.

In the third world context this is of course usually extreme, where great cultural perversions get applauded by moral thinking, liberal-left leaning award committees as some kind of subjective voices of third world cultures. The relationship of the European film festival’s award committee to the film is similar to that of a tourist in search of “authenticity” to bring back home in the form of photographs, souvenirs and anecdotes – but in reality looking at a staged cultural performances that would only exist if not for his tourist dollars (in the case of Art house cinema: Euros).

I won’t try to exhaust what can be outlined or theorized from the manifesto, but perhaps the most accessible point is that of digital film-making, although not called so at the time:

… if the evolution of film technology (there are already signs in evidence) makes it possible that this technology ceases being the privilege of a small few? What happens if the development of videotape solves the problem of inevitably limited laboratory capacity, if television systems with their potential for “projecting” independently of the central studio renders the ad infinitum construction of movie theaters suddenly superfluous?

For us, who have been told for since we remember that the digital technology plus Youtube-style distribution will eventually lead to “everyone being  a filmmaker” (which of course is true in a very limited sense), it is healthy to notice that this was being proposed and prophesized in a Caribbean island in 1969. But Espinosa, who sees a significant social transformation take place before his eyes, is much deeper than the usual speculations. The progress of technology is not the main objective criteria for “everyone being a filmmaker” in his discourse. The above quoted paragraph actually starts like this:

When we ask ourselves why it is we who are the film directors and not the others, that is to say, the spectators, the question does not stem from an exclusively ethical concern. We know that we are filmmakers because we have been part of a minority which has had the time and the circumstances needed to develop, within itself, an artistic culture; and because the material resources of film technology are limited and therefore available to some, not to all. But what happens if the future holds the universalization of college level instruction, if economic and social development reduce the hours in the work day …

This is the core. It is the social distinction (those with the time and circumstances) – and the process to follow is the universalizing of education and social development such as the shortening of the work day. Again and again it is the capitalism’s social restraints that hold us back – not technology. Capitalism can, through market competition, develop cheaper mass produced technology (although it is not as good at it as many think). Under certain conditions, education may become more universalized – and indeed these things have been happening to a limited degree. The shortening of the workday – however, is unlikely without massive social struggles.

The vast mayority of society – even in the developed world – is creatively passive in it’s every day live and work (notice my Freudian slip of counter-posing the categories of life to work). That mass might, given a cheap digital camera, from time to time record a funny video of a cat which gets uploaded to youtube. But there will still be a sharp differences of relationship to the artistic activity.

It is interesting to speculate that the “creative economy” has forced Capitalism to develop different skills in it’s work force than the typical industry-manufacturing ones, but we should not confuse the creativity of the graphic designer at the ad agency with art – although – indeed the skillset is significant and will explain why some of the mass developed (as in developed by the masses, not necessarily for it) content online can be pretty sophisticated as well.

Who better to understand the social factors limiting or progressing culture than someone who witnessed something like the cuban literacy campaign a few years earlier? That process is more similar to what will shape the progress of cinema than anything that might happen in a Japanese high-tech factory, Silicon Valley start up, or – I don’t even need to mention: Hollywood studio or European film festival.

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2 Responses to “Art will not disappear into nothingness; it will disappear into everything”

  1. ninetto says:

    Disappear into everything… that sounds actually quite good.
    But what is more problematic is not only are all technically and artistically masterful films reactionary, “production values” are like a virus infecting even low/no budget/imperfect film works, and replicate thereby the very social/power relationships we hope to overcome. The possible art therein then disppears into the realm of “content”, the oversaturated multitude of yet-another h264 file, hosted on servers making a profit on ads selling us all to hell.
    Sorry for the polemic rant, it is rainy-cold outside I am in a funk – I wish the world was more like Cuba 1969, and for that memory and your post, many thanks!

  2. Arnar Sigurdsson says:

    Cheers ninetto. Your rant is more poetic than polemic – and rainy days are more fit for that art form than filmmaking. If the nostalgia warms you up, then fine – but that’s all it’s good for :)

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