From: Michael Betancourt (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 11:04:44 PST
Fred Camper wrote:
> Michael Betancourt wrote:
>
>> What would constitute a "perfect" (any definition) film/video?
>>
>> I'm not sure myself, but wondered what the rest of the list collectively
>> thinks. I'm not even sure what I would consider a candidate, but I am
>> very fond of Brakhage's Persian series....
>
>
> I would critique the concept. Some of the very greatest films have
> imperfections. And throughout film history filmmakers have defined
> cinema art in different ways. In the "world" of Brakhage's (very great)
> Persians, Christopher Maclaine's "The End" would look like a dreadful
> mess. But it's a great film too, just great in a very different way.
> Further, to the best of my knowledge it was Brakhage himself who rescued
> Maclaine's films from an increasingly drug-addled Maclaine and got them
> preserved and into distribution. The quest for perfection would, it
> seems to me, exclude one kind of filmmaking at the expense of another.
> Nor was Brakhage himself all that interested in the idea of
> "perfection." He tried to make his films as good as he could, but then
> would go on to make other films on different terms, and often said he
> wanted to include the messiness of life in his work.
>
I agree with you about the general application of the concept of
"perfection," and that many films include "imperfections." (There are
aesthetic systems that insist on imperfections as aesthetic
necessity--and the whole concept of "imperfection" vs. "perfection" is
complicated as a result--for example, in Navajo art. But that's a
digression.) Generally talking about "perfect" works to exclude or
minimize one kind of work. It is exclusive.
However, this was why I said "any definition". I'm not interested in
excluding anything someone feels might qualify as "perfect." But I am
curious what films people might consider "perfect" since if there is
some agreement about what that is, it might tell us all something about
our collective myopia. To banish the issue as a kind of unmentionable
doesn't eliminate the possibility so much as act to prevent us from
exploring it, which is why I asked...
The responses have been interesting.
Michael
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