Intro
Recently, I came across research on cultural participation that I did as a student 10 years ago. A lot has probably changed over the decade, but research has motivated me to write an article on film culture - a more recent article that also touches upon covid or steemit, and yet at times pertains to the results of my old work.
Have a pleasant reading!
Participation in film culture - new needs, new perspectives, new tasks
For this article, I would like to narrow the field of interpretation of culture from a purely sociological sense to an artistic definition, focusing on cinematography. Based on the terms of the phenomenon, I have developed my formula. Participation in culture, understood especially to analyze this work, is the conscious, unconstrained reception of artworks (including cinematographic ones), their creation, or contributing to their dissemination.
Participation in culture is fully countable. However, its forms should be distinguished and, in my opinion, valued. The recipient of the art will be different when forced to participate in a cultural event (for example by a teacher) and different when participates in the event of his own free will, for the sake of personal development. In my definition of cultural participation, I have only defined the latter attitude. I believe that it is a proper, permanent, and imitating form, as opposed to compulsion, which results in superficial contact with art. Of course, one could argue whether participation in culture forced on someone by another person is worthwhile or not. In my opinion, this is a very bad thing.
In social life and, especially, education, a certain attitude has been adopted that puts pressure on the guardian to encourage the pupil to participate in culture almost by force. The premises are sublime: arousing the need to commune with art, getting used to it, presenting its values in full splendor (because a young man would never discover them himself if he had not been clearly shown what is the most valuable and what he needs to know). I think this is not the way to create an ideal recipient of culture. Consequently, things are completely different. Of course, compulsion stirs up rebellion. Rebellion, on the other hand, turns into an anti-cultural attitude, or less frequently into a less harmful desire to commune with popular culture, which is the opposite of the higher one. To create a proper approach for young people to culture and art, compulsion should be replaced by creating the widest possible opportunities to enjoy the benefits of culture. Of course, I am not proposing to give up art teaching and give away free tickets to museums, cinemas, and art galleries instead. Such an understanding of my idea would trivialize it.
Treating the cinematography as the entertainment only, forgetting about the artistic value of that medium, makes us focus more on the Hollywood productions rather than appreciating the most important films. Here is one of the very first movies ever created - "Arrival of the Train at La Ciotat", 1896, made by the Lumiere brothers. Unfortunately, many people have never seen it before
Adequate education, carried out interestingly, is essential. I will try to answer what it should look like in the second part of the article, in which I will develop my concepts of fighting the undervaluation of the world cinematographic culture. At this stage of work, let the postulate of creating the possibility of voluntary participation of the student in a wide range of "cultural excursions" with the teacher as a guide suffice.
Therefore, leaving this small digression aside, I would like to return to the definition of participation in culture. I understand full-fledged participation as resulting from the will and desires. Since the main goal of the animator and educator is to develop such attitudes in society, I will allow myself to limit the definition of a participant in culture to people who are aware of their needs and decisions made to satisfy them.
The research I carried out (back in my student days, when I dealt with culture more professionally) showed that among all forms of participation in culture, those related to cinematographic culture are the most popular. As many as 90% of the respondents declared their participation in cinematographic culture. This result would be astonishing were it not for the fact that the question did not contain any definition of this culture and did not assume a division into the higher and lower culture.
Only 30% of all film lovers are interested in ambitious forms of reception of cinematography (non-commercial cinema), requiring some intellectual effort from the viewer. The remaining 60% are fans of stencil cinema, based mostly on Hollywood, fewer Bollywood patterns, or the newly emerging commercial film culture of Central and South Africa, which is called "Nollywood" from Nigeria (often referred to as narco-movie culture. big cities, mostly interwoven love threads, etc.)
The audience, i.e. the group of recipients of the cinematographic offer, consists of people of all age groups and with various education. The cinema is intended to provide entertainment to everyone.
It looks a bit different from non-commercial filmography audiences. This places certain requirements on the recipient, such as the ability to interpret the content, often presented in a rather complicated way. Therefore, it is not surprising that the main group of recipients is educated people (about 75% of all). Usually, they belong to the 18-26 age group.
Another very important movie on CC license which, I believe, should be interpreted at schools with the teacher (maybe in one of the last classes, as it can be drastic for smaller kids and requires some knowledge to interpret correctly). First surrealistic movie ever made, a masterpiece of special effects of those times, "Un Chien Andalou" (Andalusian Dog), Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali, 1929
The concept of non-commercial cinema was mentioned several times in this work. What exactly is it? And when are we talking about an audience characterized by film culture?
Non-commercial cinema is the cinematography that is not produced with the assumption of great box-office success. Usually, it is impossible to find in large multiplexes. It is characterized by the complexity of the content, forcing an intellectual effort on the recipient and/or exceptional artistic value.
If a person is interested in participating in culture as such high values communing with it through cinema, film reviews and festivals, open-air projections, or any other form of contact with cinematography, it can be concluded that it is characterized by film culture. Of course, this does not exclude the possibility of a given individual's participation in other areas of culture. The same person may have many other cultures at the same time (e.g. music or theater).
Film culture requires constant care and dissemination. Movies are still mistakenly associated with cheap, meaningless entertainment for the masses, devoid of any connotations with art or philosophy. To change this, first of all, we should start the fight against ignorance by transforming, or creating from the remains, cultural education in educational and cultural institutions.
In schools, although the subject of "knowledge about culture" usually functions, film culture as such is not taught, or knowledge is conveyed at a culpably low level. The shallowing of the perception of cinematography results in a stereotype classifying a student interested in film art as less intelligent.
If a film appears at school, it is usually an adaptation of the reading. The student's task is to become familiar with the content of the film, but no time is devoted to discussing editing, photography, composition, film music, etc. This situation results from several reasons: the lack of appropriate equipment in schools, inadequate education of the teaching staff about the importance of cinematography, but also, in my opinion, the lack of time to pursue similar topics. The duration of the film and its analysis take at least two hours, and the lesson is much shorter. Moreover, the teaching program in many countries is overloaded with content that the student has to assimilate for the final examination, and this is the primary focus of teachers' attention. To introduce content to schools that would allow overthrowing the harmful stereotype about cinematography, teachers risk that they will not manage to properly prepare students for the final exam and, therefore, they will be negatively assessed.
the First animation for children ever made was Snow White 1938 - originally made in 13 language versions (some quality of records is very low, but remember it's not that much time after producing first movies with the sound). With the time it was translated in 53 languages, remade several times, and still is quite popular
The situation is slightly better in cultural institutions. Studio and local cinemas are mainly responsible for promoting non-commercial cinema. Still, these programs and events are not very popular and hardly visible in the cities.
The concept of "culture" is terrifying. Nowadays, it evokes very contradictory associations. On the one hand, it is treated as something inaccessible, expensive, of little interest, intended for a narrow, snobbish group. By mixing higher and popular culture, it also gains a form that is generally available, even ubiquitous. Multitudes of people become convinced that they have sufficient contact with the culture after listening to Lady Gaga's song once a month.
The cinema is in an even worse situation. Constantly trivialized by education or television, it falls very low. Most people limit themselves to watching movies presented in the evening hours on television or Netflix, considering them to be art (if they realize that cinematography can constitute art at all). This is mainly due to the unavailability of ambitious films on television - the most popular mass media for generations 40+.
A real participant in the cinematographic cultural offer becomes a seeker.
He must be willing to associate with ambitious cinema, have time to find the right offer in-studio cinemas or at festivals or reviews, and often have money to buy tickets.
The role of the animator is therefore primarily focused on stimulating the motivation to search. It would be difficult for people who have never had contact with non-commercial cinematography, but for people who have experienced the stereotype that has been mentioned many times before.
Research shows that the main recipients of film culture are educated, young people. This is a very important cultural change. It seems that the image of a necessarily "Hollywood" film, trivialized by the older society, is no longer valid among young people. You can even see it on the mainstream streaming platforms which are giving more and more space to the less popular productions, which are running away from the natural Hollywood scheme. This is supported, apart from education, by contemporary trends and subcultures: hipsters, yuppies, all possible outsiders compete in finding less and less known and bizarre forms of cinematography. Fashion for originality fosters culture.
It is therefore worth creating a "fashion" for ambitious cinematographic works. It would be to stimulate the needs of the recipients of culture on a mass scale. Even if fashion would pass over time, the perception of cinema would be irrevocably changed for the better. But how to do this?
In my opinion, we should start with the social group that is already the most involved in promoting cinematographic culture - young people. If, however, we focus on young people, we must reach for the media they use. And young people first get information from the Internet.
"Singing in the Rain" is the movie that created the modern musical genre. It's worth watching to understand how did the production of the first movies looks like - it says the story of filmmaking in the '20s
To promote an appropriate "fashion" for ambitious cinematography, it is necessary to analyze the behavior of young generations. We still hear about attempts to activate the young, to get them out of the house. Perhaps it is necessary to educate culturally, recognizing that attachment to a computer and being locked up at home is a natural and irrevocable social process. So let's focus on disseminating culture without direct contact, via the Internet, putting more emphasis on creating free websites with non-commercial films, festivals with live streaming, or sharing with other ambitious film reviews that indicate what is worth paying attention to when watching the production. Steemit is an excellent medium for this type of thing - although film reviews do not have a wide audience here yet, after popularizing the topic, thanks to the international community, we could easily select the best films from all major cinematographic centers and create an impressive database of films worth seeing by the viewer curious of the world. Although it is not possible at the moment, it is also worth considering the creation of a live streaming platform on which such steemit movies could be broadcast for an appropriate fee in cryptocurrency.
Of course, this is a very abstract idea at the moment. It requires a new way of looking at the problem. Although I also find it difficult to accept certain social changes related to the loss of direct communication between the new generations, recent changes in the world, including the global covid quarantine, indicate that the use of the Internet as the main medium in promoting culture is inevitable.
Thank you for reading,
@papi.mati
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