User:TPoole/sandbox: Difference between revisions

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to remember it: that much is clear. Many films have been forgotten because they were forgettable. But others have just slipped through the cracks. No one can watch every film. Some are lost, and even some of those that are found sit comfortably in archives without attention from viewers. They await rediscovery, their joys currently imprisoned in aging film cans. And they

await interest from enough film historians (and theorists and critics) to be chronicled in studies of the cinema.

Regrettably, only a few of us have examined Norman Mailer’s films in any

depth. Herewith we announce an open call for membership in our small club. We seek allies and enemies alike. The ranks need to swell. After all, even in the space of just a few words, it is possible to suggest why Mailer’s films

deserve intervention by historians (and others) who have to date neglected

them.

''Wild 90'' and ''Beyond the Law'' are mockumentary films, important if for no

other reason than the fact that they helped initiate a genre that did not yet

even have a name. They predate Mitchell Block’s ''No Lies'' (1974), which has

sometimes incorrectly been called the first mockumentary. They anticipate

the large numbers of mockumentaries that have been produced from the eighties until the present day. And, rather than retrospectively copying the aesthetics of direct cinema, they were produced while its style was still being forged.

Long before most persons even knew what amockumentary filmis—and even some time before Orson Welles’ important cinematic experiment ''F for Fake'' (1975)—Mailer tore down the genre’s walls. With ''Maidstone'', he marched into a more complicated terrain, one that proposed to re-examine the very nature of the cinema. Here Mailer chased the authentic, an elusive property that seems to be chimerically reconstituting itself in front of his cameras.

@@ Line 272: / Line 272: @@
 to remember it: that much is clear. Many films have been forgotten because they were forgettable. But others have just slipped through the cracks. No one can watch every film. Some are lost, and even some of those that are found sit comfortably in archives without attention from viewers. They await rediscovery, their joys currently imprisoned in aging film cans. And they
 await interest from enough film historians (and theorists and critics) to be chronicled in studies of the cinema.
+Regrettably, only a few of us have examined Norman Mailer’s films in any
+depth. Herewith we announce an open call for membership in our small club. We seek allies and enemies alike. The ranks need to swell. After all, even in the space of just a few words, it is possible to suggest why Mailer’s films
+deserve intervention by historians (and others) who have to date neglected
+them.
+''Wild 90'' and ''Beyond the Law'' are mockumentary films, important if for no
+other reason than the fact that they helped initiate a genre that did not yet
+even have a name. They predate Mitchell Block’s ''No Lies'' (1974), which has
+sometimes incorrectly been called the first mockumentary. They anticipate
+the large numbers of mockumentaries that have been produced from the eighties until the present day. And, rather than retrospectively copying the aesthetics of direct cinema, they were produced while its style was still being forged.
+Long before most persons even knew what amockumentary filmis—and even some time before Orson Welles’ important cinematic experiment ''F for Fake'' (1975)—Mailer tore down the genre’s walls. With ''Maidstone'', he marched into a more complicated terrain, one that proposed to re-examine the very nature of the cinema. Here Mailer chased the authentic, an elusive property that seems to be chimerically reconstituting itself in front of his cameras.