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Mapping of a Medium in Decline

 

Types of Cinephilia

 

2 Social Justice Cinephilia

Auteurist-modernist, emphasis on form as an expression of ethical / social issues. "Mere" formalism is dubious, though. Individual artistry and individual expression is key to the point of outright hero worship (much more so than in Cinema Scope Cinephilia) but only when coupled with canon of ethical / social issues. Artistic creation only conceivable as reactive, in relation to a dominant model. Every single female filmmaker ever is "unduly forgotten". Opposition to mainstream less important than opposition to "film bro cinema" and similar straw men. A more populist wing celebrates diversity in Marvel films.

 

Critical of institutions yet dependent on them. Usually more successful than Cinema Scope Cinephilia in conquering them. Not content with "a place at the table".

Mostly journalists and social media users. Some spill-over into academia. Biggest cluster emphatically aligned with the left, though there's a smaller, less influential (and even more polemical) counterpart on the right.

Mostly an off-shoot of older auteurist-modernist traditions as opposed to "radical" traditions (Screen theory etc).

 

In its purest form ideology speaking itself, therefore extremely dull. See twitter and parts of letterboxd. More interesting when used as a tool among others, though the amount of conceptual blind spots remains staggering. Can serve as welcome reality check for bad "free-form" writing. Propensity for polemics might even be a plus sometimes, because it triggers open-ended inquiries.