Cinematic Grammar [Or: How I am Finding It Harder and Harder to Respect Homage]

Topic: Cinematic Grammar [Or: How I am Finding It Harder and Harder to Respect Homage]

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Posted at August 24, 2017, 6:18 pm:

Recently, I have become more and more disillusioned with a number of my favourite filmmakers [namely Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson]. I put this down, mainly, to one thing: the amount of cinema I am watching, and the originality I am seeing within it. I do not [fully] get that when I watch a Quentin Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson film anymore. I am becoming more and more interested in the idea of cinema as an intelligent, complete art form, where all the elements come together to help the director say something of meaning. While both know what they're doing in a technical sense, I don't feel that Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson have anything of their own to say at the moment.

I believe in cinematic grammar, but not in the sense that there is only one set of rules. I think that, with the great directors [old or young or somewhere in between], you can see that they have, in essence, developed their own cinematic language over time, based on their vision [which is also constantly developing] and nothing else. Their grammar might borrow from that of others, but not for the purpose of being cool, clever or shocking. It borrows only to aid the vision, and I think that's the thing. I think that's the line. Borrow, but not for any superficial reason.

I don't feel, as yet, that Paul Thomas Anderson or Quentin Tarantino have developed their own cinematic languages, and I don't feel that [at the present] their borrowing from the past is anything other than chic homage. The Wise Up sequence of Magnolia demonstrates that Anderson definitely has the ability to develop a personal, distinct grammar, and I feel that Punch-Drunk Love was a step in the right direction for him. Kill Bill, for Tarantino, was a step backwards.

Love them or hate them, it's people like Lars von Trier, Wes Anderson, Pedro Almodóvar, Steven Soderbergh and [more recently] Gus Van Sant that are truly forming their own cinematic rules and theories at present [of course, people like Polanski and Scorsese and Weir keep developing theirs over time]. And they do it not with the intent of being hip, but with the intent of supporting their individual directorial vision, and what it is they have to say. And for me, I now realise, that's the difference between good and what is great.

Original of the message was taken from http://www.movieforums.com/community/

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