[-empyre-] speaking of film.. and global art industry

["Melinda Rackham" <melinda@subtle.net>]

speaking of  film - one of the first nz films i saw was  Lee Tamahori's
"once were warriors"  -a look at  a contemporary Maori family in urban New
Zealand, replete with domestic violence, amazing  intensity,  intimacy , and
hope.. . another  was "heavenly creatures" the true story about the two
white teenage girls who killed one of their mothers with a brick. .. both
great insightful movies.. how were they received locally ?

in fact, now i think about it your film industry has produced lots of quirky
and fabulous  movies...  but i guess "lord of the rings" is the thing which
has bought spectacular international attention.. and i assume will now mean
that us film companies  will want to shoot lots of stuff in nz using the
high quality  but relatively cheap labour and facilities, just  as they do
in Australia.

This i think has helped killed off the smaller great films from our
Australian film industry. i haven't seen much at all  emerge locally since
big budgets like matrix, Moulin rouge etc  stared being made here. (film
people please show me i am wrong!) .there have been lots of great short
shorts,  but relatively few  features.  so that stated goal of art
practices.. ie visibility and "making it on a world stage" which im sure we
all hear proudly proclaimed in dreary speeches at numerous launches, seems
rather counter productive as the result seem to be smothering  rather than
liberating.

speaking as an Australian i think there is a very  great  advantage to being
a relatively small and peripherally positioned blended culture. i see this
in terms of freedom from either the weight of European, Indian or eastern
art history and philosophy, or the mainstream expectations of the US global
culture machine;  and in terms  of the innovation and creative solutions
which can arise in an off centred  space...   this freedom  humility and
perspective gained form not thinking one is the centre of  universal culture
makes for great art practices, in whatever form they manifest.


Melinda



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Helen Varley Jamieson" <helen@creative-catalyst.com>
To: "soft_skinned_space" <empyre@gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: [-empyre-] residing in cyberspace


> i was overseas when whale rider was released (& saw it in munich),
> but i think it was extremely well received at home, by both maori &
> pakeha. film is a medium that reaches a very wide cross-section of
> society - much wider than the web - & whale rider is one of a number
> of excellent nz films that have done a lot for race relations (&
> social relations in general) in this country.
>
> as for how successful web sites are as accessible cultural media ...
> that's a pretty broad question! there's web sites & there's web sites
> ...
>
> h : )
>
> >
> >The first time I really got some idea about the nature of Maori culture
was
> >when I saw the film Whale Rider and read Witi Ihimaera's book. I don't
know
> >how this is seen in New Zealand by the Maori people or by the white
> >population. How racist tensions effect your views, I don't know what the
> >reaction was over there. I only know that it gave me an insight that I
found
> >engrossing, hungry for more.
> >
> >So film and books, DVDs and paperbacks are readily accessible cultural
> >materials, how do they compare to web sites? How successful are web sites
> >compared to other media?
> >
> >Perhaps we have to wait for the web/electronic media to be more
accessible,
> >- a cinematic broadband, more portable - ebooks etc. A cinematic web and
a
> >really hand-friendly sexy ebook device like the iPod. I find the Xbox
really
> >engaging, some games pull me along, others digust me. Net radio works for
> >me, listening to rebroadcasts of interviews, alt music stations etc.
> >
> >Barrie
> >
> >fizzion@optusnet.com.au
> >http://members.optusnet.com.au/~fizzion
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >empyre forum
> >empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> >http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
> -- 
> ____________________________________________________________
>
> helen varley jamieson: creative catalyst
> helen@creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.creative-catalyst.com
> http://www.avatarbodycollision.org
> http://www.writerfind.com/hjamieson.htm
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