Brent’s critique of the NYC DIY Dinner continues…
Still by the third video, the discussion is about filling a marketing niche or void, not telling a personal story in innovative ways. It feels like it’s just making a film about a new subject in the same way, something I react very strongly against.
Unfortunately right now, when Arin Crumley and Slava Rubin make certain points, I don’t feel they’re talking to me or to the other people who are in independent film because they — the filmmakers — are neither good at nor interested in marketing or commodities-focused careers, nor are they interested in being cool or popular–which is the image of a new-media-social-networking-guru-web-celebrity.
Further, I am not hearing a director with a distinct artistic vision when Arin talks at this dinner, and I’m unfortunately not interested in his films because of their popularity — popularity based on Arin’s new pioneering new distribution and crowd participation methods. So if I’m not his audience, then perhaps his audience isn’t mine, and so my thinking then becomes one of retraction and distancing myself from the new mechanisms. Also, when Arin talks about reaching an audience, I feel like he is capitalizing on his marketing expertise to profit off them, not putting his soul on film–which is where my taste lies. I appreciate his work for filmmakers, but when he starts leaning towards telling a filmmaker how to be a filmmaker, he’ll have trouble getting his message across.
Lance Hammer is clearly an artist with a distinct vision, an artist whose film I saw multiple times at Film Forum and recommended over and over to friends, posting on my website and Facebook to GO SEE THIS FILM. Same with Pleasure of Being Robbed and Wendy and Lucy. I’ve still not seen or heard anything from the makers of Four Eyed Monsters that makes me take interest in their work or view them as an artist. I’ve only heard that their distribution is what makes them impeccable. Cart before the horse?
I know Arin is very intelligent and successful in his own way, but some of what he says comes off as disrespectful of that thing so many of us fell in love with and have chosen to devote our lives to as viewers and filmmakers, and unaware of that much of the things we’re told we must do to our films are things we find less than appealing and against the films’ nature.