Sunday, May 21, 2017

Episode #93 - Girish Shambu (Gold)



"I think there's a place for the skills that we learn as cinephiles in the world at large."

If the cinephilia of lining up on small streets of Paris and New York for obscure rare prints of art films and the auteurs of Hollywood to appreciate the wind in the trees has died with Susan Sontag, what has replaced it? This is one of many questions asked by blogger Girish Shambu in his book The New Cinephilia. In this final report from SCMS, Girish discusses his childhood in India and how he became interested in not just film but the kind of critical discourses it creates, and how he sees himself functioning within that world. The two talk about the opportunities and challenges that cinephilia faces in our current moment, both in terms of the expanding definition of media and its relation to politics. Finally, they turn their eyes toward the ever nebulous group of coy German filmmakers known as the Berlin School, and in particular, Thomas Arslan's Klondike-trekking western Gold with Phoenix star Nina Hoss.

0:00-3:03 Opening 
3:57-12:15 Establishing  Shots — A Tale of Twin Peaks
13:07-52:22 Deep Focus — Girish Shambu
53:14-56:13 Sponsorship Section
57:17-1:16:58 Double Exposure — Gold (Thomas Arslan)
1:17:03-1:18:42 Close

Notes and Links from the Conversation
—Check out Girish's blog and follow him on Twitter
—Purchase a copy of The New Cinephilia and check out LOLA
Watch the 1975 Bollywood epic Deewar starring Amitah Banchan
—Read a brief overview of India's economic transition in the 1990s
—An excerpt from Pauline Kael's Dressed to Kill review
Girish's take on Dressed to Kill
—Read Girish's original report at the Toronto Film Festival in 2000
—For a brief overview of Deleuze's contributions to cinema philosophy, read here. For a more thorough investigation, I recommend Barbara Kennedy's book
—For a longer discussion of film theory and continental philosophy, see Nico Baumbach's research
—Bloggers mentioned: Ignatiy Vishnvetsky, Darren Hughes, Zach Campbell
—Girish on the Showgirls Blogathon
—On Microcriticism
—Adrian Martin discusses the idea of intensity in his interview with Girish
—On Hou Hsaio-Hsien
—On Teen Movies (and an earlier post with different reflections)
—Susan Sontag's The Decay of Cinema
—Steven Shaviro's new book on music videos
—Issue 7 features the Shigehiko Hasumi tribute and the "one take" film feature
—A dialogue between Jonathan Rosenbaum and Hasumi
Read an excerpt from Christian Keathley's Cinephilia and History, or the Wind in the Trees
—Girish on The Berlin School
—Read Marco Abel's The Counter-Cinema of the Berlin School
R. Emmet Sweeney on the Berlin School
—Michael Sicinski on Arslan's Gold

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