Nicolas Courdouan

Thanks Gregg, I haven't seen this film and will check it out. I also just remembered Last Year in Marienbad for some reason... A film that I wish I had used as an example earlier on in this conversation.

Well... to be honest I think it's more complicated than the industry relying on the pre-teen to 30 market. I think they are relying on the exact same market as before (let's say the pre-teen to 50) to make the bulk of their money. But the big suits have done their homework and they know that our western civilization is childized : people no longer want to see their childhood go and they cling to it like flies on a honeyed toast. Look at the amount of blockbusters from the last 10 years which are based on successful properties created in the late-70s / 80s : Toys (Battleship, GI Joe, Transformers), graphic novels (Watchmen, the soon-to-be-produced Batman vs Superman), remakes of movies from the 80s (Evil Dead and a lot of other horror films, Karate Kid...), and let's not forget all those films with a distinct late-70s / 80s feel that owe a great deal of their success to this fact (Drive, Super 8, the Expendables...). I mean, people tend to say that all these things happen because Hollywood is running out of original ideas, but I think there's a lot more to it : if Hollywood really was running out of original ideas, why not remake more films from the 40s? I mean why this specifically late-70s / 80s trend? I think Hollywood is not run by fools, and they know exactly what they're doing. Their market studies have shown that yes, an increasing number of 35 to 40 year olds are still playing video games, watching cartoons and collect toys. So yeah, maybe that the ads and trailers for those movies are aimed at children with all their BOOMs and their ZAPs. But that's because the only people Hollywood needs to sell these movies too are the kids, who don't know jack about these properties and franchises. The older guys? They are sold on the concept alone of seeing a movie based on toys they used to play with and get a chance to share this former passion with their young kids. I can almost imagine a parody of the old Mastercard "priceless" ad, you know? "Night out in town with the family : $57... Drive-thru for four : $38... Two large popcorn combos and Coke : $15... Watching your kids enjoying the exact same thing that used to make you tick as a child : priceless" Anyway, point is, I don't think Hollywood is targeting a younger audience, I think they are still going for the exact same age groups as before, but those age groups feel younger and crave for nostalgia (in my opinion, the most powerful emotion). Hollywood is smart. Why target a kid that gets $10 per week to spend on their movies when they can go for the wallet of Mr. Recently-turned-40, proud father of two, and his missus? Now what that means for the future of movies, I don't know. But I want to keep a glass half-full perspective on this. I'm sure that at some point, everybody wants to see something new, something more, something that has more value (whatever that means). And the smaller films (which are still big films, but smaller when compared to the blockbusters) are there for this exact reason. Regardless of how much mindless sh#t you get to watch during your childhood / early adulthood, you always end up reaching that point where you've had enough and you don't just want to be entertained anymore. I know, because that's exactly what happened for me, and I am not that unique... At some point you always want to go back to the roots, revisit old classics to know what the fuss really is about, and you end up finding the movie that redefines your whole perspective on things and changes your life. I could be wrong of course, but I think the industry is doing just fine. They know exactly what they're doing.

Sorry, George, I'm not trying to clutter the thread with a pointless debate about the quality or relevance of today's films... I'm just saying that everything is really subjective here, and that it's easy to get carried away when seeing all those giant billboards displaying Megatron or whats-his-name brandishing a fiery building-sized sword, while forgetting that we also had our chance at enjoying kid-friendly celluloid entertainment when we were still the prime target of these big summer movies... I agree with you on everything else (too much, too fast, etc.)

Ah? Well... Different strokes... I mean, I love Beauty and the Beast beyond reason, but this one somehow always was my favourite. Although maybe it has to do with that "first film" factor...

I mostly agree with you. All the trailers and TV spots we see advertise the exact same kind of movies: Pacific Rim, GI Joe, etc. And that is because -and I'm not teaching you anything here - they are the movies with the biggest marketing budgets. What I'm doubtful of however, is that those movies are the only ones enjoying any kind of success. The other films still attract audiences, even though they're not doing it with loud bangs and TV ads celebrating their first billion dollars at the BO. I mean, of course I can't speak for the whole world, and don't misunderstand me : even the Irish multiplexes have 9 screens out of 10 crammed with 2D or 3D screenings of The Wolverine and Despicable Me 2 at the moment. I'm just saying I'm not sure that the lack of exposure - by comparison - of the smaller films is necessarily hurting those films, because maybe 90 - 95% (I just pulled that number out of my arse) of these smaller films' audiences are people who pay to watch movies on the silver screen, and because their smaller budgets often afford them to do well enough at the box office to keep the filmmakers' careers afloat. I mean I'm pretty sure that in May 1977, the only movie you ever heard about on TV was Star Wars. And who was Star Wars aimed at ? Mostly teenagers and young adults. And who was frowning upon Star Wars as some form of mindless entertainment ? Most of the people outside that age group. The situation is still exactly the same. Replace "Star Wars" with "Transformers" and "1977" with "2013", and you get today's situation. The only thing is that this time around, we're the guys outside the age group... I'm not saying that Transformers is better or worse than Star Wars, I'm saying that it is the big budget sensation for today's younger audiences. And by all means they have all rights to enjoy a mindless flick with giant robots milling at each other for 2.5 hours. And instead of a scantily-clad Leia they get an equally scantily-clad Megan Fox, just to get those hormones up to an acceptable level - for a 14-year-old kid. Now the only thing is that, certainly, movies are not allowed enough screen time to make a lasting impression on their audience nowadays, and they are quickly replaced by another, bigger, louder remake/sequel/etc. This I completely agree with. But as far as "quality" is concerned, I think it's only a matter of lacking the ability to distance ourselves from our own pasts and experiences, and... maybe the nostalgia factor as well? I'm sure that a lot of 45+ people thought Star Wars was the biggest turd ever released, that it was destroying the foundations and principles of our societies, and would see the rise of dozens of equally bad movies that would eventually be the downfall of the movie industry. While to a lot of us, it was the trigger that shaped our vision of what films were about, and for a lot of people, the birth of a genuine desire to start a filmmaking career.

You know, if somebody asked me, my first reaction would probably be to say the exact same thing as you just did. That we see more and more mindless films being put out, and that those movies strike a chord with the younger audiences, who therefore give more money to the studios so they can put even more mindless films out, etc etc. However, looking at the numbers, I just think we all have a tendency to judge the situation a tad quicker than we should, and to rely on our personal fears rather than the cold hard facts. In other words, I'm afraid we are turning into old farts (no offense meant, I'm actually smiling as I type this). Certainly there are more CGI movies out there than before, more 3D crap, more comedies that all look the same (it still amazes me that both "The World's End" and "This is the End", two apocalyptic comedies, could be released on the same damn week...). But are films really less good than before? I don't know... If Jaws came out today with a CGI shark, would you classify it as a good film, or as a mindless CGI thrill? Blockbusters have always attracted the masses, since the 70s, and the more serious, thought-provoking films have always been the ones doing less well at the box office, and attracting "older" people (I'm referring to the late twenties - late sixties demographic here). Not two weeks ago I went to see Breathe In, by Drake Doremus. The screen was packed (around 250 seats), the average attendee could have been around 45 or so, but there were still a good amount of younger couples enjoying a simple, romantic drama on their night out. So, even though it is certainly easy to feel that audiences are younger and dumber than before, when I look at the numbers and actually take in my surroundings when going to the movies, I think I'm just plain wrong about the whole situation. We just need to have more faith in the people's ability to decide what movies are worth encouraging or not. There are also a lot of teenaged movie enthusiasts, and a lot of "old" action movies aficionados out there. Let's not forget that piracy probably hurts Fast and Furious 6 a lot more than it does a movie like Breathe In. Movie enthusiasts are willing to spend their money on films they consider worth paying for. The average fan of F&F 6 would probably just download the film and watch it on their 60" flat TV instead. Bottom line: I think cinema's doing alright and we just worry too much :) .

Also, if you haven't done so already, you could maybe watch The Blood of a Poet...

I'm not disputing your assertion here, George, but for the sake of the discussion, who exactly do you include in this demographic: "I think the bigger audience that used to be mainstream America, Europe and the Pacific, have given up on movies and TV altogether" ? I'm just interested to hear your views about it, because I never had the impression that anyone had given up on movies. Unless maybe you meant "movies" as in "going to the cinema". As far as personal experience goes, I live in Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio). The two main cinema chains (Cineworld and Odeon) here are busier than ever. One of them (the latter) even recently broke the all-time daily attendance record in UK / Ireland for that chain. That was around 5 or 6 months ago. And the main demographics in those cinemas are still families with two parents and one / two children. Also, here's an interesting link : https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/who-goes-to-the-movies.html which suggests that the movie-going population (US/Canada) has actually gotten older in recent years, despite the surge of comic-book movies. Edit : I'm also going to throw that in there, just for the sake of doing it: http://www.mpaa.org/resources/5bec4ac9-a95e-443b-987b-bff6fb5455a9.pdf

Apparently confirmed by Kodak... More here: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=60494&p=392495

I just don't know what the marketing people were on when they planned this $200-mil film's campaign... What has anyone seen or heard about this film before its release? That it was from the team who brought us the Pirates films. Well guess what, people might want to see a new Pirates film (I do, I'm a sucker for these movies), but why would they give a damn about a pseudo western made by the same people? Instead of putting the emphasis on, you know, the actual film and how it offered something different from the Pirates films, they went completely the other way and advertised it as a film which may have been Pirates 5 but instead was set in the Far West. I almost got the feeling they had started developing the next Pirates film and at the last minute decided to make it about cowboys and Indians instead. Seriously, the only thing I heard about the actual film was from critics going on about how clichéd Depp's performance was and how his co-star was a nobody coming out of nowhere. Way to go Disney. Now back to the drawing board and make Pirates 5 happen.

OK, So in a very general way, cinema is art, art is experience. Cinema is the most complete of arts - as of today - as it is the one and only that allows us to experience with two of our five senses: sight and hearing. It is a deeply sensory experience. Now, what is story? Story, to me, is the association of several sensory experiences connected to each other - however loosely - and united into a cohesive unit. All the sensory experiences I will live today will form the story of my day. All the sensory experiences I will live throughout my life will be the story of my life. All the sensory experiences I get from following Luke Skywalker on his journey and the Rebellion vanquishing the Empire form the story of Star Wars. The building block of a story is sensory experience, because stories need to be lived, witnessed, or told, to exist. There can be no story if no one knows about it and experiences it in a way or another. Back to cinema. Because cinema relies so heavily on the messages and impulses it sends to our eyes and ears, one could say that the building block of a film narrative are just that: images and sounds. By definition, if your film manages to get your audience to feel like they are experiencing a cohesive unit of images and sounds - meaning images and sounds that somehow segue into each other, or echo each other, because of their nature and/or concept, then you have made a narrative film. In that sense, Koyaanisqatsi is truly a narrative film. It appears to be a collection of images from our world, but the link between them is glaringly obvious, and the use of dramatic music contributes to get the point of these images across: the influence of mankind onto our world is destructive. Whether it is about the universal (Mankind and its evolution in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey), or the particular (A personal journey through life in Tarkovsky's The Mirror), films have this ability to establish narratives that rely on images and sounds rather than words. Now here's the catch: a screenplay is made of words. While a film only relies on images and sounds, it is understood that you should write a screenplay before you can turn your idea into a film. My problem with this is the following : putting images and sounds into words is a rationalization process. If I make films, I conceptualize a film via images and sounds, not words on a piece of paper. If an evocative image comes to my mind and I have to put it into words to explain why it's worth making a film about it, I destroy the power of this image. An image is meant to be shown, not explained. There is no word that's as powerful as an image. The Hollywood system can work however, because the director is not the screenwriter. Therefore, the former is able to discover the latter's work with a fresh pair of eyes, and expand from the screenplay, recreating images and sounds from the words the screenwriter has chosen. One could make the comparison between the director's freedom and a "sandbox videogame" ( a game in which the player is able to go wherever they please, but that is therefore very limited in terms of size). And that would be true : why would you pick the screenplay to "Blade Runner" if what you want to do is tell "The Princess Bride"? When a director picks a screenplay written by someone else, they voluntary commit to limiting their creative freedom in the context of that story, while ensuring that said-story is told in the best possible way, and as close to their personal vision of that story as can be. If the director is the writer, however, the problem is entirely different. You have absolute freedom, you can write any story you want to tell. But those images and concepts, those ideas that you want to turn into a film, you have to deconstruct them and put them into words first, And that deconstruction process is destructive, because it forces you to analyse your ideas and wonder what makes them appealing to you, and adapt them into a text that will have to please somebody else so you can be allowed to go through with it - unless you're also extremely rich but let's face it, that's not a lot of people. So here's my problem with story. I our world, story is associated with script. The script is the story. However, I don't want to tell a story through words, but through images and sounds. Having to transform those images and sounds into words at an early stage in the development of my film is a creative castration. I don't want to articulate my ideas into words. I don't want to trap my vision into a pre-established structure, whose validity is asserted left and right on the basis that other films have made money using that same structure. If I have to explain my images and sounds, to rationalize them, I destroy them, or at the very least, I diminish their power, because I have to analyze them and understand them. And this is why the big movies all look the same. This is why they suffer from excessive expository dialogues and scenes. Because you are asked to connect with the audience on a rational level, instead of a sensory one. David, I think you're spending a lot of time debating a very vaguely defined term like "story". "There Will Be Blood" and "2001" tell "stories" but they aren't traditional 3-act stories driven by classical plot constructions. But that doesn't mean that the filmmakers thought that story was unimportant, it's just that they had a less traditional notion of what "story" means in cinema. I absolutely agree with you that "story" is at best, vaguely defined. When I say story, I mean script, or at least a series of words that tie the narrative of the film into a rational, quantified world. I do not mean story in terms of "concept" tying the images and sounds of a film together, which is the opposite of that script. The first one is a limiting process, the second one is what makes cinema so engaging as an art form. So yes, like those examples you mentioned, I want my films to tell stories. I want to make films such as 2001, Stalker, and Eraserhead. Films that, if you were to put into words or have to explain, would lose whatever made them work in the first place : their images and sounds. Films that would suffer from being turned into texts, because of how much they rely on the sensory experiences that are sight and hearing. Because these, to me, are what constitutes true cinema : films that exist as films, and couldn't work as anything else. Or wouldn't work as well, Their nature is what makes them work. I'm sure the same cannot be said of a lot of films.

First time I've heard of someone else who likes Mulholland Falls. It's a great noir. All my friends hate it for some reason, going as far as saying that The Black Dahlia is better (???) I wasn't a fan of Gangster Squad at all though. It was definitely sitting on the wrong side of the cliché fence for me. Re: the AFI list, I would definitely not have ranked them in the same way, but I pretty much agree with the films that were picked, although only if making a "greatest MOSTLY AMERICAN films of all times". I would have left Birth of a Nation in there, for what the movie represents in terms of expanding film grammar (although I can see why its presence could be seen as politically incorrect nowadays). Fantasia and Close Encounters also probably did not deserve to be left out. Mulholland Drive and Eraserhead should both be in there. If we take a look outside the US borders, Tarkovsky's The Mirror and/or Stalker would rank pretty high in my list. Also, I never ever got into Vertigo. I don't know why, I think it just doesn't work as well as North by Northwest, which was ranked much further down the list. But yeah, they're all good films (I have to admit there are a few films in there I haven't seen - probably between eight and ten) And Blade Runner would have been in the top 10, but that's just my bias talking.

I did hear it, but to be honest, if they shoot on film just to fill the frame with over-the-top CGI in post, like they did on the last three, I just don't see the point. Now, if they try to bring back the spirit of the older trilogy and their sublime models and practical effects, then that's great news.

Yes, David, however like I said, I am mostly interested in narrative cinema, because telling stories is important to me. That's why I keep stressing the fact that I do not wish to dismiss story altogether. I just wish to emphasize the "how" rather than the "what". I think story can stifle creativity. The 3 act structure, the way script are expected to be written to guarantee a return on investment... It's all become such a mathematical, methodical process, that no one should be surprised all movies look the same. I really want to say that the 3 act structure for example is one of the biggest frauds in the history of arts. People think we use it because it works while it's actually the other way around : it works because that's the only thing people know. Kind of like believing the Earth was flat until someone explored the boundaries and found this theory to be false. I think it is necessary for cinema to rekindle with people, not only as a storytelling tool, which is reductive (is that even a word?), but as something that can stand on its own two feet through all the things that set it apart from other storytelling media. As long as the emphasis will be on story, this will not be possible, because people will go watch "stories" instead of "films". A great quote from Gregg, from this other forum he posted a link to: " Idea rules, idea is king, story serves the idea, story is not king." Indeed, cinema has more to offer than story. I want to tell stories, butI want people to enjoy them for the fact they were made as films, and not as books, paintings, songs, etc. And to achieve that, I need to put forward all the technical elements of my films, make them meaningful and visible, so that my film becomes more than just a story. I would like people to walk out and say "What a great film", not "What a great story". Ideas and concepts must rule over storyline in my mind. Film has to transcend its status of storytelling tool. And yes, it's already been done so many times, but not in "mainstream" cinema, because the projects which attempt to do that aren't commercially viable (too risky). And I do realise you're not learning anything here, so please don't misunderstand me. I just want the supremacy of story to end, so we can make room for a more varied cinema, one that does not know any stupid boundaries (3-acts...), one that's freeer, more creative, liberated, aerial, meaningful... Which to me is what it was always meant to be.

Hello Gregg, If this is only Part I, then I can't wait for Part II. You know, somehow I always knew, or at least expected, that when referring to "story", filmmakers were actually referring to a more general, or even "ubiquitous" as you put it, concept. Of course in my previous posts I always used the term story as a synonym for "storyline", "plot points" or even "screenplay". But this enquiry into the real nature of story that you are proposing could be a very exciting project. I felt like I would share a couple of examples of the things that really triggered these questions in my mind (I'm referring to my initial concerns about whether or not story was actually destroying or at least undermining the experience of film). First of all, no need to look very far, I talk about movies all the time with my friends. I am talking about friends who are not involved in filmmaking in any way, and only enjoy films from a cultural and social perspective. Oftentimes I found myself walking out of a theater with one of them and asking them: "So, what did you think?" in an attempt to start some kind of interesting conversation that would delve into the many layers of the film we had just watched and try to put words on all the emotions and feelings that it had triggered inside us. However, never ever did they refer to anything else than "the story" when trying to explain how they felt about it. It's always "Story was great/average/crap" and then we'd spend an enormous amount of time debating the characters' portrayals, their actions, how Charlize Theron was still the hottest woman on Earth, and the general storyline of that film. One could say "Well, that's just because the other elements from the film were used well, and did not overshadow the story". But in this line of thought lies all the problem, I think. I notice these things, because I know you ought to pay attention to them, I know they are meaningful. And I often get angry when I realize that most people do not know they are meaningful. A film has been reduced to its story. Every time I ask them "But what did you think of the visuals?" for example, I get a "You know, I don't really pay attention to that." A lot of people think that to make a film, you just write a script, pick some actors and stick them all inside a room, point a camera at them (wherever you can fit it on the set) and there you go, you have a film. Some people don't realize the amount of thought that's put into lighting a scene. Into editing a scene. Another thing that really got to me is film school. I started film school quite late, in my mid to late twenties, and 99% of the other students were in their late teens, or very early twenties. We had 9 hours of film study per week, which consisted in three classes of three hours where we would watch a film that was considered meaningful from a film history perspective, and then try to dissect it, and understand why it could have been meaningful at the time. Each of these classes was a bloody massacre. Out of 30 students, at least 20 would invariably fall asleep during the film. And even though I know 95% of these guys and girls are now "flipping burgers" and not working in film, they all had a genuine interest in films. They would go on and on about why films were the greatest thing all day long, and they were not in film school for the sake of doing something after their A-levels. But the problem was, they had no interest in what filmmaking is actually about, meaning pictures and sounds, arranged in a meaningful way, and then projected on a screen. Their only interest was in whether or not they could be involved or stimulated by the story (script), and that was that. They did not know that a film could be engaging through its use of pictures, sounds, editing, because all they know are films that only offer entertainment through story. I remember on the first day of the course, when we had to introduce ourselves to each other, and one of the students said his favourite film was Transformers (!!!!!!). I mean, fair enough. So what if Transformers is this guy's favourite film? Maybe he thinks this is the greatest story ever told? Maybe he thinks the film's amazing production and special effects are the cream of the crop in the film business? And so what? Yet somehow, I get the feeling this guy didn't realize that, although making Transformers must be an arduous task that you have to put your heart and soul into, Transformers is a film that relies heavily on its storyline to entertain you. In Transformers, story is everything. There is no desire on the filmmakers' part to pass on something meaningful to their audience through cinematography or sound. Transformers could be an animated film and be the exact same thing. It could be a comic-book and be the exact same thing. It could even be a series of paintings, and yet still be the exact same thing. Transformers has no valid reason to be a film. Anyway, back in film school, every time the lights came back on after a film and my head was crammed with ideas and elements I wanted to discuss, I would see all these people who had fallen asleep on their benches, and I would just get angry inside and shut up for the rest of the class. At the time, I was angry at the concept of story, which I thought was responsible for hiding or overshadowing all the beautiful things that make a film A FILM: moving images and sounds. Editing. Production design, etc. How could we be so dependent on a script, when a script is not even necessary for a film to exist? It is not one of those things that make a film a film. You could get out in the wild with a camera and record images, then go home and associate them in a way that is meaningful or engaging to you, paste some sound or music to them and you would have a film. A film that would not be missing anything. Now I've gotten over my initial anger towards story because, hey, I want to tell stories. I love stories. That's why I've always wanted to be in this line of work. But I want to tell them through film, and that choice has to be meaningful, and motivated. And that means that my most valued tools are cinematography, sound and editing. If my most valued tool was story, well, I would write books. That's a lot less complicated, because as soon as you're done writing, you have your finished story. With a film however, once you're done writing your script, well, you still don't have a film. Not even the first brick in the wall. Anyway, Gregg, thank you very much for this first part, and I'm looking forward to reading what comes next. I'm off to this 48hours boards to read the topic that got you banned from there. Somehow, from the title of that thread, I get the feeling I'm about to facepalm myself to death. Several times.

Unrelated, but I don't know why I forgot to mention Koyaanisqatsi earlier on in this thread... It's also one of these films I keep going back to. The first time I watched it, it really hypnotized me.

I've seen both. It's funny you should mention Enter the Void because I'll be watching it on a big screen for the first time in a couple of weeks, although I didn't like the film upon my first viewing (on DVD). I thought it suffered from the exact same problem as Only God Forgives : the last hour was very boring because the visual extravaganza failed to renew itself and keep things fresh throughout the film. And yet I'm ready to sit through it again because I am convinced the experience is worth living on the big screen... So your guess is spot on : that's exactly the kind of experience that I usually crave. May I ask what you thought of the film, both as a film and as a visual experience? Any similar title that would have gone under the radar and that you would recommend?

Thank you, David. I will order this book. So I just came back from Only God Forgives, and it was one of these films where the director was more interested in style than plot. However, I think he went a bit overboard with this one, using the same repetitive choices throughout the film. I appreciated the look of the film, but would have enjoyed more diversity. I did expect a lot worse from this film after all the negative reviews, which I think painted it in a bad light. It was... average I guess. Enjoyable, but no replay value.

Freya, Thank you very much for your list. I've already seen The Holy Mountain and Sayat Nova, but I not El Topo, so I'll check it out. We also have an upcoming showing of Santa Sangre this month in Dublin and I've been meaning to see it for years so it's going to be a treat to discover it on the big screen. I will definitely check out the other filmmakers from your list, which I know very little of to be honest, with the exception of Peter Greenaway. Thanks again.

I do agree with you on that part. When you're conceptualizing a film, it's up to you to decide every single thing about this film, and by all means if you are in love with a storyline and want to let itself guide you all the way through, no one has the right to tell you not to. I do tend to get carried away easily when I write about something that annoys me (or that i love) and so I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to write this particular sentence or what exactly I had in mind at that moment, but I'm fairly certain that I was talking from a viewer's perspective, not a filmmaker's (or I was talking about my particular perspective when conceptualizing a project). When I watch a film, I give far more importance to the visual, sound and editorial elements than I do to the story. And that is because I am watching a film. Stories and storylines are in every work of art (or even not art) around us : books, paintings, newspapers, even music. When judging a film, it seems to me it's far more important to judge it based on the things that make it a film instead of a book, magazine, painting (...), the things that differentiate this film from say, a book it was adapted from and that tells the exact same story. That's why it's unfair to me to judge a film based on its story rather than how it was made. The story is not what makes a particular film engaging as a film (although the story can make it engaging as a form of entertainment, escapism, social commentary, documentary, etc.), only the stylistic choices of its director (+ cast and crew) are important when appraising its quality. And those things are what I've constantly referred to as the "style" in my posts.

I especially had in mind the "Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes" actually. Of course you wouldn't call that a documentary in the strictest sense of the term, but it was made from material recorded with a documentarist's approach towards the subject as far as the actual techniques were concerned. I'd be interested to know what you think about the necessity for a film to have a good story to be called a "good film" nowadays, since I've often read your posts and I'm pretty sure I remember you mentioning that you came from experimental cinema (please correct me if I'm wrong). What's your take on this subject?

Because we're probably gonna go round in circles for another year or so, and that has probably far more to do with my inability to correctly express myself (plus I'm not even a native English speaker) than with your ability to understand what I'm saying, I've narrowed down my issue with the supremacy of story to this simple line : A film does not have to tell a story for me to like it. That's precisely the assertion that I want to debate in this thread and that I created this topic for. If I can like a film that tells no story, then how can story be so important?

I don't know why you keep making this whole thing about me and other directors' specific styles, which are completely irrelevant to the subject. It seems whenever I say "style" you hear "a director's specific style", while I only mean the general, technical side of things. But it also seems that you actually agree with me, right here: Find a sh!tty script and make it with an enormous amount of style (...) The only guy who I can think of that can do that is John Waters. that it's possible to make a good film even if its story is "shitty". And that's all I wanted to know. If a shitty story can be made into a good film (whoever can or can't do it is irrelevant to the issue), then a good story is not the be-all end-all of a good film. And again, I don't want to "debunk the importance" of story, I want to debunk its supremacy, see title of the thread. And if you re-read my first post, you'll see that the issue I wanted to address was, verbatim: "I'm really tired of this "story is everything" argument" All I wanted you to answer is : "Is story really everything to you?" I never meant to get entangled in this argument about emulating famous directors etc. that came out of nowhere.

OK, sorry Steve but I think somewhere down the line I didn't make myself as clear as I wanted to be. This thread has never been about anyone's style, mine included, or about finding "tricks and shortcuts" to make good films that didn't include a proper story. This thread is about (or at least I want it to be about) debunking the claim that the main, most critical element that makes or breaks a film is its story. So what I'm interested in is more: "Yes, it's true" or "no, it isn't" and why. Not really "go out there and find your own style" which, pretty much is something everybody who's ever been a teenager - and that's a lot of people - knows. You say "all great films have both". Well, let's talk about that. It's always hard to pick a film that everybody considers great, but I think I'm on the right track if I mention 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now, what's so interesting about this film that is considered a classic, a masterpiece, by many? Is it its story? Or its style (as in all the technical elements that make it a film: cinematography, sound, music, editing, etc...)? Is it both? And which if any is the most important of the two? The fact that the prehistoric ape grabs the bone? Or the match cut that follows? What do YOU like the most about this film? What is the main reason, according to you, it went down in film history? Would it be the great film it is today had it been directed, from the exact same script, telling the exact same story, by Ed Wood or Uwe Boll? When you watch it, do you find yourself gripping the edge of your seat because of your involvement with the characters, their development, the dialogues, the stakes? Or rather, do you find yourself humbled by the beauty of the pictures, the mood of the film, its hypnotic pace, its grandioso use of classical music? Do you see my point more clearly now? I'm not here to discuss any filmmaker's particular "style", find inspiration, be taught that I have to find my own style... I know these things. I just want to know if all these people from inside and outside the industry who keep going on about how story is the greatest thing, how it's the central, pivotal element that a film relies on to be good or not, are seriously mistaken. Because I personally think they are. I think style is much more important than story, and there's no need to make excuses for it, because the Mona Lisa, had it been painted by a wannabe painter fancying himself as a master of arts, would have looked like crap. I think, in art, the story/subject always takes a back seat in favour of the style/techniques used.

Thank you for your reply. You certainly may have a point. I'm inspired by my favourite filmmakers' styles. However, like you, I do not aspire to be them. But just like when you learn how to paint, you have to start out by emulating the masters to find your own style. I do have much to learn yet, as we probably all do. But I also think I have a point if you consider the genesis of a film. I've written several screenplays, and for every single one of them, they didn't start out as ideas for a story, but as images, sounds or even music that were evocative for me. It could be something as simple as a character erring down a lifeless city's ruins, or a song by whoever that triggered a stream of images and emotions inside my head. And then, using those images, I try to find the story that could be hidden underneath them. But I always make it a priority to keep those images and sounds in the final script. They are my priority, because I trust the emotions I get from them more than any storyline or plot element I could come up with. So I make sure I get those images in the script and then try to articulate them into a story, instead of scribbling down a story and then try to transform it into images and sounds. I hope you understand what I mean, cause I'm not particularly good with words. I've always really liked that sentence in your signature by the way : "If I could express what I meant in words, why would I make a film?". Spot on. Also, while I don't think great style and great story are mutually exclusive (like I said in my first post, "I get far more involved into a film if it has a story to tell"), I do think it is necessary for a film to have a great style (whatever my idea of "great style" is) for me to like it regardless of its story. For example, I really enjoyed Valhalla Rising (which I know a lot of people on this forum hated because of its video-ish cinematography) because I really enjoyed the style of this film. But its story, I didn't care about it at all. Hell, I even enjoyed Prometheus, even though its script was one of the worst to ever make it onto the silver screen in years! So even if they are not mutually exclusive, I do think the only necessary thing for a movie to have to be enjoyable is style, not story.