in "Dante's Peak"
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Of Films and Movies: The Terms
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| My "movie" links deal primarily with new pictures from the big studios, while my "film" links are usually more academic or serious in content, where the word "criticism" may be used. To my mind, movies like Dante's Peak are "entertainment" for the pure joy and fun of it all; they are popular in the broadest sense of the word. Films like Truffaut's Jules and Jim (click "Go to the Favorite Film Websites Menu" at the bottom of this page) comprise the best of the movies, those films that attempt to say something new or significant about the human condition or about how man perceives reality. | |
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| Pierce Brosan and Linda Hamilton in "Dante's Peak" |
| Some might simply say that films are, in general, more artful than
the typical Hollywood movie. In this sense, Total Recall with Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Independence Day are popular movies, ones created expressly
for a mass audience, whose primary—if not sole—purpose is to make lots of money.
(By the way I'm not denigrating either of these films; I liked Total Recall and
Independence Day.)
Compared to these "popular" movies, Orson Welles's Citizen Kane is a classic film. Why? Because Citizen Kane resonates with power and richness; the film contains layer upon layer of meaning. Each new viewing of the film reveals unexpected and profound depths, exposes hidden meanings, and tells us more of the human condition. |
| Of course, a classic film can be popular as well. The majority of Alfred Hitchcock's films, for example, were great commercial successes (think of Psycho or The Birds). The great majority of Hitchcock's films also plumbed the psychological depths of their creator and toyed with the inner fears of the audiences. Hitchcock's films are, in a sense, like the Grimm's fairytales that present unpleasant fears and phobias in the guise of simplistic narrative fiction. |  |
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Jeanne Moreau, Oskar Werner, and Henri
Serre in Truffaut's "Jules and Jim" |
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Perhaps James Monaco puts it best in How to Read A Film (New York, 1980) when he writes: "French theorists are fond of making the differentiation between 'film' and 'cinema.' The 'filmic' is that aspect of the art concerning its relationship with the world around it; the 'cinematic' deals strictly with the esthetics and the internal structure of the art. In English, we have a third word for 'film' and 'cinema'—'movies'—which provides a convenient label for the third facet of the phenomenon of film: its function as an economic commodity. These three aspects are closely interrelated, of course: one person's 'movie' is another's 'film.' But in general we use these three names for the art in a way that closely parallels this differentiation: 'movies,' like popcorn, are to be consumed; 'cinema' (at least in American Parlance) is high art, redolent of esthetics; 'film' is the most general term with the fewest connotations (195)." The third edition of How to Read A Film was available in 1997. This edition has the distinction of having its own Web Page. Check out the book at: http://www.readfilm.com/htr1.htm. |
| Some "film" sites might also be "movie" sites
as I have defined them, and I attempt no purist's fine delineation or judgment. I have
therefore included "Mr. Showbiz" in both Entertainment (on my main WordSmyth
Website) and Favorite Film Sites (here).
By the way, I'm not suggesting that popular movies are trite and shallow. For those who know how to "read" them, even the popular movies hold deeper significance. For an excellent analysis of the deeper meanings that underlie the popular Hollywood movies of the 1940's and '50's, I recommend Michael Wood's enlightening and very readable America in the Movies (New York: Delta, 1978). |
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