Why CR5FC?

I've had a lot of happy times working at the work I do. The happiest were in CR5. Most of those happy memories involve either violence or singing or walking.

But one specific moment of those happy times involved a film club.

I've been a cinephile since before I had ever heard the word. I grew up adoring the cinema and that has never left me. My engagement with cinepheliac culture has waxed and waned over the years. One of those "waxes" was the meeting of Brandon followed by a few good years of film blogging.

I don't know if I have it in me to maintain this new film blog. There has been a period of "waning" the past couple years. And maybe this is good. Maybe it's as things should be. But right now I feel like starting a new blog. Maybe. Maybe.

I'm pretty sure I have it in me to see The Force Awakens a fourth time before it leaves Cinema Saver. And, yeah, I'll be buying it on Blu-ray.

I get all of the criticisms of The Force Awakens. I think that they're all hard-hearted nonsense. The Force Awakens has me excited about movies again. Hail, Caesar! for all of its comic genius, didn't have me feeling that. Knight of Cups certainly doesn't do it for me. The Force Awakens grabbed that stupid little kid in me that loves the world and loves life and so loves the cinema.

Let's do this.

Blog on.

THE POSITION OF THE SPECTATOR

Eric Rohmer:

Not only is there beauty and order in the world, but beauty and order are only in the world. For how could art, a human product, be the equal of nature, a divine work? At best, it is only the revelation, in the universe, of the hand of the Creator. I'll admit: there is no position more teleological, more theological, than my own. This is the position of the spectator. If he hadn't already found beauty in the world, how could he pursue it in images of the world? How could he admire the imitation of life, if he didn't admire life itself? This is the position of the filmmaker. If I film a thing, it's because I find it beautiful; therefore, I film it because it exists in the nature of beautiful things. The is the position of every artist, of every appreciator of art. If I didn't find nature beautiful - light, air, the sky, space - I would not find the work of any painter beautiful, neither Leonardo, nor Turner, nor Hartung.