On the one hand, cinematic means of expression are very dynamic. For example, films become obsolete relatively quickly. New trends and manifestos emerge which also soon find their way into the archives of history, such as Dogma-95. On the other hand, cinema can also be stable. Some codes and conventions, clichés are fixed for a long time while others seem to remain forever. Mass appeal, large box office receipts and successful distribution contribute to the conservatism of artistic expressive means. However, capital begins to look for technical improvements and new approaches to the changing audience in times of crisis.
The First, Second, Third Cinema and the End of History
Cinema is heterogeneous. We can mention Hollywood and other commercial cinema, the so-called “first cinema”. It owns the rental screen time in movie theaters. Also we can notice the “second cinema” which appeared with the New Wave in Europe after the Second World War. This alternative meant a step forward as it demanded the director’s freedom of expression in a non-standard language and was an attempt at cultural decolonization. But such attempts had long ago reached what was allowed by the System. The director of the “second cinema” remained in Godard’s words “locked in a fortress.” Both the first and second cinema are essentially mainstream. While the first is pop mainstream then the “second cinema” is art house mainstream. Both are elements of the dominant system for reproducing passivity or Fukuyama’s End of History. The composition of the “third cinema” (counter-cinema or avant-garde) has historically varied. The dominant system is able to co-opt its historical manifestations through commodification.
Sacralizing “Big” Screen and Filters
This situation creates ideological filters of film recognition, i.e. on the film’s way to the screen. In this case, we are talking about the “big” screen or, in other words, the sacred screen. The big or sacred screen performs the functions of centers, galleries for contemporary art. An exhibition venue is able to turn a thing into an art object by the very fact of its exposition. The sacral screen has the same power. Power (authority) and sacredness walk hand in hand.
If we are talking about the first cinema (Hollywood or other commercial), a big screen can be considered a screen in a movie theater. As a rule, it is a multiplex or a system of cinemas. Multiplex cinema in a large shopping center is the most effective economic model in the absence of public funding. In this case, the big screen is able to turn into “screen time”. In turn, screen time becomes the item of lease agreements between distributors, rights holders, and cinemas. Such a movie theater loses its economic independence and becomes an appendage of the distribution system. Only this system can ensure the box office and, consequently, the survival of the theater. This is confirmed by the fact that in such cinemas there is no projection equipment other than DCP (Digital Cinema Package). These projectors are connected to common servers. In this way, the encrypted DCP format ensures that the copyright holder has control over the theater and the use of screen time.
Of course, today’s big screen can be considered popular streaming platforms. The sacredness of the screen can manifest itself in the attention of the audience. The consumer’s attention has become a commodity. Attention is capitalized in audience engagement and retention. The duration of attention predetermines the number of views and popularity. Thus, the decisive filter is the attention focus of the average viewer, the dominant ideology values bearer.
The filter on the way to the screen has an umbrella character. It determines, through institutions, education, experts, critics, what is suitable and what is not suitable for the sacred screen. It is echoed by the second, auteur cinema, an imaginary alternative. After all, it should not be assumed that exploration and innovation are not welcomed by the system. It is not. As Fernando Solanas mentioned Irwin Silber in his manifesto “Towards a Third Cinema”, virulence, nonconformism, plain rebelliousness, and discontent are just so many more products on the capitalist market; they are consumer goods… In reality the area of permitted protest of the System is much greater than the System is willing to admit. This gives the artists the illusion that they are acting ‘against the system’ by going beyond certain narrow limits; they do not realise that even anti-System art can be absorbed and utilised by the System, as both a brake and a necessary self-correction.
Fernando Solanas
In this regard, the authors of rejected films and other works should ask themselves questions. Were their works rejected simply because they failed to compete for the “big screen” with better ones, from the System’s point of view? Were they rejected because such works are threatening and subverting the System?
In truth, it is difficult to imagine a work that would be dangerous to the System or subvert it today. It is as difficult as seeing something beyond the horizon of the end of history as described by Francis Fukuyama. But that is what makes it a vital challenge to recognize an alternative perspective and to help others see it.
To that end, we have created a special section of rejected films. Cinema history is written by the winners. But we need an alternative history to see the hidden horizon. So we are trying to find glimpses of what has been rejected by the System.
For our part, we have to start with the fact that the screening of rejected films should either become a rejected screening or do justice and sacralize the rejected film on the big screen.
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