Thursday, September 14, 2006

Moral Ambiguity

I would like to argue that film-going, Hollywood style, is a Godly pursuit. It's a light emitting medium that presents to us with a set of clearly defined morals. Full of angels and demons, we usually find ourselves aligning with the filmmakers conception of justice, afterwards feeling vindicated in our decision, and if the filmmaker is particulariy effective, ready to spread the feel-good-word to those around us.

On the otherhand there is a devil of a cinema out there, far less popular than your good news cinema. It operates under an entirely different set of conventions. Morality is questionable, ambiguous. It can be confusing and many times there are no definitive answers provided.

They're also at the foundation of the Canadian film tradition which is linked closely to the European auteur tradition, where the directors of the film are the largest selling point, even larger than the actors. This cultivates the expression of individual morality rather than the collective morality of Hollywood. Each auteur piece "belongs in spirit" to the director and goes to illustrate the relatively of morality itself, which is a tough swallow from the Judeo-Christian film going perspective.

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