Editor's Note

So yet another worst Cannes ever has come and gone, and, a year hence, a phoenix will again rise from the ashes. Awards might not mean much, but they do signify something like the zeitgeist. The most positive result of the Palme being given to Michael Moore—as even if Bush isn’t elected, I doubt we would be able to trace any significant causal factor back to Moore—is that it helped bring attention to a neverending debate, the one that asks, “What Is Cinema?” (Or, in the Moore parlance, “What is Cinematic?”) In choosing the films to highlight, film festivals (or film magazines) reveal their responses to that question; and when a shift happens in the Cannes criteria, that shift is potentially seismic. My conclusion is that the Cannes film festival is coming up with some right answers (as seen in their new Cannes Classics sidebar and a greater attention to documentary filmmaking), but, for the most part, they aren’t, and there will be ramifications for filmmaking around the world, believe me. What kind of films are they encouraging up-and-comers to produce? (To mention one egregious and widely trade-praised example, check out Cronicas, an “Ecuadorian” serial-killer film starring John Leguizamo and Leonor Watling workshopped at Sundance. Or don’t check it out—you’ll be missing nothing.) One might say that the films praised in this issue were at Cannes by accident, in the sense that the festival would have got along fine without them. They serve to appease a certain constituency, a minority that includes the few thousand of you who buy and read this magazine. While the number of films being made keeps increasing, our minority stays the same.

There’s nothing at all wrong with being negative from time to time, and there’s plenty curmudgeons out there who I’m sure will agree with me—and even more who would agree if they, too, had to get up at 8.00 in the morning to see The Edukators instead of a new film from Hou Hsiao-hsien. Hence, in the following pages I have resorted to being the bad cop, followed by good cops (although, this cadre of cops all would most assuredly agree that Michael Moore is not going to save cinema). And nobody wants to play bad cop when the rest of the policemen are running around with plastic daisies poking out of their gun barrels, but somebody has to take the fall. If we don’t speak up against the bulk of the cinema, that bulk which comprises the cinema that we don’t like, then we’re not doing our duty as anti-globalist warriors. There was a period when the door between cinema and the outside world was permeable (they call it the late 60s), but in the past decade, the door seems to have slammed shut. Or was it just a dream? Some people might be upset that it’s been pried open again, even if just a crack, by events taking place in the real world that make us question the place and purpose of art as a whole—it’s that political development (predating Michael Moore) which Fahrenheit 9/11 capitalizes upon, but which Cannes prefers to ignore in favour of films that will appeal to the vocal majority. In other words, it’s fine if you Americans want to go out and campaign against Bush, and, trust me, it would be great if you can help him out of office. But then what?

Mark Peranson

Editor and Publisher
Mark Peranson
Art Direction and Design
Ingrid Paulson
Managing Editor
Jason McBride
Associate Editors
Lee Ferguson, Jessica Winter
Contributing Editors
Tom Charity, Steve Gravestock, Dennis Lim, Ray Pride
Copy editor
Jack Vermee
Web Design
Adrian Kinloch

MAGAZINE PHOTO CREDITS
Capri Films Releasing: 69; Phil Chambliss: 38; Dreamworks/Paramount: 49; Filmswelike: 72; Edgar Honetschläger: 58; Image.net: 73; Peter Lynch/NFB: 20, 23; Guy Maddin: 2-3; MGM/UA: 70; Munich Film Museum: 52, 55; New York Film Festival: 26-7; Odeon Films: 67, 71, 74; Mark Peranson: 32; Rhombus Media/Don McKellar: Cover, 10; Sparky Pictures: 34; Toronto International Film Festival: 63; TVA: 6-9; Vancouver International Film Festival: 28-9; Venice Film Festival: 18-19; Apicahtpong Weerasethakul: 78; Winnipeg Film Group: 15.

Cinema Scope (issn 1488-7002) (gst 866048978RT0001) is published quarterly by Cinema Scope Publishing. Issue 20. Vol. 6, No. 3. Fall or Autumn 2004. ©2004. All rights reserved. No parts of this web site may be reproduced in any form without permission. All articles remain property of their authors. Submissions are eagerly encouraged - email info@cinema-scope.com

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