On the NYTimes aricle, "20 Directors to Watch" - 09/05/13

Critics 

Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott

You wonder if NYTimes writers and editors ever actually step outside their own writing and read it back to themselves in a very objective manner.  This type of myopia is very revealing, however, especially in the latest review of filmmakers that are "making a difference" around the world of cinema.  Here is the paragraph I'd like to concentrate on, in full:

"The good news is that, despite occasional critical claims to the contrary, the quality of contemporary cinema is as exciting as the quantity is intimidating. Filmmakers around the world are making movies that blur the boundaries between documentary and fiction, personal reflection and social advocacy, conventional narrative and radical experimentation."

This reveals a trend in the writing of media criticism, and media itself.  While trying to sound smart they reveal the very nascent nature of modern filmmaking, ergo social development, in that there is an ever-closing gap of style that also is closing the gap for us in reality.  Documentary and Fiction, for example.  I recently saw the teen flick Transformers 2 wherein two robots are fighting.  One complains, Hey that Hurt!  The other states quickly, It's supposed to hurt, it's an ass-kickin'!  Ok, so Documentary and Fiction are SUPPOSED to be different, otherwise, what are they then?  Please people, if it isn't a fact, don't call it one.  Call it fiction, even historical fiction, which is still fiction based on a reality.  Like the movie Perfume, no one will take that for fact, although it is surrounded by historical fact, and is a great period piece for its authenticity.  

Question: Are we "blurring the lines" because we're bored with them?  I'd say that, and the fact that it is in our nature to move the lines, to ignore them, to flout our disaffection with them, or to outright obliterate them.  The word Truth has become this social anathema.

I love Terrence Malick's work.  My new most favorite film ever is The New World.  It's a masterpiece.  Upon reflection my heart wants to say, "You know, that's probably a lot closer to the real thing in history than anything that we have written about it so far."  John Smith was more John Smith, and Pocahontas was definitely in character, as were all the others down the list.  Fantastic.  We know this based on many historical facts at our disposal.  Mallick was a Rhodes scholar and knows his history.  But I would never, ever, call this a documentary!  It's an "art" piece.  The whole thing is a giant allegorical, poetic journey into the CHARACTERS of Smith and the Indian Princess, not to be taken as a literal treatise that would lead one to re-write textbooks.  It is a romance that Mallick also cleverly uses to showcase the social and historical realities of the period as allegory.  Perfectly done.

As for boundaries existing between personal reflection and social advocacy, does this mean that it's getting harder to tell what is simply opinion and what is a statement that is political or has an agenda?  That makes no sense.  Films are always political, because life is political, and people always have an agenda, even in the most fluffy of family films.  Let's return to Transformers again, since that's fresh on my mind.  The new state department guy that is sent out to "monitor" the Autobot program confronts the big kahuna transformer Prime guy, and he states concerning the giant Transformer, to no one in particular, yet distinctly as narration over the top of all else taking place in the scene, "If God made us, complex as we are, then who made him?"  This would definitely reveal a philosophical bias on the part of the scriptwriter.

Concerning the aesthetic differences between conventional narrative and experimental film, my comments do not apply.  Someone has always tried to break the mold of both ends of this spectrum, and with surprising results have often had breakthroughs that redefine cinema.  This is a good thing, and indeed does reflect a creativity and level of fighting against tedium that is much needed for film to survive.

How about the rest of the paragraph?

"The oldest filmmakers on our list were born in 1973, on the eve of the home-video revolution, making them members of the first true on-demand generation. They have grown up with unprecedented access to movies from across the globe and from different epochs, an abundance of influences that informs their work and can make it difficult to pigeonhole them aesthetically or regionally."

Another way to look at this might be that they're confused.  I'd say simply that it makes it difficult to understand some of their work, because now, like the blurring of the documentary and fiction, we have a blurring of understanding of who we are, therefore purposelessness is a new staple of the modern script.  In fact, the more fundamentally "unfinished" a work is, the more it is adored, it seems, because along with "truth" being a word that is like the plague, there are also other words that we are crossing off the common usage and media lists: conclusion, purpose, moral, deduction, resolution, direction, the end.  You get the idea.

NYTimes writers have much in common, it would seem, with the modern filmmaker of the 21st century's beginning, having the same myopic inability to introspectively regulate their own blurring of the lines between documentary and fiction.

NYTimes article link: http://tinyurl.com/k7kplwr