Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Melis Behlil Ravenous Cinephiles: Cinephilia, Internet, and Online Film Communities 2005 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/11995 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Sammelbandbeitrag / collection article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Behlil, Melis: Ravenous Cinephiles: Cinephilia, Internet, and Online Film Communities. In: Marijke de Valck, Malte Hagener (Hg.): Cinephilia. Movies, Love and Memory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press 2005, S. 111– 123. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/11995. Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Creative Commons - This document is made available under a creative commons - Namensnennung - Nicht kommerziell 3.0 Lizenz zur Verfügung Attribution - Non Commercial 3.0 License. For more information gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu dieser Lizenz finden Sie hier: see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0 Ravenous Cinephiles Cinephilia, Internet, and Online Film Communities Melis Behlil jbottle – : AM/EST March , (# of ) “I guess we all hold onto some movie, usually for personal reasons...” Yeah, for some reason I really like Mike’s Murder, so I can forgive someone’s perso- nal faves. For every LLV [Leaving Las Vegas] lover there’s somebody out there who obsesses over routinely dismissed film O.C. & Stiggs and even something as distaste- ful as Ravenous. oilcanboyd – : PM ET March , (# of ) Obsess –“To preoccupy the mind of excessively.” While O.C. & Stiggs does haunt me, and Ravenous is my th favorite movie of all time, neither one preoccupies my mind excessively. I only discuss them when I am asked to do so by a fellow poster. To ignore such requests would be rude. I may have a lot of bad traits, one of which is being not long on truthfully or fairly attributing remarks to others, but rudeness is not one of them. The above is a fairly classic exchange from two of the more seasoned members of the New York Times Film Forums. It contains references to some of the most often-mentioned films of these Forums: oilcanboyd often expresses his admira- tion for O.C. & Stiggs (USA: Robert Altman, ), and every time Ravenous (Czech Republic/UK/Mexico/USA/Slovakia: Antonia Bird, ) or anyone re- lated to that film is mentioned, he makes a point of commenting on it, often noting that it is his eleventh favorite film of all time. “Ravenous” in the title of this article refers not only to this film and the little ritual around it, but also to the position the “forumites” (Forum members) have had vis-à-vis the forums, in the way that this online community satisfied a long-standing hunger for discus- sions with fellow cinephiles. The New Cinephilia With the changes technology has brought to contemporary life, cinephiles – for whom movies are a way of life, films and how they are experienced have un- dergone major changes. The classic cinephile, as the term was adopted in the 112 Cinephilia s, connected the love of cinema to the actual medium of film, and to the movie-going experience. Being a cinephile involved traveling to distant theaters to track down obscure art films and discussing them with fellow cinephiles, either in ciné-clubs or in respectable film journals. In the late s and early s, the boom in home-viewing technologies and the decline in the number of art house theaters changed things. And with the popularization of the inter- net in the s, the cinephile world became a whole different scene. For some, like Susan Sontag, David Denby, and David Thomson, this marked the death of cinema and cinephilia. For others, it was merely a new beginning. In “The Decay of Cinema” Susan Sontag lamented the death of cinephilia. She argued that “going to the movies” was a great part of the movie experience, and that the vanished rituals of the theatre could not be revived. The discussions about the possible death of cinephilia have continued and are linked very clo- sely to the differences between movie-going and home-viewing. Born into an pre-existing home-viewing culture, I am among those who think limiting cine- philia to movie-going is a restrictive and provisional way of perceiving the love of cinema. Not only that, but it is also restrictive in the sense that people living outside of a handful of Western metropolises did not have the chance, until recently, to see non-mainstream fare, on or off the screen. Theo Panayides calls our generation (those born in the late s and early s) “the best genera- tion in which to be a film-buff.” We can access films that were never so easily available before, and unlike the subsequent generations, the “vast hinterland of film history” is not yet “impossible to encompass.” This is the age of “the new cinephilia,” which really got going with the home video, and it is not necessa- rily inferior to the cinephilia of the s. The new cinephilia is closely related to technology, in the way that it relies on the gadgets that make home theaters possible: first the VCR, then the hi-fi sur- round sound systems, and lastly the DVD. The new cinephiles may be called videophiles instead, but it is the same love for an art form. Those bemoaning the demise of cinema often argue that movie theaters have all been cut into movieplexes with many tiny theaters, all showing the most recent, unoriginal and uninspired blockbusters. It is at home, however, that a film lover can watch more or less any film he/she desires, sometimes in conditions that are better than those in some stuffy, tiny movieplex theater. Repeated viewings don’t cost extra and favorite scenes can be rewound and rewatched at one’s own leisure. The availability of films is assured not only through giant merchandisers like Amazon.com, but also through specialized film stores such as Video Search of Miami, which claims to have “more than , Cult, Exploitation, Foreign, and Bizarre movie titles” on VHS or DVD. In addition, one can (legally or often illegally) download copies of films from peer-to-peer (pp) systems, or ex- change DVDs or tapes with other cinephiles on the internet. Ravenous Cinephiles 113 Not surprisingly, the new breed of cinephilia feeds itself intellectually through the technology of the internet. Various sites on the net are not only the source of great (and unfortunately not always correct) information, but they also provide a space for cinephiles to get together and exchange ideas, and fuel their need to discuss the films they have seen, which is a part of the cinephiliac tradition. In an attempt to build an analogy, one can argue that online commu- nities are to home viewing, what ciné clubs were to the movie-going experience. Similarly, there are online journals such as Scope, Senses of Cinema or Film Philo- sophy that are no less stimulating than their printed counterparts, which are also often partly or fully available online to readers who would not have a chance to get hold of this material otherwise. Local film critics and gurus of the s’ cinephilia have been joined by online film critics such as James Berardinelli and Mike D’Angelo, who are read by thousands around the world. Online film critics are taken more seriously than they used to be just a few years ago, and many published film critics reach larger audiences through their publications’ websites. Just as it is easier to obtain films and access journals, it is also easier to meet fellow cinephiles on the internet. Fellow film buffs may be easy to find in large cities or on university campuses, but cinephiles living in more rural and less culturally diverse areas are frequently on their own when it comes to tastes in film. However, online film critic Bryant Frazer argues that despite the existing forums and discussion sites, “a real sense of community” is missing online. I disagree with him because I believe that these communities are real, although he does have a point when he says that “discussions that ensue tend to the diffuse – soundbite discussions peppered with moments of insight from a few hardy posters who really shouldn’t waste their time contributing to a commu- nity that gives them so little in return.” However, these are still valid online communities that provide people with an unprecedented sense of camaraderie, and in the case that I will be discussing, can evolve into something that goes beyond “soundbite discussions.” My case study starts with the New York Times Film Forums, and continues with its spin-offs, the Milk Plus Blog and The Third Eye Film Community. I will use the term “online” and “cyber” instead of “virtual” since these com- munities are as “real” as any other. The “realness” of these communities is not to be doubted; as Steven Jones contends: “Internet users have strong emotional attachments to their on-line activities.” Howard Rheingold, one of the initial theorists and earliest advocates of online communities, spoke of his “family of invisible friends.” While validity of online communities as communities prop- er has been frequently debated, it has become quite clear that there is a need to redefine community, and that the old definitions and concepts are largely obso- lete today. What some adversaries of online communities argue, namely that a 114 Cinephilia virtual community can never truly become a community, is not only restrictive but it also makes the mistake of confusing “the pastoralist myth of the commu- nity for the reality” according to Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia. For the cinephiles in question here, there often is no possibility of another, “real” com- munity.