On the nerdy academic list-serv the cinetrix subscribes to in an attempt to mitigate her street cred, a microdebate has been raging about punk and post-punk cinema. Does it exist? What are the criteria? Can a punk film come out of a studio or must it hew to the DIY aesthetic? Is Dogme 95 punk? Who are punk film's antecedents? Brakhage? Alex Cox? Bunuel? Godard circa Weekend? The Italian neorealists? And when does punk become post-punk? In the wan ennui and passivity of, say, Radiohead's film Meeting People Is Easy?
This guy has a couple of theories:
[I]f the post-punk films have absorbed the visual and narrative logic of what was once extreme postmodern aesthetics -- self-reflexivity, irony, jump-cut editing, hypertext -- they've taken a new turn, a turn that involves the audience in ways that earlier experimental films by the likes of Godard and Warhol, for instance --never did. Postmodernism's distancing effect -- a residual effect of modernism's layered complexity -- is rejected in post-punk film in favor of a kind of democratic return to the audience...
These are films for those who believe that narrative matters, and that mere style is not a substitute for a good story. They are made by a generation of directors who fuse what used to be called (but can no longer be called) experimental style with the most basic, genre-driven narrative. And it's this profane, under-the-table handholding between anarchic, rule-breaking abandonment (or, what director Harmony Korine refers to as "mistakist cinema") and orthodox stories that characterizes the best post-punk films.
Basically, for all its flash, punk cinema is painfully sincere. Its heightened emotional register often verges on old-fashioned melodrama. How... adolescent.
Makes sense to the cinetrix. Given punk music's roots in Orange County and Johnny Ramone's rampant Republicanism, are we really surprised that punk film might break the rules in the most conservative way possible? Keep it real. Accessorize your dissent!
Seriously, though, the cinetrix suspects that considering punk cinema as a many-headed hydra, like film noir, might make sense. Is it a style or a historical genre? Strictly DIY flicks screened in rock clubs or a shared language of studio-made cult movies like Donnie Darko or Requiem for a Dream or even Fight Club that punks might mention in their punk personals? Your guess is as good as mine.
That's why the cinetrix had to laugh when she stumbled across this syllabus for a punk film class. Check out the course policies:
This is not your average course. There are no tests or papers. The only thing that determines your grade is your attendance and (hopefully enthusiastic) participation. In other words, as long as you show up and speak your mind (which is what education is really all about in the first place), you will do very well in this course. This class meets eight times this semester. If you show up to all eight classes, you get an A. If you show up to seven classes, you get an A-. If you show up to six classes, you get a B. If you show up to five classes, you get a C. If you show up at only four classes, you get a D. If you show up to fewer than four classes, you will fail the course.
Way to fuck the man, man. Taking attendence is SO PUNK ROCK.
