OK, OK "...and our fathers that begat us." Fine.
So let's talk about famous men, shall we? The cinetrix is recovering from a recent road trip to hear a film-studies eminence grise speak. [Which one? Have you taken a film class? Ever? Then you've purchased at least one book by this person. In fact, I always imagined this prodigiously productive scholar's summer house expanding with each subsequent edition published and purchased. But I digress.]
Truth be told, the subject matter wasn't the draw as much as the promised opportunity to dine with said muckety-muck afterward and perhaps kiss his ring. Only the dinner failed to materialize, at least in a configuration that included me. Or the person who encouraged me to attend. Ooops.
The talk itself was fine, if not exactly a paradigm-shifting experience, but both the slides during and the Q&A after reminded the cinetrix of just why academic confabs can be as tedious as civilian film geek get-togethers: All the alpha male display. You could illustrate this point with a slide from another film, but choose to use one from Godard's Made in U.S.A., thus advertising your access to a film famously unavailable in the States. Similarly, never ever use one Sam Fuller example when you could use three. Favor flicks featuring Robert Ryan. Aver, in passing, to the tragic lack of a DVD version of Pete Kelly's Blues while you point out salient aspects in the frame grab from Webb's film. Name-check Anthony Mann. You get the idea.
During the Q&A, entertain questions from younger men whose queries advertise what they already know [which, if you believe Eliot and Bloom, is you and your work], and provide them with opportunities to use abbreviations like A.S.L. [think cinema studies as train-spotting, and you're on your way]. And so on.
It was so bad that the cinetrix was actually delighted when a random, mentally ill-seeming local character who'd wandered onto campus for the talk started asking the honored guest a host of slightly off questions, until he was gently but forcefully ssshhhed by the moderator. I guess Rainman-style monomania is permissible only when you refer obsessively to certain subjects in a certain way.
