Praeterita

Is it the case that an artist just creates in a vacuum, with no knowledge of the art that came before? Is it really true that it's better just to make your work, whether it be fiction, film, or painting, and not "spoil" or "taint" yourself by getting bogged down in the work of the past? Should you, when you go to college to study any of those arts, be prepared to consider the history of your chosen medium in an analytical way, or should you just learn how to hold a brush, focus a camera, and write a scene, and not bother with all that old stuff? Still from Federico Fellini's "I Vitelloni," 1953 It's an argument that is pertinent to the Film and Video Department of Columbia College Chicago at the moment, which as part of its academic prioritization process is facing the elimination of its Cinema Studies from the curriculum. Department Chair Bruce Sheridan, who I mentioned in my last blog post about the superb film/live orchestra event la...

I went to a great event last night at Columbia College Chicago: excerpts from the films "The Piano" and "The Reader", plus three 5 minute student films, all accompanied by a live orchestra. It took place in the movie studio space (big, cavernous, but acoustically good, believe it or not) of Columbia's prize-winning new media arts building. There were three screens, the central one showing the movies, the other two showing the orchestra, via a live relay from two cameras positioned on either side of the auditorium. In front was the 25 piece orchestra -- FulcrumPoint , an ensemble dedicated to new music, and led by the charismatic Stephen Burns. For "The Reader", they played Nico Muhly's music, which was surprisingly conservative for him, though the fact that it sounded like a tasteful movie soundtrack is not to detract from the experience of hearing it live. The student films had scores composed by Columbia students (who have since graduated a...

The word 'film maker' is really a short-hand for the many artistic activities that Bruce Sheridan pursues. It's true that he makes films, and is the Chair of the Film and Video Department at Columbia College Chicago, where he was instrumental in bringing about the creation of the Media Production Center, an architecturally stunning building that opened its doors in the Loop in 2010. You can get an idea of the range of those activities (film, music, philosophy) at the website createbruis.com . After hearing Bruce's presentation for the Story and the Arts panel that we both participated in a few weeks ago, I was keen to get him to expand on his views on creativity, imagination, and the commonalities between different forms of art. Philip : Usually I'd start with a biographical question, but there are links for that , so I'll just jump straight in and ask: what sort of films do you like to make? Bruce : My first instinct is to say that I mainly want to NOT make t...

So I was on a panel at Columbia College Chicago's Story Week Festival, and above is a rough cut of the video that was shot during the event. By the way, that opening image is of Dan Sinker, the journalist who did the whole fake Rahm Emmanuel Twitter account thing. Two points: a) he teaches at Columbia College; b) if you don't follow American politics or know about the recent Chicago mayoral election, you won't know what the hell I'm talking about. The whole video gives you clips of the events that took place throughout the day. If you can't wait, and want to skip to the part where Patty introduces our panel, it's at about the 4 minute 38 second mark. The panel I was on was called Story and the Arts. Patty (my wife, the writer whose debut short story collection has just been published, Associate Professor in the Fiction Writing department, etc) had the idea of asking people who work in a broad range of disciplines at Columbia to give 15 minute presentations about...