Doug Cummings (from Masters of Cinema) has a really great piece about Danielle Huillet on his blog (http://www.filmjourney.org). Doug (who is one of the many "online" friends that i have) had an interesting article on his blog a few months ago, about the change in film culture, and how there is a vital network of people who "discuss" films online.... but when you're going out for an evening, and you're with other people, most of the time the social interactions happen over the usual Hollywood fare. And that's the problem. A lot of the type of discussions that we had going to see (say) "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" we now have discussing (say) "Lost" or "Project Runway" or whatever the hell the new hot, hip, happening TV show is.

It's hard, because for films to retain the cultural prominence they once had, there is a need for the films to have an audience which is engaged in the work. Can that happen anymore? I'm at a loss to even think about it, especially after the experience of the last weekend, with my attendance at the avant-garde programs... on Saturday, i was running into people left and right (Ernie Gehr, P. Adams Sitney, Babette Mangolte, Ross Lipman, Paul Arthur, Tony Pipolo, at al) and the Walter Reade Theater was packed... and it felt great. And it made the experience of going to see the program (for all its problems; it was very uneven) just so thrilling. But on Sunday, the auditorium never got full, and there were a few people there that i said hello to (Stephanie Gray, Ed Halter, John Mhiripiri) and it was great to see Ken and Flo Jacobs... somehow, the lack of an audience flattened out the experience (even though the program was more cohesive than the previous day).

(It's as bad as going to see a really bad film, and sitting in the middle of an audience going crazy for it... that's alienation the likes of which Camus never even considered.)