URL: http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/
Site Name: Only the Cinema
Categories: Reviews, Art Cinema, Foreign Films
Rating: R, though a mild one, mostly for language, adult topics, and an occasional slightly racy film still.
What is the main focus of your site?
My focus is on providing an ongoing film viewing diary of sorts. Every film I watch, I write about, without exception, whether it’s the first time I’m watching it or I’m revisiting an old favorite. This means that the films I write about cover a range as wide as my own interests in the cinema: a lot of foreign films, especially French New Wave, lots of classic Hollywood and noirs, lots of modern indie films and even an occasional mainstream pick. The idea is simply to write, hopefully with insight and intelligence, about a broad range of films, in the form of the classic newspaper reviewer. The difference being that most newspaper reviewers write only about new releases, whereas I have the entirety of film history to explore.
What are your blogging goals, personally and/or professionally? In other words, what, if anything, are you trying to get out your blog?
Personally, I write because I enjoy it, and because when I’ve watched a film I have a very strong urge to get my thoughts out. For me, writing is thinking: it crystallizes and clarifies a film’s effects and helps me work through how I feel about a particular movie. Beyond that, my only goal is to have as many people reading and enjoying my
work as possible.
Do you prefer an interactive ‘community’ for your blog or are you the teacher and your readers are the students?
I greatly, GREATLY prefer an interactive community, though it doesn’t always work out that way. By far my favorite posts on my site are the ones where some serious discussion has broken out in the comments section, sometimes centered specifically around my writing and sometimes just using my post as a forum in which to discuss the film in question. Either one is great, and I love to see these discussions and to join in. I think it adds to the original review and I often think of these active comment sections as ways of expanding upon and continuing my review to address more aspects of the film. If you’re reading this, come to my site and comment! I try to reply to all substantive comments in order to get a conversation moving.
How long have you been movie blogging for, and how frequent do you post updates to your site?
I have been blogging since September of 2007, so it has been over a year now. In that time, I have taken two breaks from blogging (and from watching movies) but when I do blog I update almost every day, and sometimes write multiple posts in one day if I have watched more than one movie in that day. It used to be that when I watched multiple movies in a day I would cover them all in a few paragraphs as part of one large post, but now I give each film the space and consideration of its own separate post. For the foreseeable future, I will be updating Only The Cinema just about daily.
Name up to three of your favorite movies (and no more).
This question is tough for me considering how many movies I’d consider “favorites,” and for that reason I’ve started an ongoing series called “Films I Love” that will spotlight my favorite films with no hierarchy (no top 10, top 5, no top 3). That said, the first three films I selected for that series do make a good ad-hoc top three: Sans Soleil, Mulholland Dr., and Bonjour Tristesse.
How did you hear about the LAMB?
From a link on The Dancing Image.
Any additional comments, or give yourself an interview question that’s not listed above.
Much easier than the “favorite movies” question for me is “who is your favorite director?” There’s no contest there, it’s Jean-Luc Godard, whose entire body of work has been one of the most consistently exciting, enlightening, and moving in the cinema. There is no other director who has done so much to awaken me to the possibilities of the art form. Thanks for the opportunity to be spotlighted here!
Tags: Only the Cinema