NEW YORK, May 23, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Now that the movie has replaced the novel as our dominant art form, where has the intelligent movie discussion gone? Find it on CinemaDiscourse.com.
Just as James Agee was the defining movie critic of the 1940s and Pauline Kael of the 1970s and 80s, so John David Ebert, writing on CinemaDiscourse.com, is emerging as the defining critic of the beginning of the Twenty-First Century.
(Note: John David Ebert is not related to Roger Ebert, the reigning movie critic of the past two decades)
The creators of today's dominant movies are deeply aware of the mythological and archetypal sources of their stories and images (even though critics seldom are), and audiences relate to these references, even if unconsciously.
The modern mythological movie begins in 1968 with Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clark's "2001: A Space Odyssey," with the image of the Star Child at the end announcing the birth of our new era.
Beginning with "2001," CinemaDiscourse.com lists and discusses the twelve classics of this new genre, movies that define our age:
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey 2. Jaws 3. Star Wars 4. Close Encounters of the Third Kind 5. Apocalypse Now 6. Alien 7. Raiders of the Lost Ark 8. Blade Runner 9. Videodrome 10. The Road Warrior 11. Solaris (1972 Tarkovsky version) 12. Nosferatu (1979 Herzog version)
(Check these against your list.)
Myths are a repository of the beliefs of a culture. Movies have become a major vehicle for the presentation of our new myths. CinemaDiscourse.com is the place where movies are discussed in these terms.
CinemaDiscouse.com contains articles on the background of the new cinema, lists and discusses the classics, reviews current movies, and provides forums for reader feedback. Plus it provides brief YouTube videos of explanations of key movies.
On CinemaDiscourse.com you will find out what the movies you have always loved are really all about, how:
- Kubrick and Clark's "2001" deliberately set out to create the new mythology for our technological age, ending with the Star Child hovering in space and thereby launching the modern age of movies. - "Iron Man" is a retelling of the tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, in which the hero must come into a proper relationship with a woman before accomplishing his quest, a tale also retold in Clint Eastwood's "In the Line of Fire," among many other movies. - Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," on the surface about the Vietnam war, is built on the plotline of Conrad's Heart of Darkness then relies on Homer's "The Odyssey" for Willard's trip up the river and, finally, on Frazier's study of the sacrifice of the king in "The Golden Bough" for Willard's killing of Kurtz. - Kubrick and Spielberg's "A.I.," the story of an android boy's search for the love of his mother, is on the surface a retelling of Pinocchio, but it is also an exploration of what it means to be human in our technological world.
CinemaDiscourse.com was created by John Ebert and John Lobell.
About John David Ebert
John Ebert is an independent cultural critic whose essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in periodicals such as Lapis, Alexandria, Utne Reader and The Antioch Review. He is the author of "Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society" (Cybereditions.com: 2005) and "Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science & Spirituality at the End of an Age" (Council Oak Books: 1999). Formerly, he was an editor at the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
Email: johnebert@mac.com
About John Lobell
John Lobell received architecture degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. His studies have included mythology with Joseph Campbell and quantum theory. Lobell is a professor at Pratt Institute where he teaches architectural history and theory and technology and culture. He is the author of "Joseph Campbell: The Man and His Ideas" and "Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn." See JohnLobell.com for more.
Email: JohnLobell@aol.com
More information at: http://www.cinemadiscourse.com/