Gregg Golding - What's The Point of Cinema?

GREGG GOLDING - 

"Cinema is from the French word cinématographe which comes in part from the greek kinema, meaning movement. So cinema is really just another word meaning moving picture. I will refer to cinema as a feature film. Not necessarily the theatrical experience, moreso the time based format and single unit nature of a feature film. Ironically, our cultural fugue state of information overload seems to favor "long form content" these past couple years...Even though that further limits ones choices in the infinite sea of knowledge. Kind of an opiate of the people if you ask me. Yes, this long form has improved, allowing more singular auteur & subversive voices in, but cinema started that, and if you look below the top 20 grossing films, cinema does it more than any visual time based format. What I'm really writing about is film vs TV, video games and other media that the popular culture feels is "winning" in cinema's place. I think that's inherently alarmist and short sighted.

In this age of multimedia excess an serialized addiction, binge watching, video game worship and youtube shorts, cinemas power lies largely in how static, brick like, and finite it is. It remains a clear formal statement, that if undiluted is amazingly transformative. You could say the form, although arbitrary an created by 1900s theatre programmers for practical reasons, is imbued with a mystical grace.

A feature film frantically emerges from a cocoon an flails wildly. Maybe laying an egg for a sequel before it's death (an hopefully preservation in the cultural amber). It is the corporately born mold that Studios and independents alike pour their lives into. Much like the novel, cinema has a great an storied history as an aspirational form for a creative. Cinema is a history of bold statements. Though of course, in the shadows, we're all writing TV show bibles for $$£ + guaranteed audience conversation. To me, the form of the feature has a resonance all it's own. cinema is rich, global, eternal, all knowing an already contains all the secrets to the universe in aggregate. A claim that I would only also make to fine art, poetry, literature, music and theatre/ live performance (+the net/mystical practice) Cinema isn't dead. No long form cable show has schooled Godard for me. Cinema is a chance for endless freakshow devices and singular style. Instead of binge watching 2 seasons of "walking dead" because you "can't decide" try watching 15 films from different times and movements that will change the way you think. Study up future artists, there is much work to do."



Filmography -
Struggled Reagans (2014)
Illuminati Puppet (2014)

Struggled Reagans recently premiered in at the SciFi London Film Festival. Struggled Reagans is Golding's Trash Humpers, in tune with the 'frantic overload of the human mind in the information age'. Simultaneously full of references, and unreferenceable, full of colours, sounds, and off-kilter moments that constantly challenge its audience in both high and low brow terms. Golding uses his characters to discuss ideas of globalization and brainwashing, while constantly remaining playful. Any child of the 90s will recognize role-playing fight-scenes that looked exactly like those in Struggled Reagans while in their school playground.

Illuminati Puppet is approaching completion. The completed Kickstarter page can be viewed HERE