Start up

I've been spending a lot of time reading David Bordwell's blog since Ashley and I finally got an internet connection here in Poland. The ideas there have stuck in my head so firmly and have caused so much thought that my project notebook is riddled with references to his site (his recent comparison between Wyler and Mizoguchi has been relived in my head once every other day since then). But I am troubled that there is no place for cinephiles/filmmakers who also happened to be versed in LDS terminology/doctrine to discuss such things in as intelligent a manner as so many cinephiles and filmmakers are doing at this very moment.

Though I'm worried, however, that there won't be many interested in these discussions, I hope that the few will grow and, in turn, be challenged to perceive in a new light. Perhaps this could be a case of that "critical minority" engaging in the discussion.

To start, I would like to paste a part from an email I wrote to Dean Duncan. My last semester at BYU I took 'Transcendence in Cinema' from him. There and other places he said that LDS General Conference is the perfect expression of transcendence in cinema because it showed a preacher preaching--nothing more, nothing less. This last General Conference seemed to challenge that idea for me and added more to my idea of "LDS Cinema" more than anything else. I share my thoughts here (please share yours):

"Elder Wirthlin's talk made your statement more true than it had been before. On three levels that piece of video was the perfect marriage of form and content: first was that a preacher was preaching and we were receiving, but as he struggled, 2. Elder Nelson stood behind him they became a visual expression more moving than the words: a father and son, the spirit and the priesthood, God and Man. Together, but standing alone. As Elder Wirthlin spoke of Love, Elder Nelson and their relationship embodied it. That made me reconsider your statement. And third, We saw how Elder Wirthlin still struggled even with the help of his friend and he wanted to finish for us. His self-sacrifice was his topic. Form and content. "