It was first described as such by an Italian named Ricciotta Canudo. He described it as a synthesis of three rhythmic arts (music, dance, poetry) and three plastic arts (painting, sculpture, architecture).
Film buffs will see this in just about every iteration of the movie as we know it today and as it once was. Even if there is great entertainment in explosions and erotica it is the heightened awareness of our world that seems to be the thing that most draws an audience to the big screen and back again for more. While the definition of the seventh art came out of Italy, its strongest and most expert practitioners are the French (Despicable Me and Despicable Me 2 were made by a French company in Paris).
And it is the French who keep the cutting edge of the Cinema world sharp by way of their veneration. As critic Jean Epstein wrote in 1924.
"When the cinema provides a new, mobile perspective in time, as in the close shots of the racing train wheels from 'La Roue', a ‘higher moral value’ can be acquired.”
Epstein claims that such cinematic photogénie can offer us the “heightened awareness” which, he thinks, is the prerogative of poetry. On top of this, he concludes that cinema is “poetry’s most powerful medium”.
Some might argue that today there is nothing very poetic or very much poetry to be found in the blockbusters that Hollywood churns out or the high tech 3D animated battlefields that compete for our attention, but the point about our senses and the way they can be heightened is hard to dismiss.
One of the singular pleasures of the movies is that wide-eyed awareness after a good film. The sounds and sights of a shopping mall parking lot suddenly become filled with detail and moments that were not there before.
It is this very attention to the inspiration of the senses that drives my own work in cinema as an art. It is an art we cannot afford to lose and it is one that cannot heighten our awareness by being shown on small screens that we crouch over or broadcast on television with interruptions in the form of must-have product commercials.
Something much more worth while and "must-have" than the new and improved glue or gadget that is on offer on all of our tinier and tinier screens is the magic and the call to be bigger and greater that the real seventh art experience offers.
You don't have to be an academic or any kind of expert to understand the feeling that is cinema and residents of Pictou County expressed this in a big way recently. The front-page story about the call to save the Drive-In is a sign of great hope for the community's cultural, social and moral future. And in “Drawing on the Arts” that I have had the privilege to write these past months, I share my own passion for the seventh art with you the people who want to preserve the experience - as Empire's advertising so well expressed just before they opted out of the whole enterprise.
Presently I have the honour of working on a feature length Cinema Poem, "Sacred Sort" that I had hoped would be the beginning of a Cinema Poetry Festival here in Pictou. My dream was to see the Drive-in become a place that not only offered mainstream fun but also afforded professional artists like myself and other visual practitioners a space to show our work as it is intended and to engage the community in the wonder and exploration of real cinema.
The opportunity to invite filmmakers during the year and perhaps enjoy a festival with workshops during the summer also seemed a way to invite our youth into the magic that is making moving pictures. There could be workshops, team film classes and screenwriting sessions to explore the big ideas that are waiting to be exposed here.
As I continue my own work on a film that has been generously supported by the Arts Nova Scotia organization, I hope that I will be able to stay in Pictou County to premiere the work next year at a Cinema Poetry Festival that might launch the summer movie season at the Drive-in. This could open up the history of cinema, welcoming new work and setting the stage to show classics while we continue to enjoy the latest blockbusters.
Otherwise as Bugs Bunny used to say we'll all be shaking our heads in front of cinema on computers and iPhones and in our "home theatres" away from each other wondering if "That's all folks!"
Maybe the Drive-in is our real wellness centre?
Eliza Fernbach is the Vice President of Visual Arts Nova Scotia. She is an Artist and Filmmaker whose focus is on Cinema Poetry. Brief excerpts of her work as well as a glimpse of her current long project can be found on her website at www.hecticred.net.
