NOTHING MANIFESTO

This is a shitty manifesto that I was forced to write for an experimental module last year. I am putting it here because I don't want to lose it.

Any manifesto that tries to define what art or film “should” be is a lie. I would not be writing this manifesto if I was not being told to do it for a class. The ideas that exist in my head only exist within my head, and they define nothing about the rest of the world. I cannot define art. I cannot restrict film, even by restricting it to non-restriction. I cannot impose my feelings and preferences on to anything but my own work.

What I feel about my own work is this:

  •     I do not want my films to be boring.
  •     I do not want my films to be “content.”
  •     I would like to be able to afford to eat.

That is everything.

A film does not need to serve its audience. It doesn’t need to entertain or educate or emotionally resonate. It has every right to do those things, but nothing is ever a necessity. A film does not need to be at all meaningful. It doesn’t need to have a point. Every on-screen depiction of anything remotely controversial or provocative has been followed by countless critical assessments determining whether it was justified or not, and whether its inclusion was necessary in service of some kind of meaning. But nothing needs a meaning.

I’m lonely, you’re lonely. I’m angry, you’re angry. Everyone is. It doesn’t mean anything anymore. Everything is an expression of something, and pointlessness doesn’t stop something from being worth chasing artistically.

Realistically, this manifesto does not matter outside of my head. Nothing about it is “revolutionary.” Why would I break restrictions because I’ve been told to do so? Why do my ideas need to mean more than myself?

I love film because of the power it holds. I chose it because of its ability to confront me. A book or a poem relies on imagination, but a film simply exists. You either watch, turn it off, or close your eyes. You have no input, and there is freedom within that.

Do whatever you want. 

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