What Is(n’t) An Amateur?
❤️🩹 The amateur filmmaker as the not-something-else.
The amateur tends to be identified by what they aren’t. (Not what they are.) Or what they don’t have. (Not what they have.)
They are not identified by what they do. They are identified by what they maybe might do.
The amateur may be accused of being an amateur because they are not:
- Trained, or
- Professional, or
- Profitable, for instance.
They might not be:
- Organised.
- Funded.
- Included.
The definition of the amateur as somebody who isn’t somebody else creates a condition of doubt.
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Doubt, in its broader form, is the life force of the movies (a juddering, chaotic medium by virtue of its apparatus and scope).
Doubt lends a film life, death, suspense, humour (humility), infinitude. Doubt speaks to the audience, and the audience responds with doubt. Doubt is the alien cement in the mirror universe constructed by the filmmaker.
An amateur could be a home movie maker, a cine club regular, or a corporate video professional, tarred with complaints about their lack of training, organisation, or confidence. “You amateur!”
The filmmaker who accepts this title and this definition is cast into that condition of doubt, a swamp of something-elseness.
What a gift!
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