Also, Stay Off His Lawn

Peter Greenaway has announced the Death of Cinema.

"Cinema's death date was 31 September 1983, when the remote-control zapper was introduced to the living room, because now cinema has to be interactive, multi-media art," he told a director's masterclass. ... There were gasps among film students when he took aim at some of the biggest names. "Here's a real provocation: [US video artist] Bill Viola is worth 10 Martin Scorseses. Scorsese is old-fashioned and is making the same films that [the pioneering director] DW Griffiths was making early last century," he said.

Of course, since Thirty Days Hath September, and Cinema has muddled on since that fateful (and technically nonexistent) day, one might be inclined to nominate him for a Francis Fukuyama award.

But Greenaway is a very smart guy, and a very talented guy too. So my take is this: whenever somebody that good and that studied on a subject starts ringing the alarms, there's a problem. He'll probably be wrong in what he predicts is next, or in what he thinks is the root cause. It's tough to figure that sort of thing out. But if he says there's a problem, it's worth considering.

By the way, Greenaway started out as an editor....