This group is for serious interchanges between a few compatible people who care for films that use the materials of cinema, such as light, imagery, sound, and rhythm, in a manner worthy of great painting or great classical music. We are primarily interested in films whose forms present their authors' visions, and not in films as entertainment, though many films "intended" as "entertainment" also meet that standard. If you are interested in more general film and television discussions, see a_film_by.

If you are interested in participating in this group, but we do not know you, please do not apply, but email the person whose posts you wish to reply to. If your reply is of interest, we will post it; after a few such incidents, you may be invited to join. I apologize for this slightly obnoxious procedure, but experience has suggested it's the only way to keep the group small and compatible. It's not that I don't want disagreements, but more specifically that I am not interested in rehearing the same arguments in favor of Ingmar Bergman or Stanley Kubrick or Pauline Kael or the primacy of scripts and acting or advocating for film as entertainment that I rejected decades ago. It's not that liking one filmmaker I don't will automatically exclude you, either, but this is a group for people with a very particular point of view, within which discussions and disagreements are encouraged. Fred Camper