Abstract:

A cinephile is a person with a deep love of the moving image. Although it is uncertain when the term was first used, the particular relationship it denotes between audiences and film was a hallmark of the world of French cinema in the 1960s. Unlike normal viewers, cinephiles develop extraordinary relationships with films and cinema. In this type of relationship, which borders on the obsessive, films shape how cinephiles perceive and evaluate their lives. Cinephilia has a close relationship with consumption; yet because the content and style of what cinephiles consume varies over time, the term resists easy classification. According to Jullier and Leveratto (2012), cinephilia is an intellectual and cognitive process, one that evolves over time in line with different orientations and technological developments. The classical viewing experience may have created a unique set of rituals and feelings connected to film and the movie theater, as Adrian Martin (2009) has argued, but technological developments and the proliferation of screens entering the domestic field have profoundly affected the viewing experience, as have increasing film content and diversifying viewing platforms. The result is what has been called the New (Contemporary) Cinephilia, cinephiles who are active, engaged, and have a say in the film industry. In lieu of the Parisian cinephile, today’s cinephiles are “scattered all over the world”; they are also distinguished by their “comprehensive cinematic taste,” which “includes many film genres, nationalities and periods” (Shambu, 2020: 8). To evaluate how cinephiles’ tastes have evolved, I turn to Bourdieu, who examines patterns of taste through the lens of class inequalities and social dominance. According to Bourdieu (2015), taste classifies, and even classifies what is classified. In other words, we rank ourselves by expressing our tastes, and this classification becomes an indicator of our social position. Tastes and aesthetic judgments occur because of the social abilities and capabilities dictated by the standard of education as well as the immanent qualities of the individual. Dispositions, inclinations, and tastes form a hierarchy and create patterns of inequality only after they encounter another taste. Building on Bourdieu’s methodology and concepts, as well as recent criticisms of his work, I examine the taste practices, tendencies, and interactions of cinephiles through a theoretical framework based on the experience of cinephilia and the theory of taste. For my source material, I draw on twelve semi-structured interviews, six with classical-period cinephiles and six with new cinephiles, which I analyze thematically according to the respondents’ perceptions and predispositions.

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