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partly to people who come to a university department of cinema [Trinh teaches at San Francisco State University] primarily for film production. There's an antitheory tradition that runs deep among some of the "production people." I promote "bridge" courses and emphasize the indispensability of the mutual challenge of theory and practice, which can be summarized in an old statement by Marx: that theory cannot thrive without being rooted in practice, and that practice cannot liberate itself without theory. When one starts theorizing
about
film, one starts shutting, in the field; it becomes a field of experts whose access is gained through authoritative knowledge of a demarcated body of "classical" films and legitimized ways of reading and speaking about films. That's the part I find most sterile in theory. It is necessary for me always to keep in mind that one cannot really theorize about film, but only
with
film. This is how the field can remain open.
MacDonald:
The thing I find frustrating about the whole theory/practice issue as it has played itself out in the last ten or twelve years is that to make a film one has to take a chance with one's life and one's resources. It's true in Hollywood films and in independent film, where, if you're going to come up with thirty-five thousand dollars to make a movie, you have to restructure your life. You have to take a direct and dangerous part in whatever the national economy is that you live in. When I write about filmsand I don't write theory, but I think it's also true thereyou don't have to reorganize anything (at least in this country): you can remain within an institutional framework where you have a salary: you can critique without changing your life-style. I go to independent films to see what those people who are willing to put their lives on the line are able to discover. Theory can be brilliant and enlightening, but I rarely feel people's lives on the line in the same way.
Trinh:
Well, I think there's such a resistance to theory because theory is often deployed from a very safe place. And I am not even talking about the other resistance that is found within the academic system itself, where theory can threaten the status quo and a distinction could be made between intellectual activities and academicizing pursuits. But I, myself, think of theory as a practice that changes your life entirely, because it acts on your conscience. Of course, theory becomes a mere accessory to practice when it speaks from a safe place, while practice merely illustrates theory when the relationship between the two remains one of domination-submission and of totalization. I see theory as a constant questioning of the framing of consciousnessa practice capable of informing another practice, such as film production. Hence theory always has the possibility, even the probability, of leading to "dangerous" places, and vice versa. I can't separate the two. The kind of film I make requires that economically, as you point out, I readjust my life, but