This is a news story I have been following closely for the
past few months as it involves people I consider to be important.
The American filmmaker Mark Rappaport wants to receive his borrowed materials back from Boston University professor and film critic, Ray Carney, whose actual work I’ll definitely cover in many future posts, but has been denied. Carney claims
that the material was given to him as a gift and thus he is not obliged to
return it. This is surprising given Carney's long-time image as a protector of American Independent Cinema and a rebel against the consumerist machine. I don't see any reason why he feels it beneficial to prevent Rappaport, one of his favourite filmmakers, from having a wider audience.
The equally revered filmmaker Jon Jost has been organizing a
motion to apply pressure to Carney. He’s been updating us with his progress on
his blog: http://cinemaelectronica.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/chained-relations-6/.
I was one of the 1000+ signatories of this petition:
My feeling is that BU is more than happy to get rid of
Carney and may use this as an excuse to finally take away his tenure.
There may be an important divergence of interests here. Both
Jost and BU are in favour of prosecuting Carney but from Jost’s perspective,
the ideal scenario is that Carney caves under the pressure and returns the
materials to Rappaport. From BU’s perspective, the preferred scenario is that
Carney refuses to return the materials and accepts the loss of his job, if it
comes to that. I doubt very much that they care about the availability of
Rappaport’s art.
The two parties have a “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”
kind of relationship right now but I can see that changing as this story
develops.
I’ll keep following this story and posting updates as they
come.
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