One definition of cinema is that it is a kind of total art like the opera. Another is the extremist proposition of Bazin that cinematography is the only case in which a machine can make masterpieces without human interpretation. I suggested the students should mix both ideas since cinema is the totality of all the arts connected by poetry – meaning poetry in the sense of craziness, the poetry that Plato was afraid of. The French have a good expression for it – bricollage. I recalled Jack Valenti’s statement that the French should stop making films and make what they know how to do – cheese. But to make cheese is very close to making films – it needs all kind of manipulation.
La entrevista aparece en el número de enero 2006 de la Sight & Sound. Y aquí se puede leer la transcripción. En corto, Ruiz habla de los espejos (que hay tantos en sus películas), de si el cine es realmente un arte; como ven acá abajo, cita a Teillier, y recuerda las mingas en su Chiloé natal. Está buena.
Then I discussed cinema as a mirror. I used something that a Chilean poet Jorge Tellier says: that he was afraid of mirrors because he was very narcissistic and handsome. There were some mirrors that refused him and others that accepted him. He said that you have to treat a mirror as you would a tiger – you have to master it.