Rebekah Scott said:
Caminando,
this is one concern I have with filmmakers on the camino, and that I have, sadly, come up against.
In order to raise money to make a film or TV documentary, the producers must have a package already made up to present to prospective funding sources. Only after the funding is secure will most of them attempt the actual path.
Which means the producers and directors go into the project with a notion already signed and sealed. They may put out feelers for people to talk to whilst doing their project, but if they do not meet the preconceived "profile," they are eliminated from consideration and conversation and input. Sad but true. So at the end of it all, the rest of the world gets to see a preconcieved "product" instead of the Real Thing.
Which may be a good thing. Those who come to Spain to find the Preconception will have to deal with what they find here. Which is what the Camino is about, anyway!
... and a lot of money and time and effort is expended in the meantime, which means the economy is stimulated. And the Camino, with all its thousands of years and pilgrims, doesn´t really care anyway. So it´s all a wash, no?
Reb.
Thanks Reb
The first comments you make give welcome detail to what I suggested about 'processed' experience. You've given an understanding of the actuality of the demands of commercial film making and the financial considerations which drive it. As you indicate, these factors act as a filter on experience, leaving a homogenised 'product'. Without the corruption of finance, I am sure however that a film of real value
could be made. I am not against the idea of a film about the Camino. A balanced, factual documentary without celebrities but including real people would especially be useful. As many don't read nowadays, it would be welcome. A quality documentary might even act as antidote to the "products". So too would a narrative of any aspect of life on the Camino.
You make a point about those who might arrive with a "Preconception" only to find it dissolves away into something of real value, self discovered, owing nothing to another's concept. Healthy? Youbetcha!
I think you're right to remind (reassure?!) me that the Camino "doesn't care", for the Camino is certainly bigger than the winds of change which have blown on it for a thousand years, and I take solace in that reminder. It seems today to be as alive and shining as ever it was. As those who've walked it know , it
appeared to be extinct not so long ago, but it was only dormant till the spirit, or better,
zeitgeist was right to reaffirm it....and how!!!! I sometimes think of the notion of geospirituality, Gaia and the Camino, and the image of an apparently dormant volcano springs to mind, magnificently indifferent. But if I'm asked in Roncesvalles on a form to give reasons for my Camino, I won't say "geospirituality"!
So when I think of films and the wild narratives which have appeared recently, I also want to think, as you suggest, that these are minor distortions, little crosscurrents, which do not affect the great flow of this remarkable phenomenon, which I don't actually understand, to be honest.
I wonder what others think?
:arrow:
Some may be interested in the idea of Geopoetics, the project of Scottish writer Kenneth White, who lives in France. Sorry, but I don't know how to make links.
