Film +/- Art

Another film director, Conor McPherson, was elected to membership of Aosdána (An affiliation of creative artists in Ireland) at the organisation's annual AGM, held last week in Armagh.

Since those artists who wish to become members must work in either Visual arts, Literature, Music, Architecture, or Choreography it must be assumed, I suppose, that film making per se is not an artform.

Instead, those film makers who have been elected to Aosdána achieved their membership either as visual artists or, like McPherson and Neil Jordan before him, as writers of literature.

It seems odd, to me at least, that film making has not been deemed an eligible art form in its own right. If architecture is not a visual art - although it is heavily design-based - then how is film a visual art when so much of film making is to do with story-telling?

The following film makers are members of Aosdána:
Visual Artists
Cathal Black
Joe Comerford
John T. Davis
Vivienne Dick
Louis Marcus
George Morrison
Pat Murphy
Bob Quinn
David Shaw-Smith

Literature
Carlo Gébler
Neil Jordan
Louis Lentin


I would consider all of the above to be creative artists who use film as a story-telling medium.

I've included only those readily identified as authors (directors) of films and I have excluded the many writers (such as Billy Roche and Bernard MacLaverty) who have extensive screenwriting credits.