DebateFilm

Speaker 1: I enjoyed it in a way but entertaining’s not the word for it.

Speaker 2: Gripping?

Speaker 1: No.

Speaker 3: Enthralling?

Speaker 4: Riveting – something like that?

Speaker 4: No, I just don’t know. But it’s not entertaining anyway.

Speaker 3: Because entertaining sometimes is something that’s humorous, amusing, jovial.

Speaker 1: Yes…

A group of women discuss the film, The Accused

From  its earliest days cinema has been intimately connected to entertainment.

In Cinema Entertainment, we argued that entertainment is usually characterised as lightweight and insubstantial.

Because film critics and scholars have accepted this characterisation, they've made great efforts to distance cinema from entertainment. They've set out to establish it as art, which is seen as much superior to entertainment. It’s no accident that the best selling academic text book is called Film Art.

We believe this rejection of entertainment has produced an impoverished account of the cinema. We want to produce a richer account by embracing entertainment, not rejecting it.

The website has been designed to develop this ambition. We want to encourage other people to join in the discussion, so please explore the website. We hope that what you find will stimulate/provoke you into making your own contribution.

The site is divided roughly in three main components: i) original articles and materials aimed at generating debate (including articles, comments, etc.); ii) resources useful to visitors (including audio-visual material, downloads, links ,etc.); iii) discussion boards whose aim is to allow users to contribute to more sustained debates over a period of time (in the discussion boards area).

We are always open to suggestions and we expect the site will develop and change over time of course to reflect both the way in which users will engage with it and also your suggestions. To this aim we would be very grateful for any suggestion you may wish to pass on. Feel free to email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or you can also use the 'contact us' form that you can access directly from the site.

The site is free to use for all but we do require you register (a very quick and easy process!) to post comments to articles and to the discussion boards. This is mostly to avoid spamming and similar unfriendly behaviour that would risk spoiling the experience for everyone else. Registering is also one of the means by which you can be kept up to date with major site news.

We have tried to keep the site as clean and easy to navigate as possible. There are two main menus: one is a generic menu that appears at the top of the screen, the other is a more specific menu that appears on the right of the screen. They are there on all pages so you can always quickly return to whatever part of the site you wish to visit without having to perform too many clicks. A useful reminder of the latest additions to the site is available at the bottom of the page, as well as other useful information about the latest industry and box office news.

You may also notice that there are two flag icons at the top of the page. We are currently working on providing a translated version of the site for Italian users. Unfortunately our language skills don't stretch beyond that but if any of you out there wants to pitch in and help with other languages we'd be more than happy to listen! We were hoping for the Italian version of the site to be ready by Autumn but work commitments have pushed this back to the new year. Many apologies for the delay!

We hope you will find the site easy to navigate and enjoyable, as well as useful: it'd be a real shame if a site openly about entertainment was, well, boring!