Alright, I admit it, once or twice during the screening this morning my mind started to wander and then the light I saw changed shapes and I started hearing voices that were not there and my breathing became slow (and audible maybe) and the weight of my head was too much for my neck and over it went, chin to chest, shocking me back awake. I'd look around, grab another menthol pastille (otherwise known as a mint) from my bag (very quietly) and attempt to reenter the viewing experience. (Can I just say that I am writing this at Espresso Chrisoph and there are these two young ladies talking about what they want done with their bodies after they die like its what they are gonna wear to the prom. They are like: "I used to want to be cremated. Not any more. My parents want to be cremated, I want to make them into diamonds." and the other "I want to be preserved and strung up like a marionette." Which is stranger, life or experimental film?)
2 things: 1. I was pretty zonked Monday morning, pretty sleepy to start with. 2. I don't say attempt in a derogatory way. No sir. I think its to filmmakers like Kitchen and Dorsky's credit that they have designed into their film a need for the viewer to participate actively. I am only saying that its not easy. Not for me at least. It requires some energy. A good night of sleep, and the fortitude to keep coming back to the image before me with an open, fresh mind. THIS is the film. THIS is the story. THIS is what I am watching. I think its super brave of our 201 filmmakers, our Nishikawas and Dorskys and Kitchens and Snows. Because what if people don't come up to bat? What if no one cares? Remember that these are smart people that have seen a lot of stuff and have worked really hard at making the thing in front of your eyes. Why would they make it? Why would they sweat over it? What makes it matter? These are questions I am asking all of us. Me included.
What if commercial media looked more like the films we watched today?
What commercial media DOES? In bits and pieces.
So many narrative filmmakers borrow pieces of these visual "experiments" and tie them in to
3 act structures with box office potential. Like the plastic bag in American Beauty. Is that a direct reference to Dorsky's Variations? Music videos and commercials do it too. I can pretty much guarantee that if you pick out some cool "look" or visual pattern in mass media that you think is fresh and new and cutting edge, somebody else did it first in an experimental film or piece of video art. Examples? Oh man, they are all over. Chris Smith, the guy that went to THIS VERY film school gets hired to make commercials that look like "edgy, artsy documentaries". Why? What about that is appealing? What about that sells?
I went to Sundance this weekend, and I went to this shmancy party at this famous producer's rented house, and I talked to one of his henchmen, and I was like: "So, when you are looking at
a filmmakers work, what is the bottom line? Are you looking at the filmmakers passion for the content, or the possibility of making a buck with the movie?" "Money. That's the bottom line. You know, you can support a 'passion project' from time to time, but...," So these guys, these producers pluck out a few potential talents, and put money behind them, because they have a sense of whats going to be successful-- but whats their criteria? What makes something desirable and consumable? What makes one good filmmaker (in this case non fiction) better than the next? Films that push boundaries? Films that introduce new, controversial ideas? Films that have inventive, striking visuals? Films that require, or at least suggest another way of thinking? "Yeah, sure.." Hollywood Henchman might say, "but it can't be totally out there. It has to be accessible." Did American Beauty make the plastic bag thing more ACCESSIBLE? Was it a rip off? Whats accessible? Whats easy to watch? Why?
The stuff that's easy changes, tho. And I think in our reality TV glutted media (I'm a fan of reality TV by the way) that people are getting a taste for more and more gritty, improvisational feeling pictures in motion. And the result is stuff that's arguably more difficult, more complex than the fairy tale narratives that daytime TV has used as filling for the last 40 years. It sounds like I am on my way to comparing Temptation Island and Variations, but I'm not. At least not yet. Rather, I am trying to say that I think the people that have dedicated themselves to working on these idea based films, these films so much outside of our every day media, end up having an impact on the commercial film and video industry and, eventually, our culture. Peoples tastes change slowly, they get bored with the old and they seek out the new, and so then commercial media makers want to provide the new, so that they can make a buck, and where do they look? TO the IDEA people. The people that are too busy engaging with their medium to worry about whether or not Oprah will like it. But now I am on a rant. Back to the point.
This is not an essay, this is not an essay, this is not an essay. Feeling obligated to sound really smart and bookish all of a sudden. But we don't have to do that on these here blogs. They are more a place to think out loud and continue (start) conversation.
My point is, basically, that these films aren't easy for me to watch, but that doesn't mean they aren't valuable. For me, its kind of like jogging. You get in to it, and it improves your quality of life, and then you love it. But when you aren't doing it, you see those poor suckers jogging out there in the cold and you think "Henh. Glad I'm not them." and then you get morbidly obese and die of heart failure. Okay, not a great simile but you smell what I'm steppin' in, right?
(Now the death girls are talking about dreams. One of them has circular nightmares. Another woke up to a shadowy thing above her bed that she hit at with a pillow.) (There is also a man making loud grotesque gurgley throat clearing noises. Does he realize that we can all hear him? There he goes again. UGH. DUDE. STOP IT. SHOULD I say something? I am about to say something.) (Alright, now the CD is skipping. Remind me to blog somewhere else, okay?)
Before I sign off here, a piece of advice: Start where you are. If you feel distant and tired, start there. Ask "Why am I distant and tired?" Its the first step in figuring out what this stuff is about.
See you Wednesday.
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