Back to Basics

Video. The combination of moving image, spoken word and music is undeniably effective in captivating our attention, transmitting a message and eliciting an emotional response. It’s the dominant art form of our century. It is flexible and powerful, and now it’s open to virtually everybody. For two thousand bucks you can have a good HD camera and a computer for editing.  It’s easy to go overboard in the editing room — because it’s so cheap, so easy and fun to manipulate images and create computer generated content.  It’s like being God, or a god, and messing with how reality is perceived. (Zizek has an essay about how the camera is God’s eyeball.) However, like the bad graphics from the 80′s, it’s good to remember that new technology does not result in better art.  It actually poses a great temptation to go overboard.
I just saw this video at the Matador Network. It’s by some students and an emerging rap artist in New York.  This little production will no doubt launch Nyle into more of a spotlight and bring some musicians and directors to the attention of deep-pocketed producers.  It just goes to show what some enthusiasm, talent and coordination can do.   This was done in a single take with some masterful use of lighting.

I think of M. Knight Shyamalan’s “Signs” and how not seeing the aliens is more powerful.  We fear what we don’t understand.  Leave it to the imagination.  Probably some other good maxims to apply here, but I’m out.

So, question #1: In film and video production, is less usually more?   With a limited budget, less has to equal more.  But how much more can we get with how much less?

And one more question (#2):  What’s the lowest (inflation adjusted) budget film to reach the big screens on at least a semi-wide release?

Worldview of the Heart

Yesterday I read some words by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on a coffeeshop centerpiece.  They represented for me the perfect “controlling idea,” the one I feel most drawn to follow when crafting the narrative of a film.  I tracked down the words in their original language (German) and text (Faust).  The line is spoken in stanza 16 by the character, Lustige Person (literally, “Funny Person”).  It is:

“Ein jeder sieht was er im Herzen trägt.”

A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.

Before coming across the line by Goethe I had articulated it, “freedom comes from within” and “we choose our own demons.”  But these are merely aspects of his more complete thought.  I knew that my own thought was anything but original, and had faced that it is perhaps even a little cliche.  But I think it is a timely concept that might prove inspiring when shown in a well-crafted, intimate narrative.

There are many stories that elevate tangible success and outward triumph (sports movies, action movies, etc), but relatively few that focus on an inner triumph– perhaps partly because it is hard to make visual.  A couple that I can think of are Gladiator (he dies, but is triumphant) and Braveheart (same).  And these are coupled with outward triumph (if only implied).

What if, to internal audience the story is a tragedy, but to the protagonist (and the external audience) it is an emotional triumph?  The protagonist would need to find his triumph by acting on principle and not for utility.  The Means are everything, the tangible End can be deceiving.  I suppose The Passion might be the ultimate expression of this idea: an apparent tragedy that is emotionally triumphant.

To me this idea shines a light on a key problem that we face as a society.  Our sphere of reference seems to have descended into utilitarianism, which is essentially relativistic (and therefore tragic).  For example, in political context, Ludwig von Mises used utilitarian arguments to advocate libertarianism while some Marxists used the same arguments to advocate political socialism (Wikipedia).  The utilitarian sphere of reference is not founded on universal principles, and therefore can be used to advance whatever agenda claims the most good (pleasure) for the most people.  And because the utilitarian philosophy is easily marketable (based on outward, quantifiable things), its roots continue to descend and thrive on the increasingly external nature of modern culture.

A narrative moment comes to mind from the (mediocre) film, I, Robot.  In flashback, Will Smith’s character has a chance to save his drowning daughter.  He dives in.  Suddenly a robot, who calculates that he will most likely die if he attempts to save her, prevents him from doing so, as programmed, saving his life in stead.  In present, Smith’s character wishes he had been allowed to do the right thing, even if it meant his death.  This scene illustrates the difference between humans and machines.  We are rightly guided by our hearts.

A story that could lift us beyond utility, to something universal, would be fresh and interesting.  Humans are not confined by external circumstance.  We are something different, something special.  We are free.  And our actions are manifestations of what we cultivate in our hearts.

New Story, Old Story

I had a thought.  It went something like this:

Many people believe that every “new” story is really just the same as a hundred “old” stories told in a new context.  That Tristan and Iseult, Odysseus and his his adventures, Oedipus’ epic inner conflict, merely reveal archetypes that will forever resonate with an enduring human nature.  They illustrate “innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic themes of human life emerge.” (Wikipedia)  And I am inclined to agree.

And yet we know that time passes.  So I thought, couldn’t we say just as truly that every story when retold in a new time is a new story?  Because story is an activity between two people– one a thousand years dead, perhaps, but at least one in a new time.  So a play by Aristophanes when performed today will undoubtedly draw laughs from different moments than it did from its ancient audience.  Many will be the same, but the context is different; the social conventions are different; what is taboo, what is accepted, what is hilarious and what is lame.

I believe in an aspect of Jung’s archetypes.  Stories do seem to boil down to a few common themes: The Love Story, The Revenge Story, The Homecoming Story, etc.  But wouldn’t you say that each is also something unique in itself, much like a human person?  I am as much Odysseus as Finding Nemo is The Odyssey.