Realism defined?
doug lauber
realism and surrealism, and directing:
The writer/directors that I appreciate most are Lynch, Bunuel,
and now Godard. I'm adapting to reading subtitles.
These three have surrealism in common. More than that I love
the way they experiment with the formal elements of film/story
structure.
About surrealism, -I consider surrealism to be just another
branch of realism. All of these various modes of viewing
reality should be combined in a film story. It's perfectly
natural for Spacey's character in American Beauty, to go
drifting off into fantasy land. We accept it because fantasy
is a part of the reality of human experience.
You can take that a step further and create a story that
seamlessly blends fantasy with a more objective reality.
This also can be easily accepted because blurring the
line between the two is a part of the human condition.
It's a real phenomenon.
I like the story strategy of creating a simple plot and then
proceeding to embellish it with dense thematic material,
and complex characterization. My goal is to attain the
creative standards of those three people.
I'm at the point now, where I watch a standard Hollywood
film and I feel like I'm just following a plot. I'm not being
challenged. I'm not asked to think about anything in the
film. There's no ambiguity.
I try to create dialogue that feels real. Having said that,
have you ever known someone who 'puts on' a voice
or opinion, as though it is a different character?
Sure, we all have. It's strange AND it's real. Bill Murray
has done this a lot in various films. What I am trying to say,
is that there can be extremely different forms of dialogue
that can fit into the realism category.
I think surrealism works best when it feels natural in the
context that you have set up. The other extreme can work too,
where you use it as a disparate element.
Visual motifs are fun and interesting. Godard and Lynch like to
repeat motifs, in such a way that they bring attention to themselves
as directors as manipulators of the images, and all elements.
Godard loved to frequently proclaim 'You are watching a movie',
during the course of a film. I enjoy that. It's a beautiful dichotomy
to present elements like a specific camera shot and intense
foreground music as artificial creations of the director, AND
at the same time, use elements that are extremely real, like
perfectly real sounding dialogue and natural acting styles.
That dichotomy mirrors reality very well, making the strategy
of artificial vs real, even more 'real' than films that do not
use that strategy. Films that pretend to be a whole version
of reality are often two-dimensional. They lack the aspect of
'artificial'.
The most 'real' films I've seen recently are Godard's
Band of Outsiders, Pierrot le fou, Contempt, and Alphaville.
Mulholland Dr. was very real. Deep. Deep in terms of
touching real places of my psyche that other films haven't
gone near, because the people who created them aren't
capable of taking us there.
Once you learn the techniques of directing, you can view
those things as technical tools. Godard shows us that you take
those tools and use them to combine elements in new ways.
This is a way to experiment with the formal elements of filmmaking.
I have a long way to go, but I'm already addicted to
this art form, and its many opportunities for experimentation.
-doug
doug lauber
> I always wondered in Twin Peaks, the tv series, when the sound would
> just drop in volume (at first, I would turn my tv up till I figured it
> out) if there was any weight to which lines got dropped down or if Lynch
> was just messin' with us.
>
> It's interesting what you were saying about surreal stuff being real
> because of our fantasy nature (if that's what you were saying). Good point.
>
> Suzy (always tried to get rid of my jump cuts :)
About jump cuts. Suzy, I recently shot a scene with very little
blocking. I had both characters within the frame and they
conversed back and forth. He'd say something, she'd respond.
Over and over again for about two minutes. After seeing the
jump cuts in breathless, I though it would be a fun technique
to try with this scene. I had about six different shots within
those two minutes, and varied the camera angle slightly for
each. I'd shift the camera position laterally by 5 inches. I'd
lower the camera for the next shot, etc. for one key shot
I'd slowly push in with the camera, toward one of the
characters. Anyway, these cuts weren't necessary at all for
telling the story, but this approach balances the realism of the dialogue
with an artificial fragmentation, -the result of jump cuts.
I'm going to experiment with exaggerating the effect by
slightly changing the background music with each cut.
How severe can I make these cuts and still allow the dialogue
to affect the viewer with a dramatic power?
Yeah, that's what I was saying. We have these arbitrary categories
that create compartments for different modes of reality.
ie There's 'fantasy' and 'surealism' and 'expressionism' and
a bunch of other labels. For me, the films that mix various
genres and different moods create a more 'real' experience.
In Godard's Band of Outsiders, you have an early scene with
a staged fake cowboy shoot-out. The way it's shot and the actor's
movements are later mirrored with a real shoot-out, drawing a
comparison between staged reality and standard reality.
Presenting an artificial reality and a more objective reality
in the same film makes it a more real and touching experience.
One of my favorite scenes has the main character, Odile,
drifting off into a song. When I first saw that, I did a double take
and thought, 'But, wait, this is not a musical, is it?' No, it isn't,
but there is a nice mood shift as the director changes his mode
of expression by having the character express sincere emotion
through a soulful song. Quite intense. Anything that we experience
in our lives can be presented in film. A single film can run the
gamut. People do actually sing in real life, although it is
becoming rarer in this country.
Like life, a single scene can contain extreme dichotomies of
purpose and tone. Lynch's Mulholland Drive has a scene where
a hitman shoots his 'friend', to steal his black book. Complications
ensue leading to two more semi-humorous shootings.
The scene sets up the dark reality of three people getting
killed and opposes that with humorous button-pushing.
My emotions shot all over the place as i watched. The first reality
created is one of two old friends comfortable with each other
shooting the breeze and they're slightly amused. The guy
with the black book thinks it's hilarious that there was
an 'accident' (making us connect the scene with the
opening car accident) The amused comfort abruptly ends
when the hitman whips out his gun and kills the guy.
Then, for an instant, I felt like the hitman was faking the
friendship. What you see, is often not what you get on
Mulholland Dr. That was a moment of shock. The shock of
a personal murder and a fake friendship.
Next mood shift occurs when the hitman sees that the bullet has
continued through the wall and has hit someone in the next
office. The 'ouch!' next door and the hitman's expression
manipulates us into thinking this is a funny complication.
The scene gets more and more compicated, more bungled,
and there's a tone of humor AND of horror. There's a sense
of the cheapness of human life, especially seen on the
face of an innocent bystander in the hallway, who is also murdered.
Lynch creates a degree of distance between us and the
action before us. It's self-conscious. For me, the scene
posed some questions, like 'Why is the murder of a sloppy
fat lady, somehow amusing?' 'What specific things are you
finding funny about murder?' When the hitman murders his
friend, the next shot or two shifts into a 'forensic show' mode,
which says to us, 'Let's objectively measure the events
before us.' That invited me to also measure my own
sense of humor, as the director tries to fake a degree of
comedy in order to make us question it.
There aren't too many writers or directors who ask us to
question our own attitudes. More often than not, you
see writers and directors who heavy handedly present
their case, their view of a subject, like 'let's take a look
at the internal corruption of a particular police force.'
Okay. I'll sit back and try to enjoy the obvious lecture.
Lynch doesn't push his point of view, instead he just presents
it and let's us deal with it. This makes us more active
and less passive viewers.
There are so many examples of films that practically
discourage thinking. Themes like 'guns are bad' or
'communists are evil' or 'behavior A is beautiful', etc.
What blows my mind is the popularity of a film like 'Pretty Woman'.
Okay, I can see the charisma factor of the leading actors, but
what does the film have to do with prostitution or
prostitutes? It's a total fantasy like Dumbo or something.
For a 'real' story about the pointless martyrdom of prostitution,
see Godard's 'My Life To Live'. Anna Karina is awesome. -doug
Ron
doug lauber <dugs...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> There aren't too many writers or directors who ask us to
> question our own attitudes. More often than not, you
> see writers and directors who heavy handedly present
> their case, their view of a subject, like 'let's take a look
> at the internal corruption of a particular police force.'
> Okay. I'll sit back and try to enjoy the obvious lecture.
> Lynch doesn't push his point of view, instead he just presents
> it and let's us deal with it. This makes us more active
> and less passive viewers.
At the risk of playing devils advocate--which I never do :)--I have to
say that I feel like Lynch's intentional opacity often makes his films
more about what the viewer brings to them than the filmmaker himself.
Some think this is cool, but I think it's an abandonment of
responsibility.
> There are so many examples of films that practically
> discourage thinking. Themes like 'guns are bad' or
> 'communists are evil' or 'behavior A is beautiful', etc.
I would argue that "Mullholland Dr." discourages thinking in another
way: by being opaque and random. (But, unlike you, I didn't find it to
be a deep or meaningful movie).
> What blows my mind is the popularity of a film like 'Pretty Woman'.
> Okay, I can see the charisma factor of the leading actors, but
> what does the film have to do with prostitution or
> prostitutes? It's a total fantasy like Dumbo or something.
> For a 'real' story about the pointless martyrdom of prostitution,
> see Godard's 'My Life To Live'. Anna Karina is awesome. -doug
But, of course, "Pretty Woman" isn't TRYING to say something about
prostitution, so to accuse it of not doing so is sort of like accuse
Piccaso's Man With Guitar for not being a realistic depiction of a man
with a guitar. It sort of misses the point.
Now, I won't deride anyone for being interested in a movie that tackles
with prostitution in a more realistic way (althuogh is "My Life to Live"
really that movie, or is it just substituting a different fantasy and
calling it reallity? Just because the fantasy is one of "pointless
martyrdom" doesn't make it a any less of a fantasy). But you do have to
evaluate a movie, at least in part, based on the criteria it sets out
for itself.
new...@virtual.com
wrote:
> Now, I won't deride anyone for being interested in a movie that tackles
>with prostitution in a more realistic way (althuogh is "My Life to Live"
>really that movie, or is it just substituting a different fantasy and
>calling it reallity? Just because the fantasy is one of "pointless
>martyrdom" doesn't make it a any less of a fantasy). But you do have to
>evaluate a movie, at least in part, based on the criteria it sets out
>for itself.
One man's fantasy, is another man's melting timepiece...
Doug
---
Life is a river. If you ain't gettin' your feet wet...
you're not playin' hard enough.
doug lauber
> On Thu, 08 May 2003 01:41:44 -0700, Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Now, I won't deride anyone for being interested in a movie that tackles
> >with prostitution in a more realistic way (althuogh is "My Life to Live"
> >really that movie, or is it just substituting a different fantasy and
> >calling it reallity? Just because the fantasy is one of "pointless
> >martyrdom" doesn't make it a any less of a fantasy). But you do have to
> >evaluate a movie, at least in part, based on the criteria it sets out
> >for itself.
>
> One man's fantasy, is another man's melting timepiece...
>
> Doug
Ah yes. What is the big difference between Pretty Woman
and Godard's My Life To Live?
My Life To Live presents us with a multi-dimensional
look at prostitition, where Pretty Woman is much less
dimensional. The fantasy elements in MLTL show
Nana as someone with a broken heart and a desire to
be a successful actress. She's is shown as the victim of a
bad marriage AND as her own victim. She leaves her bad
marriage and her young son. We aren't quite sure if we should
sympathize with her. Her husband doesn't want her to leave.
She is shown living on her own with a boring job at a
record store. She's having trouble paying her bills.
In another beautifully artificial Godard scene, she meets
her old friend who tells her story about how her husband
ran away to become a movie actor. To make ends meet she
explains to Nana that she turned to prostitution as an
acceptable solution.
Nana becomes a prostitute and we see Nana's first
'John' and it is presented in totally un-Hollywood
discomfort and awkwardness. Her John tries to kiss
her on the mouth as she struggles to avoid it. Beautiful. Real.
And setup as an artificially stylized shot.
No, you will not find a scene like that in Pretty Woman. Why not?
Food for thought.
MLTL has a tone of gritty realism and the depth of a character study.
Nana is presented as a sympathetic character who makes bad choices.
Like Odile in Band of Outsiders she has a strong streak of being
impractically naive. Any fantasy elements in MLTL are presented
as fantasy elements. Even when Nana makes up a story for
the police who have arrested her for stealing, she comes across
as being self-delusional. She believes her lie while she knows
how pathetic she is.
When Nana is accepted as a prostitute by her new pimp,
she asks him if she fits into a special category of women,
looking for a compliment. He says, 'No'. He remarks that
she is 'good' and something to the effect that she
has kind eyes. That goodness makes her a sympathetic
character. It also ends her new career.
Pretty Woman, on the other hand, is a simple story for children.
Her character arc goes from lower class to upper class as her
Prince charming discovers her. Rather than being her own victim,
she is a victim of society that scorns her. Prostitution is shown as
something unfairly viewed by society and Julia's character
might as well been working for a florist on the wrong side
of the Hollywood tracks.
It's way too simple to say that Pretty Woman and
My Life To Live are just simply two different fantasies
about a similar subject. One is a childlike fable and the
other is much more real and multi-dimensional. -doug
doug lauber
> You have made me miss film school. We had two main teachers. Both were
> good. One was meat and potatos. This how you hold the camera. This is
> how you use the light meter. Showed classic films and made sense. The
> other one scratched his film and painted on it and showed us foreign
> films. Both were essential.
>
> Make the film you want to make. You have listed some ground-breaking
> directors. Go for it.
>
> Suzy
Thanks for the nice compliments. Sure, I'll make the film
I want within practical restrictions, but aside from that I
think it's fun to shoot the breeze about various films. The more
we discuss the nuts and bolts of a film, the more informed
our screenwriting will be, no? Keep on going to film school.
Listen to all of those director's commentary tracks on DVDs.
When a particular scene strikes your fancy, pick it apart and
discover how it is constructed by the writer and/or director.
An example of amazing commentary can be found on the
DVD version of Bunuel's Belle du Jour.
(Bunuel Scholar Julie Jones) -doug
doug lauber
> On Thu, 08 May 2003 01:41:44 -0700, Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Now, I won't deride anyone for being interested in a movie that tackles
> >with prostitution in a more realistic way (althuogh is "My Life to Live"
> >really that movie, or is it just substituting a different fantasy and
> >calling it reallity? Just because the fantasy is one of "pointless
> >martyrdom" doesn't make it a any less of a fantasy). But you do have to
> >evaluate a movie, at least in part, based on the criteria it sets out
> >for itself.
>
> One man's fantasy, is another man's melting timepiece...
>
> Doug
Ah yes. What is the big difference between Pretty Woman
Joseph R Abbott
For me, the quintessential "realist" film is The Bicycle Thief. It
focuses on a very small event, a bike being stolen, and the mans
desperate search for it. What makes it realism is, the man isn't a
hero. He doesn't get the bike back, in fact he becomes a thief himself
and loses the respect of his son. But thats hoe real life is
sometimes.
On the other hand, most Hollywood movies fall in the category of hero
dramas, where the protagonist is out on some major quest to save the
world and everyone is cheering for him and in the end he surmounts
insurmountable odds and saves the day and gets the girl too.
doug lauber
I'll checkout the Bicycle Thief.
Yeah, I much prefer realism over the inflated hero Hollywood
movie. That's what made 'In The Bedroom' refreshing.
I have a lot of trouble sitting through cartoonish films like
Spiderman. Adventure films can be okay now and then,
like Indie Jones, but realism always helps a film, in my
opinion. The African Queen had a tone of realism and it
was an adventure film. -doug
trajan
>
> On Thu, 08 May 2003 01:41:44 -0700, Ron <ronald...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> One man's fantasy, is another man's melting timepiece...
>
> Doug
>
>
One man's fish is another man's poisson.
:)
T
new...@virtual.com
Too true... too true.