Kubrick's Favorite Authors?
Winston Castro
have been?
As to his favorite directors, he was very 'hush-hush.' Apparently he
did not seem to want to endorse specific "lists" or any such thing.
In any case, some knowledge about his reading habits would be
interesting to me....
Peter Tonguette
According to Michael Herr, Kafka and Hemingway ranked high in the Kubrick
pantheon of writers. I believe Herr wrote that SK felt Kafka was the greatest
writer of the century and the most misread.
pt
Brian Siano
Well, we know he liked Arthur Schnitzler and Jim Thompson-- not just
because he used their material, but because he'd commented on their
qualities as writers.
Darth Nub
I do remember reading interviews with Kubrick in which he referred to
Kafka, mainly about how the films of his books (Welles' The Trial)
seemed to miss the point by making everything expressionistic.
Kubrick's view was that the strangeness in Kafka lay in bizarre things
occurring in normal surroundings.
Hate to disagree with the master, but Welles' adaptation of The Trial
shits all over that made-for-TV version starring Kyle MacLachlan &
Anthony Hopkins, which did present everything very normally. Nothing
particularly wrong with it - it was faithful to the text & was well
acted, but just dull. Welles' version, on the other hand, is an
absolute treat - probably his best film after Citizen Kane, &
presented Kafka's nightmare world beautifully.
The film version of Kafka's novel 'The Castle' is done quite straight.
Not a particularly great movie, but worth a look, just as a curiosity.
It reminded me of Herzog's version of Nosferatu, which I didn't like
at all.
As for other authors Kubrick admired, Arthur Schnitzler would be an
obvious choice. I can also see him being a fan of Dostoevsky & George
Orwell.
Darth
Peter Tonguette
>Welles' version, on the other hand, is an
>absolute treat - probably his best film after Citizen Kane, &
>presented Kafka's nightmare world beautifully.
I'd agree - Welles' version is superb, though I'd rank "Chimes at Midnight,"
"The Immortal Story," and "F for Fake" before it perhaps. I also don't know if
it's particularly expressionistic except for a few passages. I always think of
that masterful opening scene done in a single take - incredibly simple, yet
menacing/disturbing/etc.
Peter
Your Pal Brian
But one of the expressionistic things about the film is that those long takes give
way to quick cutting; the fractured editing expressing K's fractured state of mind,
so to speak. And the lighting throughout is hardly diegetic, nor the locations
realistic. I'd call it expressionism, myself, though of a rather unique variety.
I shudder to think that shooting it realistically would have made it something like
that A&E version of Ambersons. (The horror...the horror...)
Welles, of course, viewed the book as only a germ of the final thing:
http://www.wellesnet.com/trial%20bbc%20interview.htm
WHELDON: Do you have any compunction about changing a masterpiece?
WELLES: Not at all, because film is quite a different medium. Film should not be a
fully illustrated, all talking, all moving version of a printed work, but should be
itself, a thing of itself. In that way it uses a novel in the same way that a
playwright might use a novel-- as a jumping off point from which he will create a
completely new work. So no, I have no compunction about changing a book. If you
take a serious view of filmmaking, you have to consider that films are not an
illustration or an interpretation of a work, but quite as worthwhile as the
original.
WHELDON: So it's not a film of the book, it's a film based on the book?
WELLES: Not even based on. It's a film inspired by the book, in which my
collaborator and partner is Kafka. That may sound like a pompous thing to say, but
I'm afraid that it does remain a Welles film and although I have tried to be
faithful to what I take to be the spirit of Kafka, the novel was written in the
early twenties, and this is now 1962, and we've made the film in 1962, and I've
tried to make it my film because I think that it will have more validity if it's
mine.
I don't think Kubrick would have disagreed with much of this.
Brian
jas3777
he made a beautiful film of Nabokov's Lolita.
Darth Nub
I still haven't managed to see "Chimes at Midnight" or "The Immortal
Story", so I can't comment there (I was in Dublin ONE FUCKING WEEK
after they'd just had an Orson Welles Film Festival with literally
everything, goddamnit). I'd still rate The Trial over F For Fake, much
as I loved that mockumentary / documentary.
Welles' adaptation of The Trial can be considered expressionistic,
simply because what is presented is not a view of the real world at
all, at least not visually. Classic expressionism used completely
constructed sets, often painted on canvas panels, but using real
locations doesn't necessarly rule expressionism out. At its core,
expressionism is about using exaggeration to express an idea, usually
something that is going on within the characters. Classic film noir,
although set in 'normal' locations, hightened the sense of fear,
guilt, or whatever, in the characters by making the contrast between
light & shadow that much more extreme.
Kubrick I would consider an expressionist as well - the way he filmed
his characters in The Shining in relation to the architecture of the
hotel emphasised the dark presence of something much bigger & beyond
them, whether it was the hotel itself, or the ghosts that dwelt there.
Expressionism is not about crooked stairways or rooftops, it is about
EXPRESSING the interior life of the charcters in an exterior fashion,
be it with a dark hallway, or the shadow of a spiderweb projected on
someone's face.
Darth
Bruce Law
> EXPRESSING the interior life of the charcters in an exterior fashion,
> be it with a dark hallway, or the shadow of a spiderweb projected on
> someone's face.
>
> Darth
But surely that's the objective of all good filmmakers.
Don't we use terms like Expressionism, Romanticism and Mannerism, for
example, to denote specific methods, themes and periods in the history of
art? All artists try to exteriorise inner feelings.
Bruce
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David Kirkpatrick
>>Expressionism is not about crooked stairways or rooftops, it is about
>>EXPRESSING the interior life of the charcters in an exterior fashion,
>>be it with a dark hallway, or the shadow of a spiderweb projected on
>>someone's face.
>>
>>Darth
>>
>
> But surely that's the objective of all good filmmakers.
>
> Don't we use terms like Expressionism, Romanticism and Mannerism, for
> example, to denote specific methods, themes and periods in the history of
> art? All artists try to exteriorise inner feelings.
>
> Bruce
Everything depends on how specific or general we want "expressionism" to
mean. Personally, I like John Canaday's three-way distinction of
approaches to visual art: realism, expressionism and abstraction, with
the basic idea being that realism expresses what the eye sees,
expressionism expresses feeling and abstraction expresses thought.
Realism is the degree to which something is represented without being
distorted, abstraction is the degree to which composition is imposed
upon the contents of the painting or sculpture and expressionism is the
degree to which appearance is distorted or composition is rendered
indeterminate or chaotic in order to express neither objective reality
nor collected thought, but rather human reaction, emotion or
disturbance. These seem to be the primary colors of style, though
various ways of blending them (and embedding one tendency within
another) exist.
My theory about acting is that the three main styles are naturalistic
(realistic), melodramatic (expressive) (caricature that makes one feel)
and comic (abstract) (caricature that makes one think). There is
nothing essentially exclusive about these tendencies -- consider how a
style of comedy may be dry (realistic?), sentimental, romantic or dark
(expressivistic) or farcical, screwball or black (abstract).
My theory about Kubrick's intuitive esthetic is that he seeks a perfect
balance between these three tendencies. And that this can throw off
viewers and critics who are used to seeing a filmmaker establish a bias
in one direction or the other. We like our illusions to be totally
convincing, our heros to be totally involving and the jokes to be
clearly defined. Instead we are torn between realism and surrealism,
passion and irony, and humor that tends towards the eerily uncanny
instead of the cute or diverting. But of course, it's partly that
frisson that make Kubrick films bear so much reviewing. Its very
balance keeps us off balance.
David
dutch_angle
> > example, to denote specific methods, themes and periods in the history of
> > art? All artists try to exteriorise inner feelings.
> >
> > Bruce
>
> Everything depends on how specific or general we want "expressionism" to
> mean. Personally, I like John Canaday's three-way distinction of
> approaches to visual art: realism, expressionism and abstraction, with
> the basic idea being that realism expresses what the eye sees,
> expressionism expresses feeling and abstraction expresses thought.
> Realism is the degree to which something is represented without being
> distorted, abstraction is the degree to which composition is imposed
> upon the contents of the painting or sculpture and expressionism is the
> degree to which appearance is distorted or composition is rendered
> indeterminate or chaotic in order to express neither objective reality
> nor collected thought, but rather human reaction, emotion or
> disturbance. These seem to be the primary colors of style, though
> various ways of blending them (and embedding one tendency within
> another) exist.
I couldn't like any theory that tries to pinpoint the different
expressions through art in this way. Makes me feel sad. The urge to
snipsnap art is becoming disturbing. Call that "modern ages".
>
> My theory about acting is that the three main styles are naturalistic
> (realistic), melodramatic (expressive) (caricature that makes one feel)
> and comic (abstract) (caricature that makes one think). There is
> nothing essentially exclusive about these tendencies -- consider how a
> style of comedy may be dry (realistic?), sentimental, romantic or dark
> (expressivistic) or farcical, screwball or black (abstract).
My theory about acting is that one should never dissect it into
styles. The only style that is required is the right one, and let it
be one hell of a cliché, it's true.
The search for the "right style" (if one could describe it that way,
at all) is tremendously important, and it should come from a deep down
devotion to one's own inner soul, passion, analysis, as well as
personal experience, while aiming at finding "truth" in a given
character, a character that only exists on paper and therefore doesn't
really exist; that is something you can never ever really define. If
the style of a performance is either naturalistic, melodramatic or
comic, you will surely miss that truth. Once you can "see" the style,
it's fake.
I think Kubrick came close in describing what he was after: "Is it
interesting?"
If would-be directors see Peter Sellers going a little funny in the
head, they shouldn't make the mistake by just analysing it as "comic",
because then they can learn nothing from it. They will only copy the
outer levels of such a performance. And I'm pretty sure Kubrick didn't
ask Sellers to use a "comic" style, it just doesn't work that way.
I don't trust directors who are sure of themselves, who always say how
they know exactly what to do. It's fake. It's make-believe. It doesn't
exist. If they think they do, their films will not be good enough.
To prepare the 13-year old Alexei Kravchenko for the role of Florya,
in Idi I Smotri (Come and See), director Klimov felt that at this age,
his young actor could not know what hate or love is, so he used
hypnosis.
To us that may sound strange, or dangerous, but I can surely imagine
why Klimov made that decision. He understands that an actor needs the
right mental state, in order to express something that is "true".
Afterwards you can call that "a style", but it doesn't mean anything
to me.
>
> My theory about Kubrick's intuitive esthetic is that he seeks a perfect
> balance between these three tendencies.
I do not agree. Not at all.
I don't think he is that conscious, because he knows that it is wiser
not to fuzz around in styles, not even by trying to balance them.
It is not about balance, it is about trying to create the right
circumstances in which he can help his actors to find the right
expression, no matter what that is, as long as it "feels" true. I may
not have found the right words to explain, I'm sorry (my English...),
but since "time is gold" with Kubrick, I just feel that he dares to
invest in the search for truth of a character, no matter how. He
defines it with a question "Is it interesting?", but I think that's
his way of finding that truth. And it is very difficult and demanding.
> And that this can throw off
> viewers and critics who are used to seeing a filmmaker establish a bias
> in one direction or the other.
Whether it throws off viewers and critics: might be, you can never
satisfy everyone, especially if you are willing to make very specific
and personal choices.
> We like our illusions to be totally
> convincing, our heros to be totally involving and the jokes to be
> clearly defined. Instead we are torn between realism and surrealism,
> passion and irony, and humor that tends towards the eerily uncanny
> instead of the cute or diverting. But of course, it's partly that
> frisson that make Kubrick films bear so much reviewing. Its very
> balance keeps us off balance.
Using only rational ways of discussing the mysteries of acting, you
always fall short. You can dissect the supposed number of styles as
much as you want to, but it doesn't strike me as inspiring, nor do I
think you are close to the core of the search for personal expression.
You can look at things from the outside and dissect. It's not that
difficult. But to dig a little deeper, you also have to approach it
from the other way around, when there's not "something" concrete to
dissect.
Tarkovsky does a good job, in his book "Sculpting In Time".
That's what I would call "balance": the ratio vs the spiritual.
But then again, this is a time of analysis.
There is books that analyse art, and books that analyse the analysis
of art.
Somewhere deep down there, there's art.
That never asks for analysis.
Because only people do.
d.a.
David Kirkpatrick
But it seems your objection to any theory is that it is *theory* and not
direct experience. It's the job of any theory to demystify rather than
to mystify.
I did say "intuitive". And style isn't necessarily something one picks
off a rack like a type face in word processing. Imitation, sympathy and
parody can characterize the effect of trying portray anything at all
regardless of whether one plans to apply a style at all. Style is as
much a verdict as a method, and as much of a symptom as a verdict.
> It is not about balance, it is about trying to create the right
> circumstances in which he can help his actors to find the right
> expression, no matter what that is, as long as it "feels" true. I may
> not have found the right words to explain, I'm sorry (my English...),
> but since "time is gold" with Kubrick, I just feel that he dares to
> invest in the search for truth of a character, no matter how. He
> defines it with a question "Is it interesting?", but I think that's
> his way of finding that truth. And it is very difficult and demanding.
According to Con Pederson, he had three questions: "Is it realistic?"
"Is it interesting?" and "Is it beautiful or esthetically superior?"
(Now this had to do with the visual design of a film, so it's
speculation on my part that this three-sided approach (however
unconscious) might manifest itself in other creative decisions.)
This to me is an intuitive parallel to Canaday's triad. "Interesting"
implies to me "involving" and the implication of distinguishing
"beautiful or esthetically superior" from "interesting" seems to be that
this alternative consideration to "interesting" is relatively abstract
and intellectual if "interesting" means emotionally involving or
spiritually significant if "interesting" means intellectually involving.
It's all well and good to switch our focus from the superficialities of
style to the depths of truth, but does not "truth of character" come in
stylistic flavors as well? For example, there is the truth of the
character as moral actor upon the world (character as project or
agent?), the truth of how the world shaped that character (character as
object or victim?), and the truth of how things to that character
(character as subject or adventure). To the extent that a character may
truly represent an idea or an argument or a type of approach to life,
the style of approaching that character might be said to be abstract.
To the extent that a character might be as truly inscrutible and complex
as any random stranger, the style of characterization might be called
realistic. And to the extent that what happens to a character seems
truly important or to the extent that the vicarious experience of that
character has the truth of a dream, fantasy or nightmare, the style of
characterization might be called expressionistic.
>>And that this can throw off
>>viewers and critics who are used to seeing a filmmaker establish a bias
>>in one direction or the other.
>>
>
> Whether it throws off viewers and critics: might be, you can never
> satisfy everyone, especially if you are willing to make very specific
> and personal choices.
>
>
>
>>We like our illusions to be totally
>>convincing, our heros to be totally involving and the jokes to be
>>clearly defined. Instead we are torn between realism and surrealism,
>>passion and irony, and humor that tends towards the eerily uncanny
>>instead of the cute or diverting. But of course, it's partly that
>>frisson that make Kubrick films bear so much reviewing. Its very
>>balance keeps us off balance.
>>
>
> Using only rational ways of discussing the mysteries of acting, you
> always fall short. You can dissect the supposed number of styles as
> much as you want to, but it doesn't strike me as inspiring, nor do I
> think you are close to the core of the search for personal expression.
> You can look at things from the outside and dissect. It's not that
> difficult. But to dig a little deeper, you also have to approach it
> from the other way around, when there's not "something" concrete to
> dissect.
>
> Tarkovsky does a good job, in his book "Sculpting In Time".
> That's what I would call "balance": the ratio vs the spiritual.
To my way of thinking, "ratio" is "balance". The spiritual is a matter
of connection, not balance. Perhaps my analysis seems colder than it is
because I've emphasized how a mix of available stylistic tendencies may
be either balanced or biased in one direction or another. But this
balancing act is not the essence of creativity or self-expression, only
a necessary aspect of it. Any functional judgments involve balance.
But what links the realms of the sensual, the esthetic and the spiritual
or the realms of pleasure, beauty and wonder, is that they are
extensions of the phenonena of connection and disconnection.
Perhaps the metaphor of primary colors is an unnecessarily cold one.
Then let me emphasize that the three-sided theory should not equated
with the coldness of binary logic. Its very three-sidedness is a
guaranty that its logic will always be "fuzzy" -- at least from a
"rational" perspective. Between the pure content of realism (immanence)
and the pure form of abstraction (correspondence) lies the richness of
expression (both spiritual immersion and transcendence). What could be
"warmer" than that as a starting point for further complexity?
>
> But then again, this is a time of analysis.
> There is books that analyse art, and books that analyse the analysis
> of art.
> Somewhere deep down there, there's art.
> That never asks for analysis.
> Because only people do.
Yes, inquiring minds want to know. I see the analysis problem as a need
for more quality, not less quantity. That there are many analyses out
there not worth reading, no question. There are even films that aren't
worth watching. But Sturgeon's Law can be used to prove anything.
David
David Kirkpatrick
"Expressivism". Didn't mean to coin a new term.
David
dutch_angle
> expressions
> > through art in this way. Makes me feel sad. The urge to snipsnap
> > art is becoming disturbing. Call that "modern ages".
> >
> But it seems your objection to any theory is that it is *theory* and not
> direct experience. It's the job of any theory to demystify rather than
> to mystify.
It's not my objection.
It's my own limited way of being critical.
I don't think it's the theory's job to demystify.
A theory can perhaps make us believe in demystifying the chaos of our
existence.
The satisfying illusion of order.
Theories are always put down into words.
Words are always limited.
Chaos remains.
> >
> >>My theory about Kubrick's intuitive esthetic is that he seeks a perfect
> >>balance between these three tendencies.
> >>
> >
> > I do not agree. Not at all.
> > I don't think he is that conscious, because he knows that it is wiser
> > not to fuzz around in styles, not even by trying to balance them.
>
> I did say "intuitive". And style isn't necessarily something one picks
> off a rack like a type face in word processing.
Then why create three racks and then say you like it?
> Imitation, sympathy and
> parody can characterize the effect of trying portray anything at all
> regardless of whether one plans to apply a style at all. Style is as
> much a verdict as a method, and as much of a symptom as a verdict.
A theory from which I learn nothing.
You expanding the theory, without improving it. (at least: to me, that
is...)
>
> > It is not about balance, it is about trying to create the right
> > circumstances in which he can help his actors to find the right
> > expression, no matter what that is, as long as it "feels" true. I may
> > not have found the right words to explain, I'm sorry (my English...),
> > but since "time is gold" with Kubrick, I just feel that he dares to
> > invest in the search for truth of a character, no matter how. He
> > defines it with a question "Is it interesting?", but I think that's
> > his way of finding that truth. And it is very difficult and demanding.
>
> According to Con Pederson, he had three questions: "Is it realistic?"
> "Is it interesting?" and "Is it beautiful or esthetically superior?"
> (Now this had to do with the visual design of a film, so it's
> speculation on my part that this three-sided approach (however
> unconscious) might manifest itself in other creative decisions.)
Yes, and if we may believe Nicole Kidman, he was open to any
suggestion, while also being able to be very strict and demanding, etc
etc, see all interviews and so on.
>
> This to me is an intuitive parallel to Canaday's triad.
Not to me, because Kubrick, I believe, is not doing triads.
The intuitive part of his working habits; I am eager to believe so.
But that doesn't sum it up to me.
It's more complicated than that.
It cannot be summed up.
Creating is an ongoing dynamic process.
Canaday is expressing a theory, so he comes up with his triad.
He can do that, because he is analysing.
Directing a film, is more than analysing and no one asks for a triad
on a filmset.
> "Interesting"
> implies to me "involving" and the implication of distinguishing
> "beautiful or esthetically superior" from "interesting" seems to be that
> this alternative consideration to "interesting" is relatively abstract
> and intellectual if "interesting" means emotionally involving or
> spiritually significant if "interesting" means intellectually involving.
In an essay I would perhaps think that this is a very well crafted
sentence.
But 'a' theory wasn't my point.
I think Kubrick, when he asks these questions, is able to react in a
rather direct way; there's always a chance that over-analysis kills
the magic.
And I think that Kubrick, intuitively, knows when AND when not to
communicate with the actors (because acting was what I was talking
about) about that exact impact (or non-impact) that he felt. (without
necessarily "knowing" the why's and how's)
These three Kubrick-questions shouldn't be "racked", that is: not to
be regarded as definitive, I think.
>
> It's all well and good to switch our focus from the superficialities of
> style to the depths of truth, but does not "truth of character" come in
> stylistic flavors as well?
No, I don't think so.
It can only come from the actor; an actor is more than "stylistic
flavors".
Once you feel that "truth" is "happening", one can guide an actor in
more technical ways. And sometimes you find yourself in the position
that there's only technique...
But I would be very careful to use the word "style" on a film set,
while directing actors, for a start. It just doesn't work that way.
> For example, there is the truth of the
> character as moral actor upon the world (character as project or
> agent?), the truth of how the world shaped that character (character as
> object or victim?), and the truth of how things to that character
> (character as subject or adventure).
All true, on itself...
This is all analysis that doesn't guarantee you one good thing.
It doesn't therefore mean that this will bring out "truth" from the
actor, that it will reveal "truth of character".
What you say, all sounds too much as an invitation to "talk about" the
character, rather than "finding and/or expressing" truth of character,
by acting, by doing, by delving into.
> To the extent that a character may
> truly represent an idea or an argument or a type of approach to life,
> the style of approaching that character might be said to be abstract.
No, I don't think you understand what I was saying.
My fault.
Again, with this, an actor cannot work, I firmly believe.
And I know for sure that many say they can, but then they are liars.
However, what you are saying here of course can be "discussed" with an
actor, but personally I would be very very aware never to make this
into the "direction", and I would certainly try to go right against
any goodsounding "conclusion" that the actor and I would end up with,
because that's an aspect of chaos, of life, the world in which theory
only exists in the "afterward".
Again: I'm not writing theories here.
> To the extent that a character might be as truly inscrutible and complex
> as any random stranger, the style of characterization might be called
> realistic.
I would never use that word, realistic.
Truth of character is too pure, too unique for such a lable.
> And to the extent that what happens to a character seems
> truly important or to the extent that the vicarious experience of that
> character has the truth of a dream, fantasy or nightmare, the style of
> characterization might be called expressionistic.
Wouldn't work for me neither, as a director.
Because I wouldn't copy-paste my theoretical ego onto a performance.
( and I would never describe it that way, if I was willing to put it
into an essay )
> >
> > Tarkovsky does a good job, in his book "Sculpting In Time".
> > That's what I would call "balance": the ratio vs the spiritual.
>
> To my way of thinking, "ratio" is "balance".
To my way of thinking, "ratio" is "the illusion of balance", at best.
> The spiritual is a matter of connection, not balance.
Connection with what?
To me, the spiritual is never 'a' matter of connection.
MatterS of connection(s) could very well be part of the spiritual,
maybe.
I would never write it into one sentence, I would refuse that.
It is like breathing from your soul, something that is dynamic.
> Perhaps my analysis seems colder than it is
> because I've emphasized how a mix of available stylistic tendencies may
> be either balanced or biased in one direction or another.
It's neither cold nor warm to me.
To me it is just very limited.
> But this
> balancing act is not the essence of creativity or self-expression, only
> a necessary aspect of it. Any functional judgments involve balance.
> But what links the realms of the sensual, the esthetic and the spiritual
> or the realms of pleasure, beauty and wonder, is that they are
> extensions of the phenonena of connection and disconnection.
Which again, is a great sentence, that bears no inspiration for me.
And that's what I need, foremost: inspiration.
It just doesn't surprise me, it tries, by far, to be too "right" or
"all including", or just "put into words".
Which is not something that I would associate with "creating".
Example: I really don't like "functional judgement".
It just doesn't connect with me.
>
> Perhaps the metaphor of primary colors is an unnecessarily cold one.
> Then let me emphasize that the three-sided theory should not equated
> with the coldness of binary logic. Its very three-sidedness is a
> guaranty that its logic will always be "fuzzy" -- at least from a
> "rational" perspective. Between the pure content of realism (immanence)
> and the pure form of abstraction (correspondence) lies the richness of
> expression (both spiritual immersion and transcendence). What could be
> "warmer" than that as a starting point for further complexity?
The mystery and, yes, richness of expression is what I believe in.
So I don't need the metaphor.
I can do without it.
>
> >
> > But then again, this is a time of analysis.
> > There is books that analyse art, and books that analyse the analysis
> > of art.
> > Somewhere deep down there, there's art.
> > That never asks for analysis.
> > Because only people do.
>
> Yes, inquiring minds want to know. I see the analysis problem as a need
> for more quality, not less quantity.
Analysis is not a problem. Why call it that way?
It is just a highly limited way of racking things.
The need for more quality doesn't require analysis, perse.
And it only creates the illusion of more quality, which is highly
subjective.
> That there are many analyses out
> there not worth reading, no question. There are even films that aren't
> worth watching. But Sturgeon's Law can be used to prove anything.
I wouldn't really go for "proving" things.
d.a.
David Kirkpatrick
>> > I couldn't like any theory that tries to pinpoint the different
>> expressions
>> > through art in this way. Makes me feel sad. The urge to snipsnap
>> > art is becoming disturbing. Call that "modern ages".
>> >
>>But it seems your objection to any theory is that it is *theory*
and not
>>direct experience. It's the job of any theory to demystify rather
than
>>to mystify.
>>
>
> It's not my objection.
> It's my own limited way of being critical.
> I don't think it's the theory's job to demystify.
> A theory can perhaps make us believe in demystifying the chaos of our
> existence.
> The satisfying illusion of order.
> Theories are always put down into words.
> Words are always limited.
> Chaos remains.
>
True to some extent. But everything isn't all chaos. And every theory
should demystify more than it mystifies (otherwise the anti-pendant
leagues gets on the theorist's case!). Language can only take us so
far, but what's wrong with seeing how far it will go?
The satisfying illusion of chaos.
Poetry is often put down in words.
The limits of words can make them infinitely allusive.
Order remains. :-)
In a similar sense that he is not doing "synapse firing". Any metaphor
can sound ridiculous if it is thoroughly mixed. The things that
Kubrick's brain does is one type of thing and the type of thing that
Kubrick the filmmaker does is quite another. What Kubrick the
metaphysician is doing might indeed be termed "doing triads" in one
situation and "doing dyads" in another. I could steer this thought into
the direction of my own thinking on the matter, but let's relate this to
more established notions. It's been said that everyone is either a
Platonist or an Aristotelian. It's also been said that there are two
types of people: people who think there are two types of people, and
people who don't. Of course, the people who don't: presumably think
that people who seem to think there are two kinds, unconsciously know
there is only one. Personally I find the unspoken assumption that the
only alternative to dualism is monism rather presumptuous, even
baffling. Why is a yin-yang or a figure-ground distinction considered
to be such a radical departure from the dichotomy of true-false,
body-mind etc.?
I would argue that triads are at the heart of humanism, e.g. birth, life
death. In a sense realism is like relating to something as if it were
dead: like a photographic image. Abstraction is attending to what is
borne out by something, the analogies and truths that it bears like
children or messages carried. (Perhaps I have these two backwards,
though.) Expressionism is an attempt to capture the living or make
contact with it, without trying to kill it or to make it bear something
that transcends it. One way of putting it: neither the immanent, nor
the transcendent, but the resplendent.
> The intuitive part of his working habits; I am eager to believe so.
> But that doesn't sum it up to me.
> It's more complicated than that.
> It cannot be summed up.
> Creating is an ongoing dynamic process.
> Canaday is expressing a theory, so he comes up with his triad.
By the way, I should mention that Canaday is no post-modernist
theory-spinner. He is a deceased, relatively conservative art critic
who wrote Metropolitan Seminars on Art, a book-of-the-month club
selection in the late 50s or early 60s. As far as I can tell,
the three-way distinction that he makes is more of a received wisdom
than an avant-garde theory. He does not seem to be a Chomsky proposing
a theory of generative grammar, but rather a pre-Chomskian grammarian
teaching students how to diagram sentences.
His basic taxonomy is quite unassuming and innocuous, it seems to me. I
would just add that it provides a more fertile ground for getting at the
essence of what esthetics is all about than his more explicit comments
about what makes some pictures successful and others unsuccessful.
Nowhere, of course, does Canaday suggest that you can teach creative
genius via the same principles that art appreciation can be facilitated.
His taxonomy has the advantage that it is hard to imagine a simpler one
being true, yet it does flaunt complexity. If the triad is wrong, would
a dyad or a tetrad be better? (When I insisted to Leonard Wheat that a
compromise was not a synthesis, I was ultimately arguing that a dyad was
not a triad.) Another advantage is that by identifying realism with
seeing, expressionism with feeling and abstraction with thinking,
Canaday affirms three values which have a certain independence and
integrity of their own -- without denying a certain interdependence and
interaction between them. In other words, realism is not reduced to bad
abstraction, nor abstraction to bad realism, nor expressionism to either
a failure to see or to think. Impressionism, cubism and surrealism are
three general approaches to painting that seem to combine the values of
sensual realism, emotional expressionism and intellectual abstraction in
different ways that seem less insistently real than Vermeer, less
directly expressive than Van Gogh and less purely abstract than
Mondrian. This is a third advantage of Canaday's approach. The other
two are that it helps the viewer reconcile Vermeer, Van Gogh and
Mondrian as different but equal in their implied "isms" and that it
leads the viewer to explore the ways in which the qualities of realism
abstraction and expression are, can be or ought to be expressed.
> He can do that, because he is analysing.
> Directing a film, is more than analysing and no one asks for a triad
> on a filmset.
>
And no one ever built a piano by methodically combined gravity,
electromagnetism and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Doesn't
undermine the theory of four primary forces of nature.
>
>
>> "Interesting"
>>implies to me "involving" and the implication of distinguishing
>>"beautiful or esthetically superior" from "interesting" seems to be
that
>>this alternative consideration to "interesting" is relatively
abstract
>>and intellectual if "interesting" means emotionally involving or
>>spiritually significant if "interesting" means intellectually
involving.
>>
>
> In an ssay I would perhaps think that this is a very well crafted
Perhaps my latest remarks will dispel that appearance.
>
>
>
>>To the extent that a character may
>>truly represent an idea or an argument or a type of approach to life,
>>the style of approaching that character might be said to be abstract.
>>
>
> No, I don't think you understand what I was saying.
> My fault.
> Again, with this, an actor cannot work, I firmly believe.
> And I know for sure that many say they can, but then they are liars.
> However, what you are saying here of course can be "discussed"
with an
> actor, but personally I would be very very aware never to make this
> into the "direction", and I would certainly try to go right against
> any goodsounding "conclusion" that the actor and I would end up with,
> because that's an aspect of chaos, of life, the world in which theory
> only exists in the "afterward".
> Again: I'm not writing theories here.
>
>>To the extent that a character might be as truly inscrutible and
complex
>>as any random stranger, the style of characterization might be called
>>realistic.
>>
>
> I would never use that word, realistic.
Just because the destination cannot be reached doesn't mean the
direction doesn't exist. The words "real", "reality", and "realistic"
are perfectly good tools for orientation as long as you don't think you
can follow them to the end of the rainbow. After all, actuality is a
good synonym for reality, and what is acting but a form of actualizing?
-- even if it is at the same time, faking.
> Truth of character is too pure, too unique for such a lable.
>
Which is it? Pure or unique? Mixtures can be unique; mightn't truth of
character be the truly unique way in which things are mixed -- and
connected within a single character? Purity suggests abstraction to me
or the innocence that precedes mixing it up with the world.
I'm not sure why this little theory of mine (which is proposing a
taxonomy, not a pedagogy, and is more about esthetics than poetics, more
about how we perceive beauty than how it can be created) should stand or
fall depending on the articulateness and personality of actors.
Having indicated that I don't really feel comfortable playing this game,
let's give it a try:
How a director should talk (or otherwise communicate) to actors in order
to get the best performance out of them, is an empirical question that
has little or no bearing on what makes the performance laudable on one
basis or another. After all, the best method to achieve any particular
effect may turn out to involve reverse psychology, indirection or
straight out lying. For example, critics are more than entitled to
suppose or argue whether there is an Oedipal subtext to The Shining.
But suppose Kubrick chose to go out of his way to point out to the
concerned actors to put away any thoughts of Freud and just act.
Obviously, this is just one of an infinite number of ways to actually
injecting Freud into the situation; it's just more interesting than
other examples because it happens to involve the "author" expressing a
contradiction of what a critic might claim the author is doing. But it
illustrates the point that the way a nuance in a film is achieved may be
utterly at odds with what it means. E.g. it may require 30 takes before
an actor can make a detail seem casual rather than deliberate, but that
doesn't contradict the interpretation of the action as casual. In other
words, any "rules" about what constitutes style or meaning in a film
exist on a somewhat different plane than rules, if any, about how one
should go about making it stylish or meaningful.
Yet it seems to me that all knowledge or understanding can be brought to
bear in some way to any given situation. Here's how my little taxonomy
might be brought to bear:
First of all, what is the "truth" of the character? The implication
seems to be that it is a truth about the character, that it is something
about the qualities of the character that makes the character universal
in some way. Or it could be something that makes the character unique.
Well, "abstraction" is the principle that is geared towards bringing
out the universal. The danger in overdoing abstraction in
characterization is that a character can become a caricature or a
stereotype (or a caricature of an anti-stereotype -- it really doesn't
matter). An emblem, a metaphor, an artifice. The extreme alternative
to this type of characterization is to focus not on making the character
significant, symbolic or otherwise meaningful, but on making the
character convincing. This is the bias of "realism". Realism usually
means toning down everything that abstraction would exaggerate and
letting all sorts of details accumulate that do not contribute
thematically or didactically, but rather flesh out the illusion. The
cost of this can be to water down whatever "message" (in the broadest
sense) one intends to convey in an effort to make it all the more
convincing. For example, guided by the "abstraction" principle alone,
one would tend to create an Iago's Iago to depict a character as evil.
As a moderating factor, "realism" guides one to introduce flecks of
white and grey into that total black to make the character more and more
believable. But realism-out-of-control can turn a villain into a
next-door-neighbor who is a victim of his own warts and too filled with
contradictions to be anything more than a cipher. Too abstract, a film
can be a cartoon. Too realistic, it can be nothing more than a security
cam.
A basic consequence of the "triad" taxonomy is that there is always at
least a third guiding principle to draw upon, the one that Kubrick gets
at when he says "but it is interesting?". Both realism and abstraction
tend to alienate the viewer from the film character. But
"expressionism" is an advocate for some sort of empathic connection
between viewer and object. Unmoderated, uncontaminated abstractionism
turns characters into muses or gods, platonic forms. Unmoderated,
extreme realism turns them into insects or natural landscapes.
Expressionism cries out for humans to be received as humans, emphasizing
what magically human in the object, the viewer and how the viewer
responds to the object. It is the expressionistic principle that
defends charisma, melodrama, sentimentality, passion and the visceral
impact of suspense, horror and sexual attraction. So expressionism is
our hero for the moment. But a total devotion to expressionism without
the counterbalancing influences of realism and abstraction can turn
charisma into hero-worshop, drama into soap opera, charm into sentiment,
and sensuality into pornography. In short, expressionism takes what
would otherwise be a mixture of portraiture and symbolic argument and
injects an element of rollercoaster ride -- or here's a better metaphor:
white water rafting. But a work of art that is nothing more than a
ride, that is both an escape from reality and an escape from ideas, is
ultimately as unsatisfactory as the journalistic sensibility of realism
or the geometric sensibility of abstraction.
Is this kind of theorizing useless when trying to make a film? Well, it
would be kind of silly to have any theory of art or esthetics at the
very foreground of consciousness at all times, but surely it could be
useful as part of one's background awareness. Perhaps it could be
summarized with a vernacular even more prosaic than Kubrick's:
"Is it convincing?"
"Is it interesting?"
"Is it relevant?"
Or in terms of birth, life and death:
"Is it convincing" means "is it dead on?" or "does it seem real?"
"Is it interesting" means "does it come alive?" or "can you feel it?"
"Is it relevant?" means "does it bear discussion?" or "thought"
Note that "seeming real" embraces illusion as a good thing, whereas
"thoughtful relevance" points to the value of enlightenment and escape
from illusion. But "interest", "life" and "feeling", the quintessential
values of expressionism, it seems to me, champion the value neither of
immediate appearance nor mediated coherence but rather the process of
intermediate experience.
>>And to the extent that what happens to a character seems
>>truly important or to the extent that the vicarious experience of
that
>>character has the truth of a dream, fantasy or nightmare, the
style of
>>characterization might be called expressionistic.
>>
>
> Wouldn't work for me neither, as a director.
> Because I wouldn't copy-paste my theoretical ego onto a performance.
> ( and I would never describe it that way, if I was willing to put it
> into an essay )
>
>
>> >
>> > Tarkovsky does a good job, in his book "Sculpting In Time".
>> > That's what I would call "balance": the ratio vs the spiritual.
>>
>>To my way of thinking, "ratio" is "balance".
>>
>
> To my way of thinking, "ratio" is "the illusion of balance", at best.
>
>
>
>>The spiritual is a matter of connection, not balance.
>>
>
> Connection with what?
That's not for me to specify. "Only connect." One can be connected or
disconnected within oneself, to the world or to other people in the
world. Sometimes (or perhaps always) disconnection or alienation is
necessary to reach a deeper condition of connection, however defined. I
may need to become alienated from a hero of mine before I can form
connections between myself and the world. Only connect, then
disconnect, then reconnect. Sensuality, esthetics and spirituality have
to do with the process of connecting rather than the particular objects
connected with.
> To me, the spiritual is never 'a' matter of connection.
> MatterS of connection(s) could very well be part of the spiritual,
> maybe.
> I would never write it into one sentence, I would refuse that.
> It is like breathing from your soul, something that is dynamic.
The quality "dynamic" can be equally applied to the moral, the rational,
the spiritual (and esthetic) and the intellectual. But connectivity is
a particular quality of the spiritual and esthetic, in my view. For
example, we have moral obligations with regard to others whether or not
we feel connected to them. Intellectuality is about reflection, not
connection: understanding is a coordination of recognizing similarities
and differences, a quality of memory (and the distance from immediate
experience that that entails) rather than immediate experience.
Spirituality and the appreciation of beauty, on the other hand, have to
connect with and through the present tense, with immediate experience.
The experience of connection and disconnection are intermingled and
neither is more or less spiritual or more or less esthetic than the
other. An interesting thing about connection and disconnection,
however, is that they are not merely opposing tendencies, they are
stages in a process in which creativity and corruption can intermingle
or even characterize the same phenomenon (to forge a connection can be
to fall in with or getting stuck to), and it is possible to take an act
of connection on the one hand and an act of disconnection on the other
and either connect them or disconnect them. This is different from a
balancing act. By contrast, rationality is all about balance (in my
lexicon, to be distinguished from conceptions of reason that conflate
rationality and intellectuality, judgment and discernment, function and
structure). As I conceive it, rationality is essentially about
attitudes towards one's future, the balancing of priorities, the
weighing of perceived utility, the balancing between a sense of urgency
and caution, between desire and expectation, opportunity and pitfall.
Rationality is two-sided dialogue between short-term impulsive intuition
and the need to make decisions relatively immediately, to get judgment
over with and the long-term obsessive-compulsive rationalization mode
that attends to the need to make decisions carefully, by suspending
judgment. At each extreme the rational decision-maker is forced to draw
on other sources of inspiration besides "pure" rationality: memory,
perception, empathy, ethics, analysis, synthesis, common sense, logic,
emotion, imagination -- because all pure rationality consist of (not a
standard definition, I again admit) is a sense of proportion when all
these or any two of these are pitted against one another.
Since reason is just one more quality to be balanced with all the other
positive human qualities in a ratio-nal way, obviously what I mean by
rationality is not equivalent to "reason" as it is associated with the
Age of Reason, for example, but something more akin to sanity or mental
health. Rationality in this more general sense is not the mastery of
anything (e.g. literacy, logical deduction or expertise) but a kind of
freedom from bondage from any one perspective or modality.
David Kirkpatrick