I feel when looking at film in the world today and its function as not only art but entertainment, that it has hit a profound paradox. This being, despite the overused mantra of “Film is a visual medium” and “Show don`t tell” being postulated by nearly everyone, film I feel is not truly achieving this. A reaction that has emerged from the new Nicolas Winding Refn film, “Only God Forgives” that came out on the 2nd August here in the UK.
Instead I feel it has entered a period of regression where it does the complete opposite, pictures and shots are not really being used anymore to tell a story or hypothesis something. Instead what is relied on is dialogue to communicate the ideas of something, be it a theme or motivation across to the audience.
What evidence do I have for this? Well let us look at the sheer amount of films that just count on visuals alone to tell a story, I think there are very few that one can cite today. Since the silent era, film has been devolving in this area, until today when we see something completely reliant on visuals. I find that we are quick to call it unintelligible, nonsense or even going as so far as to insulting the director by calling him indulgent.
Let us take this one word and truly try to understand its meaning. Indulgent has many uses, but for the parameters of this discussion it is linked to gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. It does seem most interesting upon first examination that a religious interpretation of something has weighed in of a definition of a word today.
Perhaps we can break this down further and just define indulgent as excessive. So my question is this, what is so excessive when one sits down and watches something like “The Tree of Life” (A rare film that has very little dialogue and relies on the visuals to tell its story) is it perhaps, the uses of images, little dialogue, and the 20 minute sequence of the world being created? Or other things, like I don`t know perhaps trying to be profound? Now you see my contention here, people ultimately criticize “Tree of Life” on one of the things it is doing right and achieving and that is telling the story through images, ultimately really necessitating itself as a film in the true definition of the word.
So the question from here that can be asked is why do we not see more films like this? The reason is because we have been so socially conditioned to accept things at face value; this comes from morality, religion to even politics. And this has even festered into views of art and film is suffering too as a result of this.
Think about it for a second, most films are quite a typical you can easily slot them in a genre, like romance, action, science fiction etc. When you go and see somethingyou’re not expecting anything new or profound. Yet in the dark corners of the world, there is hope, there are films that come out that try to challenge the viewers in many ways.
Yet the irony of all of this is that in film criticism many do complain of this sudden halt in creativity. Let us examine this for a second, is creativity in film truly dead? Well it all does come down to perception. Back in the old days, fewer movies came out, they were like a bigger event almost on the level of a touring performance or a play being put on that was in limited release.
However in our current age, films come out every week that they have lost their entire mystique, at just a touch of a button you can find out everything about one film and become an expert on it in fewer than ten minutes- varying on the speed of your reading. As a result of this, we do start to make observations like oh such and such a film is a remake, adaptation or even reboot.
The complaint feels rather unfounded, especially as another paradox can be raised within the confines of this issue alone. The so called “Summer Blockbuster” or tent pool movies are often loathed by critics with an extreme passionate anger and some of these sentiments are shared by many members of the public.
I once heard a very clever man refer to a movie ticket as like a vote, that with it we decide what we want to watch at the cinema as well as subjectively decide in our own way, what kind of movies are going to be made in the near distant future. I agree with this assessment because as corny and idealistic as it sounds, it is actually true. Let us examine a case, since the Michael Bay, Transformers movies; there have been a slew up imitators, with similar premise, character types and poor story telling.
This is because Transformers made money, the paradox arises out of us paying to see these movies in spades and then we complain about it, the whole thing becomes rather circular and tedious. This phenomenon is not just exclusive to films but other world affairs. There was much complaint about George Bush and his second term, but who voted him in- The same American public who complained about him in the first place.
Let us go back to the word indulgent and its lineage with the word excessive. Is this perhaps how we are psychologically and on further reflection, existentially? Well one could point to various examples of this being true but the real reason is because of something ingrained in our culture I feel. We live in an age where information is just a click away and because of this knowledge is no longer a desirable thing as it once was.
It feels more like a means to an end as opposed to enjoying any sense accomplishment in the act of using that knowledge in of itself. Retaining information is no longer a concern either.
For example if we look at the state school system, education is taught as a means to an end as opposed to stepping back and trying to enjoy a subject for the value that it may bring a student.
However I am veering off the point, so I shall conclude as thus. This paradox of film as a visual medium will always exist and unless it ceases we are never going to evolve in our perception of film.
Unfortunately, there are no directors such as Stanley Kubrick these days. He was someone that truly took the medium and tried reassess its utility and show it can be structured differently beyond our normal parameters of understanding it. We are merely living an illusion at the moment and fooling ourselves on the true definition of film.
It is time that we woke up and just think for a moment of what film truly is and our current perceptions of it is, I feel we have no right in speaking about film properly when we do not fully understanding its meaning. As a result we are currently living in sugar coated ignorance and not allowing the medium of film to move forward which is a shame as it stands as just over 100 years old and it still has to room to grow and evolve.
No comments:
Post a Comment