Unspoken Cinema

First, a re-cap of the events thus far that lent themselves to my thought processes (concerning what contemplative cinema entails, mostly) over the last week or so...

The discussion of BAFs (boring art films...although the internets offer more suggestions for the acronym) -- specifically how these subtle creatures invite the audience to participate and empathize -- and Marina's dissemination (just below) on acting as a contemplative engagement of its own accord.

Last night, quite by mistake, I walked into a film (in a class in a school I don't attend, no less) that challenged a lot of what I thought I knew about non-narrative film, and proved to me yet again that in life there are no real mistakes. The film, Koyaanisqatsi, can be described many ways; I do not think that for our purposes here the film itself serves much use: that's debatable, anyway, as the Glass score undermines the integrity of the "contemplative cinema" definition as outlined on this site. It did, however, raise a couple of questions in my mind that appear germane and, I hope, may be of some use despite their broad scope.

Note: You may read the entire thing (linked through the post title) if you wish...but I must warn you that it's an odd article. I'll just post the most relevant bits and go from there:

The film got me thinking about conceptual conflicts in non-narrative film, specifically music and expectation. These two major considerations challenge the supposed "open-ended" qualities of a non-narrative film like Koyaanisqatsi.

Whether the score acts as a driving force to the film's visual composition or as a counterpoint to the visual workings, the score instructs the viewer in ways less open-ended than the visual text. Tensions resulting from internal and external rhythms, reliefs provided by harmonies and dynamics of tone and pitch all provide rich and complex texts of their own.

While this may seem like a passé reiteration for a study of "contemplative cinema," the fact remains that films like Koyaanisqatsi have been and still are considered to be non-narrative film despite their heavy reliance upon a medium that engulfs an entire realm of scholarship and technique all its own.

The second major factor I see as inherent in the non-narrative experience remains the consistent human expectation of story-telling in art forms. Because it is a natural and fundamental human process to relate through narrative, when we are approached by and engaged with an art form that purports to (or that scholars identify as) being non-judgmental and solely experiential, an audience will inevitably -- collectively or individually -- try to arrange the film as a narrative to make sense of it. In and of itself, this process feels right, but it also trends toward a deeper aspect of human narrative expectations; i.e., because the director has selected material and arranged it in a certain way, the audience will not be satisfied with a narrative structure that is arrived at solely through experience, but seek to determine the author's intent, the author's point of view and what the author is trying to say.

The very act of experiential non-narrative viewing, in this sense, has the ability then (in my mind) to negate the wishes and efforts of the director to create a freely interpreted form as the audience seeks to find the narrative through the film's various elements -- regarding both what's used, and what is not.

Of course...

When talking about film without acting and without a written story, it could be easy to get lost in the various discrepancies between the aspects of non-narrative that takes the high road of challenging storytelling and the (less responsible?) experimental. Not that that sort of irresponsibility applies to this particular film per se...it's a documentary, after all. But I would like to voice a few questions concerning directorial responsibility in storytelling in general:

1.) If contemplative cinema invites participation, empathy and engagement with a film, and a film's storytelling capabilities actually strengthen and expand from that quality, what does that say about human expectations regarding narrative? What does it signify of the storyteller who has taken the responsibility to provide a story that includes room for expansion, depth and maneuverability within or navigation of that story?

2.) Perhaps more importantly, what does it mean for the future of filmmaking as an experiential, interactive process? What challenges do filmmakers face in terms of telling a story in this manner -- not just technically, but also concerning what the filmmaker wants to convey versus what the audience interprets from a given work? What examples are there, if any, of films in which the director's desired results for a film's reception greatly differed with an audience's interpretation -- to his or her delight?

I'm not sure that these questions can be answered to any degree of satisfaction; but, I'll put this up in hopes of generating some sort of discussion. Later, I'll give a preview of my thoughts on Chantal Akerman and Jim Jarmusch to try to get feedback on a potential entry.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Contemplative Acting?

@ 12/06/2006 08:41:00 PM By Marina

Until now, we've been trying to grasp the essence of 'contemplative cinema' in terms of narration and pace. This was the initial sparkle that drew the author of the blogothon to this kind of film and the prime definition that we accepted. However, as confused as still am, concerning narrativity and speed, I decided to approach the matter from another angle - acting.

In his book 'Homo Ludens'[The Playing Man], Johan Huizinga places the problem of play and contest and how they relate. He also talks about the play and its accepted antonym - the serious. Usually, a competition is considered to be serious, yet still in the frames of the play. On the other hand, while the definition of serious is created to exclude the game, the game can easily include the serious. Therefore, the contest and the serious are parts of the game although taken independently they are supposed to exclude it.

Now, going back a few decades, Brecht suggests something related, while on his way of reaching the notion of the "epic theatre". He says that a play is a sport event, the actors are Olympians. The acting should be rough and not-true-to-the-character. In fact, the actors should try to act falsely, irritatingly bad. The worst insult should be "He didn't act King Lear. He was King Lear." The spectator should never enter a trance-like condition, he should always be alert, objecting, subjecting, discussing - restless. Conversely, bourgeois theatre operates by the idea of the glory of the actor and his full transformation into the character. The spectator stares speech- and breathlessly. There is no personality of the actor, only the orderness of the text and delight of the spectacle.

I'm saying all this, because when it comes to cinema, things are similar. We've got the word-by-word character transformation in American, French films. We've got the truthful-to-reality reels from England, Germany. We've got the two kinds of acting - the one, bordering on overacting (thus slightly moving towards the other) and the other, bordering on losing the idea somewhere between the non-acting actors. In the second case, actors are often told to be themselves and they do act...themselves - the character is lost in transformation (there's no transformation, in fact). And by losing the character the completeness of the film's conception is broken. So, we've got the two extremes - the rough and friendly acting, which can be compared to the competition-driven and game-driven play.

And here comes another kind of acting: one that is not primitive expressively and expressive primitively. Where the actor is more of an observer, contemplator. He exists in the game of the film, but doesn't lead it. He's not himself but he's not in a character either. He's somewhere in between. Why is that?

When Huizinga says that "culture is developed in the game and as a game", he also means art - that meaningful thing that is passed through generations. Art is born in the game, but it would be wrong to equal acting to the game/play. The game in cinema is the entire filmmaking process - it's the creating and the final result. The final result is the publicly played game - the one that finds its spectators and becomes a spectacle. That is, the film itself, of course. The film and its message are more important than the acting, just as the act of playing [the game] is more important than who wins and who loses. The game expresses itself in its circumstances: in order to there be a game, we need freedom, but freedom that operates by certain voluntarily chosen rules. And those rules are compulsory for every player and spectator. Also, the game should bring joy and pleasure, it should be something outside the real world. In the game, the rules and the idea they carry are more important than the players themselves, but the game needs the players in order to exist. In film, the actor is a player who contributes to the accomplishment of the game's [film's] message. The circumstances of the film are more important than the mere acting. That's why, the actor exists in the film - because the film needs him as a player in order to achieve and herald its idea. That's why, the actor shouldn't BE the character - because it's not the character who drives the film, and shouldn't BE himself - because he's a player, a part of something beyond the real world.

Don't know if it makes any sense at all, but it might turn out stimulating to refract the point of view.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

[Non-]Narrativity

@ 10/31/2006 09:55:00 AM By Marina

It is common among directors, when asked why is it that they make movies, to answer: "Because I have stories and I want to tell them". And that simple answer explains the richness of plot and devices through which it is executed. But it fails to cover another field of (modern) cinema, namely contemplative film. As Harry suggested, it can be subgrouped, in terms of narrativity, in "contemplative narration" and "non-narrative contemplation", but again, I wonder, isn't it plot that is spoken of in these definitions? Plot is the sequence of events that can be summarised but it is the narrative through which this plot is fulfilled. Narrativity is something broader - it could be plot, in its primal meaning, but it is also the sense, the pre-notion of plot that could never finish itself into a complete story. Narrativity speculates about the possibility of a plot and does not deal with events but movements, gestures and details that are encompassed in a story.

So, let me propose a transfiguration of these two definitions into "contemplative plot" and "plotless contemplation", in the first place. And since the first one is quite clear, I'd like to dwell more on the second one. The absence of plot does not deny narrativity. On the contrary, it contributes to its full manifestation. Narrativity is found in the chosen camera angle, shot duration and length of camera movement as opposed to camera stillness. To make things clearer, here's an example: Angelopoulos' Eternity and a Day (from which I've only seen bits and pieces) offers a magnificents shot [present-past], or in the words of prof. Horton - "It's as if the present has the past in it and he's telling you that in one visual shot." In this shot, the protagonist (Bruno Ganz) tells the young boy he's met of a poet, Solomos, that used to live there in the 19th century. In one shot the camera slides over the river from the present-poet to the past-poet and that discloses much more than the single story of the past - a cut to history. Yes, we could "translate" this shot as if "the present has the past in it", but we could also become aware of the inevitable bond between the two historical poets. From there, we could speculate about the nature of poetry and art - how the thread between past and present should never be torn, how almost nothing has changed, etc. And this subtle nuances are achieved through one single shot! The plot is left somewhere behind, while the camera hovers over it's narrativity. Narrativity means possibilities. It can be contrary to plot, or the actual situation of a frame. Imagine a bar scene - a quiet gang of drunken villagers, dozing over bottles of beer and wine. Everyone's silent, there's no sound whatsoever. Thus positioned, the shot speaks of calmness, dullness even, a monotonous living. But now let's shift the camera and place it from the point of view of the bar keeper - towards the door. A still shot of a silent crowd, waiting for someone to come, for something to happen. The atmosphere becomes more tense and this tension is seemingly contrary to the calmness of the drunken people. Through the camera, the plot/event/situation is transfigured into a hidden narrativity.

This hypothetic shot comes from my idea of Bela Tarr's Satantango, while reading Krasznahorkai's novel, which very luckily is translated in Bulgarian. And it is regarding the book that I want to pose a few more speculations on narrativity and contemplation. The book is written in 6 chapters forward, 6 chapters backward, as in tango and includes no paragraphs, or - every chapter is one single paragraph, no new lines or special stylistic layout. Thus, this simplicity becomes a stylistic design and much more - a second narrativity beyond the meaning of the words. It's as if the life of the village is a whole life - entire and complete. There's no individuality as in the alienated city. Everyone's a part of something identical, everyone's words and thoughts are a wave of a similar flow. No wonder why, Irimias is ascended as a saviour, the one who, having been considered dead, is now considered ressurected - a saint who has chosen to come back to the village - the outsider/the one who speaks differently (and truly his speech is designed in narrower paragraphs). This diversion can be perceived through the look of the text and from the fragments I've seen of the film, through the monotony of the camera [movement]. This compostition creates a second narrativity. As in poetry and short films - the form is more indicative than the narrative-plot and this form becomes a narrative-notion. As in abstract painting where the composition of the fragments is the narrativity and the possibility of numerous narratives [interpretations].

And to sum it up, I'd like to place the question of plot and narrativity. Isn't it the style, the form, the composition in contemplative plotless cinema that is the narrativity? And because it is easily subject to countless interpretations, its general plot is lost among the narratives - the subtle notions that are open?