In regards to my previous article “Narrative vs. Spectacle: Mortal Combat” and Philip Decloux’s commentary “Narrative vs. Spectacle: Ph.D Chim-Chimes in Support of Speed Racer”, I wish to rephrase my stance as it may have been misinterpreted. Having never seen Speed Racer (which I still intend to see as soon as I can), I cannot claim to have a decent impression of its story or convention-bending visuals, nor was it my purpose make such claims. Neither was it my strict purpose to defend Pirates of the Caribbean 3 or any effect-heavy summer blockbusters for that matter. These were merely analogies to express my rhetorical opinion: Why does story/narrative in cinema matter so much? Why does story matter at all?
While subjective taste towards one movie or another could be argued endlessly, I would like to address Decloux’s assertion that cinema stands for “taking you out of your normal, everyday life and infusing it with concentrated suspense, romance, action, adventure, or comedy”. Decloux’s claim stands as an ideal starting block for the expansion of my original point. Decloux’s opinion is that quality cinema consists of a healthy balance of narrative structure and visual spectacle. While I agree that such a balance can result in strong cinema, I would disagree that strong cinema depends upon this formula.
When I suggest that one ignores a film’s narrative in favour of its aesthetic elements, let me not be misread. I am not suggesting one to mindlessly allow the film’s visuals to filter through their brains unchecked. What makes watching cinema different from reading books? A film’s technical and visual elements can be, and are often more-so, thoughtful than the actual narrative. Should we forget the “suspense, romance, action, adventure, or comedy” in a film’s formal elements in favour of narrative structure? A single shot has the potential to have more meaning than an entire 90 minutes worth of narrative.
And must we condemn a sequence just because it comes with a hefty price tag? Money does not create ideas. I think Evil Dead would look a lot like Spiderman if it had a $150 000 000 budget. A multi-million dollar blockbuster requires immense talent to form a polished finished product. The problem is that these talented people and products do not always mix well with each other. It can be rest assured that a multi-million dollar blockbuster such as Pirates 3 will have a talented editor, cinematographer etc. in order to gain trust from financial backers.
I use films such as Pirates 3 and Speed Racer as examples for the obvious gap between visual and narrative. However, this has seemed to restrict our dialogue to the realm the blockbuster. Afterall, “spectacle” does not have to pertain to high budget effect shots. It can merely be associated with the very “attraction” that a viewer has to the visual presentation of the film. This “attraction” has been written of by soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein as well as the previously referenced Tom Gunning. Similar to that of a carnival exhibition, this “attraction” is the fabric of the visual cinematic spectacle.
Frankly, I think that claiming cinema as an escapist medium belittles the power of motion picture. By lingering around mainstream summer blockbusters we have failed to address other aesthetic functions of cinema. As stated in my previous article, the early soviets used cinema’s purely visual characteristics as a means of indentifying the uneducated masses to the soviet cause. Direct Cinema and Cinema Verité provide cinematic means to their subjects to project their agency upon the viewer. The narratives of these films seem to take a backseat to visual language and/or revelation.
Aside from various forms of documentary, animation (traditional or computer generated), avant-garde and experimental film use film spectacle as a primary means of expression, whether narrative is present or not. And often the narrative does not bear the true crux of a film’s “message” but rather the true message lies within the films’ presentation.
One may argue however that without some (even minor) system of narrative to hold it together, a film would be nothing less than a chaos of visuals. I can draw upon two examples of films that use non-narrative forms of structural organization. For the most part Disney’s Fantasia replaces narrative, instead using music to organize the spectacle of the film. Similarly, Berlin: A Symphony of a Great City uses time of day to structure a visual cinematic meditation of Berlin.
Before I spiral deeper and deeper into what is becoming dangerously close to a rant, I think it is important to address that everyone has different expectations from a movie-going experience. This reflects in the many voices of mainstream critics. Benjamin Wright responded to my “Narrative vs. Spectacle: Mortal Combat” with a noteworthy paradox:“Syndicated film critics are, by and large, trained not in film but in English literature… They can only stand in awe of the visual kinetics or reject them entirely because aesthetic criticism has never been a foundational aspect in mainstream film criticism… The flip side to this coin of criticism is the academic critic. Your only shot at informed aesthetic commentary comes from "intellectual" critics, either film students or academic writers…The problem with many in this category is their rejection of commercial filmmaking in general. So even if you're looking for a thoughtful essay on Speed Racer, you won't find one from them, since they've already dismissed it as crass commercial product or insipid, uninspired Hollywood drivel.”
So in summary, mainstream cinema (such as Speed Racer) is narrowly limited to narrative-based criticism, and most who are trained to lend formally-based criticism to mainstream blockbusters are unwilling to do so. It is not to say that scholarly formal analysis of film is more important than mainstream textual criticism. The only issue here is that the narrative, textual side is given a lot more accessibility and therefore comes to be favoured by the public.
Ultimately, I think this public focus on narrative distracts audiences from other enriched aspects of the medium. While I can not disagree that balanced attention towards narrative and technical is very positive, I think that such a balance is also close to non-existent in the mainstream sphere.
When all is said and done, it is difficult to deny the connection that spectacle and narrative share. Spectacle predominantly requires some sort of context and cause to exist (often provided by narrative). Then to conclude, perhaps I would like to state it is not my purpose to deny the validity of narrative but to open a movie-viewing perspective in which narrative lacks importance. If the film still stinks after distancing story from the spectacle, I assume no responsibility.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
"Narrative VS. Spectacle: Ph. D chim-chimes in support of Speed Racer" by Philip Decloux
Ph. D (Philip Decloux) wrote this article in the Toronto Film Junkies film blog in response to Adam Slight's "Narrative vs. Spectacle: Mortal Combat":
The critics this summer have been an enigma to me. Before going to see Iron Man, I noticed that it had an unbelievable 93% rating on Rottentomatoes dot com. This, I confidently assured myself, should be the best superhero movie ever made! Look at all of that critical acclaim! I was deluding myself. While every facet of the film was polished to a mirror shine, as I walked out of the theater, I found myself... ambivalent. I started unconsciously nit-picking certainly elements of the film... the shitty, phoned in soundtrack, Terrence Howard's weak voice (and I loved him in "Hustle and Flow"!), Gwyneth Paltrow's uneven performance. Things that, while somewhat detracting from the film shouldn't affect the overall sense of satisfaction I felt from watching it. But the damage was done. Perhaps it was the overwhelmingly positive critical reception... the hyping and promoting on various websites I frequent. Somehow it couldn't possibly meet the bar that had been set.
Now that I've got my original ambivalent reaction out of the way, lets look at one thing that Iron Man got right: for one, it has a very finely tuned balance between it's superhero origin narrative, and a solid sense of spectacle. It doesn't only have one or the other, it has a very crowd-pleasing, critic appeasing blend of these two elements, and that's what has made it a success. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, and ILM did a real awesome job on the special effects. So really, unless you're a basement dwelling, scum-sucking aintitcoolnews talkbacker, you should be able to realize the success of Iron Man, as it pertains to this balancing act of Narrative and Spectacle.
It's what cinema is all about, it's about taking you out of your normal, everyday life and infusing it with concentrated suspense, romance, action, adventure, or comedy. The best films please you on the visual, purely aesthetic platform of film while engaging your mind with wit, subtext, and other things that intellectuals like to blabber about. This is why Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" is by far my favorite film that I have seen to this date. Real, vibrant cinema is about the ideal marriage of visual entertainment and storytelling. They live off each other, and if one outstrips the other, the whole suffers.
Adam has proposed that critics have panned "Speed Racer" in the same way they derided "Pirates of the Carribean 3: the World's End". He proposed that critics panned POTC3 because the film was a meandering mess, unredeemed by it's well-tuned audio-visual experience. They panned it because the movie did not live up to the promise of the first film, and the fact that it did not improve upon the second film, which was a somewhat bloated, confused CGI-fest. POTC3 didn't have a point. If we're talking about Narrative vs. Spectacle, it's a failure. No matter how impressive your 2 million dollar shot of a pirate ship exploding is, it isn't worth squat if the audience doesn't care about any of the characters or the plot. In the end, it's ridiculous to think that ILM special effects and a Hanz Zimmer score (he's as practiced as James Horner at cannibalizing his past efforts) are redeeming values. These qualities alone make a good popcorn film, but not what I would deem good cinema.
Adam is correct in asserting is that critics have unfairly panned "Speed Racer". I've seen this one twice now, both times in IMAX. Critics hated it because they couldn't get past the ground-breaking visual effects and childish sense of play that make this seem like a real-life anime-cartoon. If Adam gets to see this film (and I dearly wish him and every reader of this blog to see it before it leaves IMAX screens), he'd realise that not only have critics been unfair, but that he is (happily) mistaken in thinking (through the views of misled critics) that Speed Racer is a purely visual spectacle, or lacking "a good story". The Wachowskis have achieved quite a feat, because they made a real family film. There is heart here. There are morals to teach to the youngsters who are going to love the racing segments. I don't know why, but the critics have mistakenly ignored on the great, avant-guarde examples of Narrative-Visual cinematic art ever achieved.
We, as the film-going public, have mis-treated this film. I enjoyed it much more than Iron Man, and tons more than POTC3. If you have any sort of inner child which is not covered with the sickly burlap of cynicism, go and see this film now and realize how wrong the critics have been, and how utterly crazy the Wachowskis were to attempt to make this film.
The critics this summer have been an enigma to me. Before going to see Iron Man, I noticed that it had an unbelievable 93% rating on Rottentomatoes dot com. This, I confidently assured myself, should be the best superhero movie ever made! Look at all of that critical acclaim! I was deluding myself. While every facet of the film was polished to a mirror shine, as I walked out of the theater, I found myself... ambivalent. I started unconsciously nit-picking certainly elements of the film... the shitty, phoned in soundtrack, Terrence Howard's weak voice (and I loved him in "Hustle and Flow"!), Gwyneth Paltrow's uneven performance. Things that, while somewhat detracting from the film shouldn't affect the overall sense of satisfaction I felt from watching it. But the damage was done. Perhaps it was the overwhelmingly positive critical reception... the hyping and promoting on various websites I frequent. Somehow it couldn't possibly meet the bar that had been set.
Now that I've got my original ambivalent reaction out of the way, lets look at one thing that Iron Man got right: for one, it has a very finely tuned balance between it's superhero origin narrative, and a solid sense of spectacle. It doesn't only have one or the other, it has a very crowd-pleasing, critic appeasing blend of these two elements, and that's what has made it a success. Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, and ILM did a real awesome job on the special effects. So really, unless you're a basement dwelling, scum-sucking aintitcoolnews talkbacker, you should be able to realize the success of Iron Man, as it pertains to this balancing act of Narrative and Spectacle.
It's what cinema is all about, it's about taking you out of your normal, everyday life and infusing it with concentrated suspense, romance, action, adventure, or comedy. The best films please you on the visual, purely aesthetic platform of film while engaging your mind with wit, subtext, and other things that intellectuals like to blabber about. This is why Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" is by far my favorite film that I have seen to this date. Real, vibrant cinema is about the ideal marriage of visual entertainment and storytelling. They live off each other, and if one outstrips the other, the whole suffers.
Adam has proposed that critics have panned "Speed Racer" in the same way they derided "Pirates of the Carribean 3: the World's End". He proposed that critics panned POTC3 because the film was a meandering mess, unredeemed by it's well-tuned audio-visual experience. They panned it because the movie did not live up to the promise of the first film, and the fact that it did not improve upon the second film, which was a somewhat bloated, confused CGI-fest. POTC3 didn't have a point. If we're talking about Narrative vs. Spectacle, it's a failure. No matter how impressive your 2 million dollar shot of a pirate ship exploding is, it isn't worth squat if the audience doesn't care about any of the characters or the plot. In the end, it's ridiculous to think that ILM special effects and a Hanz Zimmer score (he's as practiced as James Horner at cannibalizing his past efforts) are redeeming values. These qualities alone make a good popcorn film, but not what I would deem good cinema.
Adam is correct in asserting is that critics have unfairly panned "Speed Racer". I've seen this one twice now, both times in IMAX. Critics hated it because they couldn't get past the ground-breaking visual effects and childish sense of play that make this seem like a real-life anime-cartoon. If Adam gets to see this film (and I dearly wish him and every reader of this blog to see it before it leaves IMAX screens), he'd realise that not only have critics been unfair, but that he is (happily) mistaken in thinking (through the views of misled critics) that Speed Racer is a purely visual spectacle, or lacking "a good story". The Wachowskis have achieved quite a feat, because they made a real family film. There is heart here. There are morals to teach to the youngsters who are going to love the racing segments. I don't know why, but the critics have mistakenly ignored on the great, avant-guarde examples of Narrative-Visual cinematic art ever achieved.
We, as the film-going public, have mis-treated this film. I enjoyed it much more than Iron Man, and tons more than POTC3. If you have any sort of inner child which is not covered with the sickly burlap of cynicism, go and see this film now and realize how wrong the critics have been, and how utterly crazy the Wachowskis were to attempt to make this film.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
"Narrative vs. Spectacle: Mortal Combat" By Adam Slight
Although I have yet to see Speed Racer I have noticed a common trend in its reviews. The line is divisive. On one side critics marvel at the film’s style and breaking of visual conventions. On the other side more critics simply long for a “good story”. Sometimes this can be an issue with me. Since when do movies need an in-depth story when it’s strong in its other departments?
We could blame history. Theorist Tom Gunning wrote that since 1906 cinema has increasingly been more focused on story over visual spectacle. It was in 1906 that the number of narrative-oriented films surpassed that of visually-focused film. These visual films had been able to stand on their own merely through display of images moving independently on a screen. At the time this spectacle was enough to keep audiences paying. And I bet most critics love that old stuff. So why not Speed Racer? Why is it that audience would pay for a purely visual spectacle then, but not now?
For that matter let’s use examples that I’m more familiar with. Last summer Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End hit the screens. While praised for its visuals the film widely flopped with critics due to a series of tedious and confusing plot twists. This makes me wonder when it was that pirate movies picked up the expectation to rival Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Instead of dwelling on where the film lacks, why not emphasize the film’s strengths. This scene in particular struck me as one of the most inventive and unique sequences I had ever seen in a summer blockbuster. It may not have made sense necessarily but it was executed very well. In fact the movie’s cinematography grabbed my attention for most of the film. Aside from the cinematography, the music was also noteworthy. In fact, there are plenty of elements that make up a film and yet story is most widely favoured by audiences.
But I suppose one could argue that as a summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean 3 should have a balance between story and visual as to not isolate audience. This privileging of narrative has plagued technical cinema for decades. Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) dealt with similar criticisms. Vertov felt that by seeing the world through the eye of a camera lens, the masses could achieve a higher understanding of the world they live in resulting in political revolution. Vertov avoided narrative and fiction in his films as they were bourgeois notions. Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera was meant to mobilize the masses through the stylized representation of Russian workers. Instead, some critics felt that the “flashing of images was exhausting”.
Perhaps it can be argued that films dependent on visual spectacle should be short and sweet. After all, Pirates clocks in at 168 minutes and Man With a Movie Camera (which depends strictly on visuals) clocks in at 80 minutes. With no rest in sight it is understandable how one may have trouble sitting through these films without narrative tension driving them forward.But I’m not letting narrative off that easily.
I’m sure everyone has at least one friend who can not sit through a film without pointing out every plot hole that he or she may find. You may be watching a generally solid film with your disbelief relatively suspended by the plot, yet your friend refuses to submit. It is my own personal theory that these people refuse to allow the suspension of their disbelief in an insecure attempt to appear better or smarter than the logic of the film. Not that I condemn the heckling of a movie. I’m talking about extreme cases here.
What these people fail to grasp is that the film itself relies on such discrepancies and trickery to exist. This not only applies to narrative but also to other formal elements. First off, a film’s narrative can never be completely coherent. As a construction at the hands of a writer, a film’s narrative will always be fundamentally flawed. The audience has an advantage of viewing the events of a film’s narrative at a distance, making it easier to criticize the events and actions of the film. With this in mind, I think it is important to quickly identify what a film is going for and not resist the suspension of disbelief. After all, the visual presentation of a film also relies on audiences to submit to illusion. One easily forgets that the motion that is perceived as cinema relies on the viewer’s eyes to fail in distinguishing all 24 frames that a film presents each second. Do people feel the need to point that out every time they see a movie?
I think that people are conditioned to pay more attention to the story of a film. Not only have we been presented with narrative cinema our entire lives, but the history of narrative surpasses that of cinema by millennia. It isn’t a surprise that film has stepped up to the plate as a vehicle for story and narrative. We see the same thing happening to video games. Games that once relied entirely on game play now adopt narrative structures. For example, this is evident in the Super Smash Bros. which, with every installment, incorporates more and more storytelling elements.
We can’t forget about the purely visual aspect of cinema which originally defined the medium. There is an importance in occasionally distancing story and visual in an attempt to appreciate the spectacle. There is validity in Vertov’s desire to avoid narrative. Our culture’s emphasis on “good story” (which can be considered bourgeois…if you want) eclipses the important social functions of cinema. We more often look at films in hopes of having a good time, when often the function of cinema is the opposite.
Aside from that though, can’t we all agree that it can be fun to just go to a theater, turn our brains off, smile at the pretty lights and maybe forget about those undesirable plot twists.
We could blame history. Theorist Tom Gunning wrote that since 1906 cinema has increasingly been more focused on story over visual spectacle. It was in 1906 that the number of narrative-oriented films surpassed that of visually-focused film. These visual films had been able to stand on their own merely through display of images moving independently on a screen. At the time this spectacle was enough to keep audiences paying. And I bet most critics love that old stuff. So why not Speed Racer? Why is it that audience would pay for a purely visual spectacle then, but not now?
For that matter let’s use examples that I’m more familiar with. Last summer Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World’s End hit the screens. While praised for its visuals the film widely flopped with critics due to a series of tedious and confusing plot twists. This makes me wonder when it was that pirate movies picked up the expectation to rival Shakespeare’s Macbeth? Instead of dwelling on where the film lacks, why not emphasize the film’s strengths. This scene in particular struck me as one of the most inventive and unique sequences I had ever seen in a summer blockbuster. It may not have made sense necessarily but it was executed very well. In fact the movie’s cinematography grabbed my attention for most of the film. Aside from the cinematography, the music was also noteworthy. In fact, there are plenty of elements that make up a film and yet story is most widely favoured by audiences.
But I suppose one could argue that as a summer blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean 3 should have a balance between story and visual as to not isolate audience. This privileging of narrative has plagued technical cinema for decades. Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) dealt with similar criticisms. Vertov felt that by seeing the world through the eye of a camera lens, the masses could achieve a higher understanding of the world they live in resulting in political revolution. Vertov avoided narrative and fiction in his films as they were bourgeois notions. Vertov’s Man With a Movie Camera was meant to mobilize the masses through the stylized representation of Russian workers. Instead, some critics felt that the “flashing of images was exhausting”.
Perhaps it can be argued that films dependent on visual spectacle should be short and sweet. After all, Pirates clocks in at 168 minutes and Man With a Movie Camera (which depends strictly on visuals) clocks in at 80 minutes. With no rest in sight it is understandable how one may have trouble sitting through these films without narrative tension driving them forward.But I’m not letting narrative off that easily.
I’m sure everyone has at least one friend who can not sit through a film without pointing out every plot hole that he or she may find. You may be watching a generally solid film with your disbelief relatively suspended by the plot, yet your friend refuses to submit. It is my own personal theory that these people refuse to allow the suspension of their disbelief in an insecure attempt to appear better or smarter than the logic of the film. Not that I condemn the heckling of a movie. I’m talking about extreme cases here.
What these people fail to grasp is that the film itself relies on such discrepancies and trickery to exist. This not only applies to narrative but also to other formal elements. First off, a film’s narrative can never be completely coherent. As a construction at the hands of a writer, a film’s narrative will always be fundamentally flawed. The audience has an advantage of viewing the events of a film’s narrative at a distance, making it easier to criticize the events and actions of the film. With this in mind, I think it is important to quickly identify what a film is going for and not resist the suspension of disbelief. After all, the visual presentation of a film also relies on audiences to submit to illusion. One easily forgets that the motion that is perceived as cinema relies on the viewer’s eyes to fail in distinguishing all 24 frames that a film presents each second. Do people feel the need to point that out every time they see a movie?
I think that people are conditioned to pay more attention to the story of a film. Not only have we been presented with narrative cinema our entire lives, but the history of narrative surpasses that of cinema by millennia. It isn’t a surprise that film has stepped up to the plate as a vehicle for story and narrative. We see the same thing happening to video games. Games that once relied entirely on game play now adopt narrative structures. For example, this is evident in the Super Smash Bros. which, with every installment, incorporates more and more storytelling elements.
We can’t forget about the purely visual aspect of cinema which originally defined the medium. There is an importance in occasionally distancing story and visual in an attempt to appreciate the spectacle. There is validity in Vertov’s desire to avoid narrative. Our culture’s emphasis on “good story” (which can be considered bourgeois…if you want) eclipses the important social functions of cinema. We more often look at films in hopes of having a good time, when often the function of cinema is the opposite.
Aside from that though, can’t we all agree that it can be fun to just go to a theater, turn our brains off, smile at the pretty lights and maybe forget about those undesirable plot twists.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)