Thoughts on the Avant Garde

As I consider the merits of avant garde and experimental cinema, I always find myself at a crossroads of exploring the boundaries of film and video outside of the mainstream and making something that people actually want to sit through. So much of what is passed off as experimental is absolute torture to watch.

As much as I love both film and art, I have a very low tolerance for some of this stuff. For one, I think much of it is just not interesting. Saying it is experimental becomes an excuse to point a camera aimlessly at various things and put it together in the name of art. I feel that purpose is certainly quite important when making films of this type. Furthermore, it is not a prerequisite to alienate your audience by purposely confusing, confounding or contesting their attention span.

I have always felt that 90 minutes is the perfect length for a feature film. Anything less and you tend to feel a bit cheated. Anything more and it had better be really compelling for me to want to endure it. That's not to say that there are not films that are far longer than that which I have really enjoyed. It's just that there must be a very engaging plot for me to not begin to check my watch after a while.

With documentaries, exceptions can be made for exceptionally in-depth subjects, such as Ken Burns' various historical pieces, though these mercifully are divided into manageable parts. With experimental, my attention span is much shorter. Typically, 5-10 minutes is about all I can take for most of this stuff. And while I recognize the value and influence of many things that are much longer, you can often get the point in a 1 minute clip.

I'm addressing these issues having just finished looking at the chapter on the history of art cinema from David Borwell and Kristen Thompson's Film History. The reading provided a good overview of the major players from different eras, several of whom we looked at examples from in class. It is however, more or less a list, and calls for some viewing of the cited films to really understand what is being talked about.

The important thing to note is how closely the film and art world are intertwined. Many of the movements in each have mirrored each other, and the artists known for work in other areas such as painting or sculpture, often ventured into avant garde film as well. The movements also influenced one another. The Dada and Surrealist movements in painting led to similar movements in film. And of course this work has without a doubt had an influence on mainstream filmmaking.

So I think that although much of the experimental work out there can easily be marginalized and written off, it is important to look at things with an open mind. It is not the type of thing that I choose to sit around watching endlessly, but that wasn't necessarily the way it was intended to watch. Having just watched some of Luis Bunuel's late films, I can appreciate his early work a bit more. And knowing that the famed cinematographer of Citizen Kane among other great films, Gregg Toland, started working in avant garde offers a different point of view on his work. I think that there is often value in seeking out things that may not necessarily be enjoyable, but can offer insights into other important works.

Bunuel Continued

Going back in time, then forward again. I guess it makes sense when viewing the films of a director who seems so intent on dismantling the fabric of traditional narrative devices in order to tell a story in his own way. Since watching The Phantom Of Liberty, I watched the film that came just prior to that one, the more celebrated The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie, and more recently I watched the film that just followed it, That Obscure Object of Desire, which as it turns out, was the last film Luis Bunuel made. 

In many ways, these films could be a trilogy. They all share some of the same cast members, and each is a collaboration between Bunuel and Jean-Claude Carriere. Each has the trademark Bunuel surrealist tilt, balancing the plausible and acutely perceptive with the absurd. In many respects, Phantom, is the most overtly skewed from reality, while the other two employ a more conventional narrative approach to point out the hypocrisy and idiocy of human interaction and etiquette. I tend to think that despite its lack of adherence to traditional storytelling, Phantom is the most enjoyable because of the way Bunuel so cleverly bends the rules of logic to great effect. The situations that he comes up with are so poignant and often quite funny.

The other two films serve as bookends of sorts, with a bit more sinister appeal. The main character in both is played by Fernando Rey, who is so brilliantly underhanded and classy at the same time. In both, he plays part of that privileged class, with both money and influence at his disposal, but while in Discreet Charm he seems to always be in control of the situation at hand, in Obscure Object it is quite the opposite.

Interestingly, terrorism is at the heart of both films, the later of which is That Obscure Object of Desire, which was made in 1977, more than a decade before the infamous hijacking of Pan Am flight 103 put terrorism in the forefront of public consciousness. There is much discussion of terrorism in both films, with various manifestations of killings and bombings being depicted within the narrative. In one scene in Obscure Object, we even spot a headline in the newspaper reporting news of a plan being hijacked and blown up. Despite Bunuel's apparent obsession with the subject, he does not treat it as a sacred cow, frequently poking fun at it, for instance with the myriad of acronym monikers for fringe political groups, such as the RABJ or Revolutionary Army of the Baby Jesus.

Obsession does seem to be appropriate though. Particularly in Obscure Object, Rey's character becomes enamored with a woman who seems to constantly be wavering between her undying love and affection and her sadistic torment of him. In true Bunuel style, the love interest in this film is played by two different actresses, who look very much alike. I did not notice it until after I watched the entire film, then went back and realized, depending on the situation or mood of the character, she seemed to be played by a different actress, sometimes within the same scene. It's an interesting idea, and a curious one, though it seems to reflect the capriciousness of the character.  

While these two films are more subtle than Phantom in their surrealist tendencies, there is symbolism everywhere. In Discreet Charm, Bunuel takes great liberty with a series of dreams from the viewpoint of different characters. The context and situations accentuate the elements of fantasy that audiences would expect from Bunuel, with each one getting more outrageous. When each of the sleepers wakes, we discover that the entire scene has been part of their dream, including the previous visions and the subsequent awakening by the different characters within that phantasm, which lead  the audience to believe that it had been their dream. And so the meanings keep stacking on top of one another, continually evolving. It is one of those situations that leaves you wondering, much like Bunuel's work in general, what is fantasy and what is reality?

What is the meaning of this?

Living in a modern culture, surrounded by images, we often take for granted the basic cues that allow us to read a story without further explanation. We understand that when a person walks off screen that they haven't disappeared, they are just off camera, or the scene has shifted focus to another character. But if you show that to a primitive audience that has never seen a film, they might go looking around behind the screen to see where that person has gone. They don't grasp this simple concept because their eye has not be trained like ours has.

When the concepts become more complex and involved, we must examine things more closely to determine what the filmmaker is trying to say through the elements that they place on screen. We are often given subtle visual or auditory cues, from the use of certain colors and locations to music and sound effects. We must draw conclusions based upon an entire set of elements that make up the scene. 

David Bordwell tackles the subject of film form and the meanings that are created through it in the second chapter of his book Film Art. Bordwell is systematic in his approach, which is useful for a topic that is often so subjective. That is not to say that the meaning of certain elements within a film can always be neatly categorized, but he offers a framework to help do this.

He breaks up meaning into four different areas: referential, that is people, places, and events that most people are aware of in order to give a context to the story, explicit, implicit, and symptomatic, which takes explicit meaning and applies it to a broader set of values that are characteristic of a whole society. He also gets into motivation, which meaning also depends on. What is the reason for certain elements being used within the scene? This gets at the way a scene is staged, in terms of the lighting, the color scheme, the costumes as well as camera placement, among other things. At times the characters movement within the scene motivates where the camera will be placed and how it will move within the scene.

Bordwell also touches on two other essential elements in film. He discusses the use of motifs, which rely on repeated elements to create a consistent theme throughout a film that tie the narrative together. He also gets into what he refers to as parallelism, which involves the use of multiple storylines that are connected by common elements. He cites The Wizard of Oz frequently in the text. It is a perfect example of many of these attributes of film form. For instance, the way that the parallel stories that take place in Oz and Kansas play out by using the same actors to play parts in each one. Themes in one are reflected in the other. The film is rich with visual cues that offer us clues to the intended meaning of the film. Of course, these concepts can be applied to any film. Few are as rich with this use of overt visual symbols as The Wizard of Oz, and consequently we often must dig a little deeper to find the cues that offer some link to the intentions of the filmmaker.

The Discreet Charm of Luis Bunuel

Too often when we set out to make a film, or any piece of art for that matter, we are influenced too heavily by the conventions of the medium. We accept that a story must be linear and logical. It must be believable, which is often true. But what about surrealism or the absurd, or satire? These are areas which flout traditional narrative devices in favor of upheaval. One of the masters of this approach is Spanish surrealist Luis Bunuel, who flouted conventions for more than 50 years in making films his way.

The Phantom of Liberty was actually the second to last film that he directed, and is part of his successful run of French language films that he made after years of working in Mexico. This film was made just after The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, which won the Oscar in 1972 for best foreign language film. It was largely due to the success of that film that allowed Bunuel to make The Phantom of Liberty. Bunuel had been known for years for his use of surrealist imagery and a liberal interpretation of narrative structure, but Phantom takes this approach to new levels. The film consists of a series of episodes, each of which is loosely related, though there is never an effort to draw out those connections. As co-writer Jean-Claude Carriere points out in an introduction to the film, he and Bunuel set out to make a film that purposely disregards the conventional rules of storytelling. He states that the objective with each episode was to build the story to the point where it began to get interesting, and then would move on to something else, seemingly less interesting.

 

Despite this, the film is somehow engaging throughout, perhaps because of its looseness with narrative structure and its clever satirizing of modern culture. In one scene, a group is invited over for what appears to be a dinner party, only instead of sitting around a table to eat, they sit on toilets discussing the amount of human waste that is created day after day, and how much will continue to be created as the population grows. When a little girl seated at the table says to her mother that she's hungry, her mother scolds her not to discuss such things at the table. One of the guests then retires to a small room where he folds down a table and eats in private.

Another scene involves a parent looking for their "missing" child. When they go to her school to look for her, she gets up from her seat to let them know she is there, but they try to get her to quiet down while they speak with the school's headmistress about finding her. They bring the child to the police department where an officer takes down a report, looking the child over as he writes down her description in the report. "It's good that you brought her with you," he says. He adds that having her there will help in being able to find her.

The concepts are simple and yet extremely effective in illustrating Bunuel's point of view. There is so much absurdity in life and in the conventions that we accept as normal. It is only when these conventions are turned on their heads that we see that absurdity. This technique borders on satire, but it goes further than that by taking the reality of the situations completely out of context. I found that the intrigue that results helps to compensate for the lack of narrative cohesiveness. 

Next up I'll be viewing the precursor to this film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie. Since that film is generally better known and more celebrated, as well as the earlier of the two, it will be interesting to see how the two compare.

Video, Time, Space, Motion

I think that it is often taken for granted in this modern age how the ubiquity of images and information, particularly video has changed the way we perceive the world. When an event happens in the center of Times Square to the corner of a dark alley, it seems that somehow, a camera is there to capture it. From there it is viewed nearly instantaneously by millions on You Tube, or some similar edifice. 

When we seek some information about any range of subjects, we almost immediately seek the answer with a cursory Google search. It's more of a surprise these days when we cannot find something that we seek through these means. Everything just seems to be at our fingertips. 

And so as we consider how to use video in our work, it is necessary not just to consider it as tool to tell a story or make a piece of art, but it can be much more, or less than that. It is important to look at its inherent qualities in order to fully appreciate how it can be used. 

Margot Lovejoy's article, Digital Currents: Art In The Electronic Age, addresses some interesting aspects of video as it has evolved and developed into a distinct artistic medium. She really gets at this immediacy of video. There is no time needed to wait and see what the camera has recorded. There are possibilities for edited work, real time, closed circuit systems, television broadcasts, DVD or video tape, and now the internet.

She raises the issues that come with these choices. For instance, in order to place art on broadcast television, it must not simply take the approach of the esoteric, conceptual piece, but rather it must be entertaining in order to have a chance of gaining an audience. There are also commercial concerns associated with broadcast, from the costs to the influence of corporate interests. Can you imagine some of these conceptual or performance pieces being broadcast on a major network during prime time, or at any time for that matter? 

The internet presents an interesting case because it is much more free from the commercial aspects than television, but honing in on the audience you want to reach is also more challenging.

Whatever means are used to disseminate the work, the use of video has its inherent advantages, particularly for exploratory work. There is indeed a sense of intimacy with video, and a more pedestrian quality to it. There is not the need for all of the lighting and artifice associated with film. And of course it is cheap, and can be readily worked with and manipulated without a great deal of expensive equipment. It has made the medium more accessible, but by no means easier to successfully accomplish interesting and thought provoking work.

Ultimately, whether work is done with an experimental/avant garde approach or more traditional, these aspects can be useful in finding a way to communicate something visually that is quite original.

roar.

I had a chance to watch The Mouse That Roared this week, having watched Wag The Dog last week. It's always interesting to watch things that play on similar themes, or were done by the same director or actor consecutively. I enjoy drawing comparisons across a number of films or a body of work and find that to be a really useful way to learn more about a particular area of filmmaking. 

In this case, here are two political satires, done about 30 years apart. I tend to think that the quality of films made 30 or more years ago is generally better than those made today. Sure, films today look slicker, with the effects and the better optics and imaging processes that we have available, but they often are much thinner on story and acting, among other things. That's not to say that there aren't any good films made today, it just seems like there is a lot more garbage put out. I particularly think that there are a lot of poorly conceived, diluted remakes out there. But the fact that there aren't too many original ideas left in Hollywood shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. 

As for these two films, I must say that despite Peter Sellers ability as an actor to play three distinct parts, long before the likes of Eddie Murphy or Michael J. Fox did this, the film has its shortcomings. Mainly they are due to the production values. This film was made during that period where black and white was being used less and less, and the Technicolor process had taken on a life of its own, causing many films to have an artificial look. There was not much that was beautiful about some of these films. They tended to look very flat, but not due to the lack of tonality available to filmmakers. In fact, Technicolor generally had excellent color saturation and vibrancy, better quality than even the processes we have available today. It was due more to the lack of imagination and innovation that had been happening during the 40's and 50's, particularly with film noir.

The Mouse That Roared seems to suffer from a lower budget that led to some very hokey looking compositing. There are several really awful looking scenes where the characters are supposed to be walking through downtown Manhattan, but clearly they are just walking back and forth in front of a green screen. There are several other instances like this, but what it lacks visually, it makes up for with a rather clever story, and of course the performances by Peter Sellers. He plays the Prime Minister and Duchess of Grand Fenwick, as well as the rather inept general that commands a ragtag military contingent. The smallest country in the world finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy (sound familiar?) without a market for its domestic wine production. So the leaders decide to "invade" the United States, quickly surrender, and then receive compensation for their "losses" in the war in order to rebuild their country. The only problem is that their plan goes too well, and they end up inadvertently winning the war.

It's quite interesting how a film such as this can remain relevant so many years after its release. In some ways, I think that is the power of satire. History's cyclical nature seems to guarantee that if you have a good idea just a bit too late, it's time will come around again.

Wagging Dogses and Roaring Mices

Earlier this week I checked out one of the better political satires of the last decade or so in Wag The Dog. I can't remember if I had seen it before, though I think I had seen at least parts as it seemed rather familiar. I'm glad that I returned to it at any rate because it really is quite an astute comedy. It isn't one of those knee splapping, guffawing type comedies, but rather subtle and intelligent in its humor, though it certainly has its moments of hilarity.

When I watch a film that I find has a bit more thought put into it than the average movie, especially if it's a director that interests me in particular, I always like to go back and listen to the commentary track if there is one. I always find them rather insightful, and in this case, both director Barry Levinson and Dustin Hoffman, who co-starred in the film were performing the commentating. They were discussing political satire and how few films have been made along these lines, mentioning The Mouse That Roared as one of them. I had heard about this film many times over the years, particularly due to the great performance from Peter Sellers, but I had never had an opportunity to check it out. Ironically, I had forgotten that I recently added it to my Netflix queue, and having just returned Wag, guess what showed up in the mail? I do love it when I can watch movies together that relate in some way, but in this case, it wasn't planned, but I look forward to taking a look and drawing out some of those comparisons in my next post.

One of the things that makes satire such a difficult way to work, but so brilliant when done well, is that it requires a balance of absurdity with plausibility. Satire is not about saying that the rules of gravity don't exist and watching people suddenly start floating around freely. It's about making such a convincing argument based upon a series of contrivances and contradictions that people believe they are floating, even though the rest of us can see just how absurd that is. Successful satires always seem to get at the heart of accepted notions of truth and turn them on their heads to show just how truly, yes, absurd they really are.

If you hadn't noticed, absurdity is the key. Wag does this well because for one, it was written by the brilliant David Mamet, two, it had a great director at the helm in Barry Levinson, and three, the ensemble cast included both Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman, arguably two of the greatest film actors living today. Now, all that said, it could have still fallen flat, but instead it sang. You could say that satirizing politics and war are easy targets. The two films already mentioned, along with Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove certainly prove that the material is ripe, but easy, not necessarily.

The trick seems to be pushing the boundaries of reality, without becoming implausible. That's what seems to make it so brilliant. You have to ask yourself, could this really happen? Could we fake a war to save the president from a scandal? And then just as the film is released, we learn about an intern named Monica Lewinsky, and we all scratch our heads and think, did they know something that we didn't? Truth sometimes is stranger than fiction, but it isn't always quite as much fun as this.