Due to the sporadic amounts of time-not-devoted-to-finals I'm going to have in the next few weeks, I'm going to have to break up this post into parts (fragments, if you will). I'd like to take a moment to talk about the 2010 film Catfish. I'll try not to spoil anything.
The documentary follows Nev Schulman, a photographer who begins an online relationship with a girl from another state. His brother Ariel films Nev's budding romance, as well as suspicions that things are not what they seem.
What interests me the most about this film is the "Is it real?" debate surrounding it. Catfish was entered into Sundance as a documentary, and though some insist that it is a fabricated "mockumentary," the film's creators defend it as a true story. There's an interesting parallel there to the content of the film--doubting the story you are receiving, not knowing how much of what you're hearing is true. In the film, Nev begins to believe he is being lied to; how interesting would it be if he were also lying to us?
This brings to mind the notion of truth and the master narrative, or lack thereof, in the postmodern world. The line between fact and fiction is blurred, both within the film and in discussing the film itself. There are other postmodern concepts within the film as well: Nev and his love interest Megan's interactions are mediated by phone calls and emails, depersonalizing their relationship.
________
More to come!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Thursday, March 31, 2011
New blog coming soon
I watched Catfish last night, the "documentary" that caused a stir last year when critics doubted its authenticity. I'm very excited about it, and my next post will be about the nature of truth in film, especially in the abstract, impersonal postmodern era. I just... don't have time to write it right now.
So... come back later.
Thanks.
-j
So... come back later.
Thanks.
-j
Monday, March 14, 2011
Repurposed art
First, an apology for the long absence: many, many things have taken the place of this blog in the past few weeks (film projects, midterm papers, and still photography work for a CBS pilot, to name a few). I'm back.
I've been seeing an awful lot of what I'll call "repurposed art" lately on the Internet. Like Duchamp's "Fountain," these works present "readymade" material in a new (or in no) context. The amount of user-generated content widely available on the Internet in the past two decades has created an environment where material is presented, manipulated (or not) and presented to a different audience with different intentions.
First, I present the Found Footage Festival.
http://www.foundfootagefest.com/
This site takes Jameson's theory of the postmodern film as recylcing genres of the past one step further: regurgitating obscure videos, devoid of context, that would otherwise fall into the abyss of time. Not altered in any way (aside from the addition of a title card), these salvaged films find new life, with often comedic results.
Next is the idea of the internet "meme." A meme is a phenomenon specific to Internet communities, a sort of running joke based on a pop culture object. For a list of examples:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes
An amateur singer's embarrassing performance, an imbalanced celebrity's public breakdown, or even an awkward family photo is fair game for superimposed captions, repetition and merciless parody. Although often insensitive and politically incorrect, these "memes" spread quickly and become known worldwide.
Memes often make use of non-sequitur. Perhaps no better example of a complete change of context exists than this site:
http://unrelatedcaptions.com/
This site pairs an image (often stock footage or a still from a film) with a completely unrelated quote (often from another film, a commercial or a well-known expression). The viewer, in response, has to struggle to reconcile the two into a cohesive narrative. Sometimes this succeeds; sometimes it fails. The result either way is comedic.
Finally, one of the most powerful examples: John William's score to the 1993 film Jurassic Park, slowed down 1000 times.
http://soundcloud.com/birdfeeder/jurassic-park-theme-1000-slower
Soundcloud.com user birdfeeder turned what was once a calm, reflective piece into a soaring hour-long soundscape. Although no artistic merit was required (the artist merely used a sound-stretch program to automatically slow down the piece), the result is new (and arguably even more beautiful and rewarding) experience.
As Jameson remarked about art in the postmodern era, it seems we have nowhere to go but back.
I've been seeing an awful lot of what I'll call "repurposed art" lately on the Internet. Like Duchamp's "Fountain," these works present "readymade" material in a new (or in no) context. The amount of user-generated content widely available on the Internet in the past two decades has created an environment where material is presented, manipulated (or not) and presented to a different audience with different intentions.
First, I present the Found Footage Festival.
http://www.foundfootagefest.com/
This site takes Jameson's theory of the postmodern film as recylcing genres of the past one step further: regurgitating obscure videos, devoid of context, that would otherwise fall into the abyss of time. Not altered in any way (aside from the addition of a title card), these salvaged films find new life, with often comedic results.
Next is the idea of the internet "meme." A meme is a phenomenon specific to Internet communities, a sort of running joke based on a pop culture object. For a list of examples:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes
An amateur singer's embarrassing performance, an imbalanced celebrity's public breakdown, or even an awkward family photo is fair game for superimposed captions, repetition and merciless parody. Although often insensitive and politically incorrect, these "memes" spread quickly and become known worldwide.
Memes often make use of non-sequitur. Perhaps no better example of a complete change of context exists than this site:
http://unrelatedcaptions.com/
This site pairs an image (often stock footage or a still from a film) with a completely unrelated quote (often from another film, a commercial or a well-known expression). The viewer, in response, has to struggle to reconcile the two into a cohesive narrative. Sometimes this succeeds; sometimes it fails. The result either way is comedic.
Finally, one of the most powerful examples: John William's score to the 1993 film Jurassic Park, slowed down 1000 times.
http://soundcloud.com/birdfeeder/jurassic-park-theme-1000-slower
Soundcloud.com user birdfeeder turned what was once a calm, reflective piece into a soaring hour-long soundscape. Although no artistic merit was required (the artist merely used a sound-stretch program to automatically slow down the piece), the result is new (and arguably even more beautiful and rewarding) experience.
As Jameson remarked about art in the postmodern era, it seems we have nowhere to go but back.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Intertextuality in Pastiche film
Right now I'm reading Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism, specifically the section on the rise of pastiche. Pastiche film--meaning parody's apolitical successor, including nostalgia films--is a remarkable indicator of where we are in the postmodern era. I'm reminded of the past decade's popular but critically panned "movie movies" that "satirized" (using the word loosely) elements of genre films. Films like "Scary Movie" seem to suffer from attention-deficit disorder, leaping from one pop culture reference to the next without stopping to make any sort of subjective commentary. Although one would be hard pressed to find any cinematic merit in such films, these new parodies do show evidence of postmodern sensibilities, most of all a playful attitude and a heightened intertextuality. Without a basic knowledge of the genre being spoofed and recent tabloid news, the viewer is unable to appreciate the jokes. However, unlike the intertextual nature of period films or earlier parodies (such as Blazing Saddles) which require a thorough knowledge of a specific genre or past era, these films depend on a shallow awareness of an array of subjects. I'm not sure what this means for the future of pastiche; it's possible that this apolitical quilt of spoofs will continue to devolve into smaller and smaller parts, but this is a grim prospect. Jameson echoes this pessimistic sentiment: "For with the collapse of the high-modernist ideology of style . . . the producers of culture have nowhere to turn but to the past." This carries almost apocalyptic undertones for me; I don't think I can stand another spastic movie movie.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Cameras that act like cameras: the pseudo-reflexive Truman Show
At the moment I'm watching The Truman Show, which I've seen more times than I can count. Peter Weir's 1998 film follows Truman Burbank as he is born and raised, unaware, in a TV-set world. What's interesting to me this time around is the hybrid camera technique, alternating between narrative and documentary styles. About a third of the film's shots are framed from the perspective of "hidden cameras" that document Truman's artificial world and broadcast it. These cameras often hide behind objects in the foreground or simulate the POV of shirt buttons, car radios, or other actors' hidden-camera POVs.
Although there's something to be said about inserting documentary camera angles into a narrative film, I was caught by the idea that this camera style is almost, but not quite, reflexive. Unlike a film like Fight Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or Godard's Pierrot le Fou, in which characters will stare into the camera and address the viewer directly, the actor-characters of The Truman Show (with the exception of Truman, the only inhabitant of his world who is not an actor or extra) address a fictional viewer when they acknowledge the camera, whether it be to advertise a product or, when Truman escapes, to speak to the crew monitoring the live feed. It's almost as if the film creates a false fourth wall in order to break it.
What's distinctly postmodern about this concept is the way that the camera does not commit entirely to this style. Like 2009's District 9, this film hybridizes narrative and fiction in a playful way, cut with comedy. Although some political message can be construed from the film (a criticism of America's obsession with TV culture, perhaps--especially interesting because this was made just before the advent of reality television shows) the message is not overt. Jim Carrey's comedic performance as the goofy but pensive Truman, full of slapstick and his famous rubber-face expression, make the dense, multi-layer plot digestible.
Although there's something to be said about inserting documentary camera angles into a narrative film, I was caught by the idea that this camera style is almost, but not quite, reflexive. Unlike a film like Fight Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, or Godard's Pierrot le Fou, in which characters will stare into the camera and address the viewer directly, the actor-characters of The Truman Show (with the exception of Truman, the only inhabitant of his world who is not an actor or extra) address a fictional viewer when they acknowledge the camera, whether it be to advertise a product or, when Truman escapes, to speak to the crew monitoring the live feed. It's almost as if the film creates a false fourth wall in order to break it.
What's distinctly postmodern about this concept is the way that the camera does not commit entirely to this style. Like 2009's District 9, this film hybridizes narrative and fiction in a playful way, cut with comedy. Although some political message can be construed from the film (a criticism of America's obsession with TV culture, perhaps--especially interesting because this was made just before the advent of reality television shows) the message is not overt. Jim Carrey's comedic performance as the goofy but pensive Truman, full of slapstick and his famous rubber-face expression, make the dense, multi-layer plot digestible.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)