Pushing the Envelope: Go Heavy or Go Home
In honor of J. Corpus Christ's pending release of his mind-blowingly twisted script "Paper Wings, Local God," I thought it was a good time to bring up an issue I've found myself dealing with lately. Namely, the idea that if you're going to raise the stakes of a story you need to take things as far as you can reasonably push them, and sometimes even further than that!
But lets face it, not only do spicier, grittier elements bring tension and drama to a story, but often times even the most graphic situation has an element of truth to it. Some of the most acclaimed and infamous movies and TV shows display raw and uncensored reality at its worse. Think about movies like American Beauty, Basic Instinct, Pulp Fiction, and just about any series that has ever been big on HBO.
I think it might have been put best by Robert McKee's character in the film Adaptation:
"Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life! And why the FUCK are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?"
Graphic sex, gruesome violence, rampant profanity and rock and roll. Not necessarily right for every story, but certainly a tool that every writer should know how to use if the time comes.
So how do you feel about such dirty things? Would you be willing to write edgier elements into your script, if you felt the story would benefit? How far are you willing to push the envelope to tell a story?
But lets face it, not only do spicier, grittier elements bring tension and drama to a story, but often times even the most graphic situation has an element of truth to it. Some of the most acclaimed and infamous movies and TV shows display raw and uncensored reality at its worse. Think about movies like American Beauty, Basic Instinct, Pulp Fiction, and just about any series that has ever been big on HBO.
I think it might have been put best by Robert McKee's character in the film Adaptation:
"Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life! And why the FUCK are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie?"
Graphic sex, gruesome violence, rampant profanity and rock and roll. Not necessarily right for every story, but certainly a tool that every writer should know how to use if the time comes.
So how do you feel about such dirty things? Would you be willing to write edgier elements into your script, if you felt the story would benefit? How far are you willing to push the envelope to tell a story?
Hmmm, I have often wondered how far you can go without going too far. My work tends to push it just a little, because I write about what I know. A lot of things in my life circle around homosexuality, betraying friends, drugs, and running away from home. I managed to fit all of this in the pilot for orphaned, and I know to make it better I'm going to have to make it worse, in a sense.
The characters all have their own agenda, but what if one of them went through a horrible experience? How far could I go?
I think I'd go as far as I needed to make it work. If something bad happens (murder, rape, ect) They aren't going to go back to being themselves in one episode, You have to go the whole nine yards. If you don't, it feels unfinished. People won't just jump up and go right back to what they were doing when their sister dies or something. Other times of course you can save up some of the tension if that fits your characters better, but it needs to be resolved eventually. Seeing everything just build up is frustrating for someone watching because they want to see the consequences of whatever happened.
The characters all have their own agenda, but what if one of them went through a horrible experience? How far could I go?
I think I'd go as far as I needed to make it work. If something bad happens (murder, rape, ect) They aren't going to go back to being themselves in one episode, You have to go the whole nine yards. If you don't, it feels unfinished. People won't just jump up and go right back to what they were doing when their sister dies or something. Other times of course you can save up some of the tension if that fits your characters better, but it needs to be resolved eventually. Seeing everything just build up is frustrating for someone watching because they want to see the consequences of whatever happened.
"Graphic sex, gruesome violence, rampant profanity and rock and roll."
I'm sorry, I don't buy that these things increase tension, conflict, or drama, or that edginess per se makes a film "better."
One thing missing from the Adaptation quote is: the main point of ANY circumstance designed to increase the stakes -- IT'S IMPORTANCE TO THE CHARACTER. The examples in the quote are meaningful because they mean something to the people INVOLVED. Not so much to us as spectators. Oh, we all say, "murder and rape are terrible." But if it happens to someone close to us, how much more powerful are the emotions?
In fact, in most cases, extreme violence, excessive profanity and so on, exist in a script (or film) because the writer is LAZY. He/she didn't spend enough time developing the character, deepening the character's personal values enough, so that when ANYTHING happens to that character, the audience feels it as deeply as the character does.
In other words, if set up with proper depth (so we understand the consequences), and a character misses a cab, or forgets to brush his teeth or whatever seemingly mundane action, we as an audience will feel it just as deeply as if the character's wife was raped or murdered.
That's great writing. Adding a violent scene, or making a character swear endlessly because he's enraged, is, to me, just plain lazy.
I'm not saying don't use those things to ratchet the stakes. If the story warrants, it's perfectly acceptable and even effective. I've just seen too many films where it's taken too far, or done too often to be a effective vehicle for upping the stakes.
Anyway, my two cents.
I'm sorry, I don't buy that these things increase tension, conflict, or drama, or that edginess per se makes a film "better."
One thing missing from the Adaptation quote is: the main point of ANY circumstance designed to increase the stakes -- IT'S IMPORTANCE TO THE CHARACTER. The examples in the quote are meaningful because they mean something to the people INVOLVED. Not so much to us as spectators. Oh, we all say, "murder and rape are terrible." But if it happens to someone close to us, how much more powerful are the emotions?
In fact, in most cases, extreme violence, excessive profanity and so on, exist in a script (or film) because the writer is LAZY. He/she didn't spend enough time developing the character, deepening the character's personal values enough, so that when ANYTHING happens to that character, the audience feels it as deeply as the character does.
In other words, if set up with proper depth (so we understand the consequences), and a character misses a cab, or forgets to brush his teeth or whatever seemingly mundane action, we as an audience will feel it just as deeply as if the character's wife was raped or murdered.
That's great writing. Adding a violent scene, or making a character swear endlessly because he's enraged, is, to me, just plain lazy.
I'm not saying don't use those things to ratchet the stakes. If the story warrants, it's perfectly acceptable and even effective. I've just seen too many films where it's taken too far, or done too often to be a effective vehicle for upping the stakes.
Anyway, my two cents.
We live in a society where sex, drugs and violence sell. It's in everything we read, listen to and see. As a screenwriter, I think the question is, how do you play up these elements? It all comes down to the story, its characters and the situation that the characters are in. I don't like movies where the characters are swearing with reckless abandon, for little or no reason at all.
Personally, there are certain zones that I wouldn't go in. No matter what's at stake. So yes, I'm willing go as far as I need to, as long as I don't have to compromise my principles. What's the point in gaining the world, when you have to sell your soul to obtain it?
Personally, there are certain zones that I wouldn't go in. No matter what's at stake. So yes, I'm willing go as far as I need to, as long as I don't have to compromise my principles. What's the point in gaining the world, when you have to sell your soul to obtain it?
D.A. -- word.
I totally agree. I have to be careful and not write myself into a corner sometimes, where the only way out is a way I'm not willing to go.
Hey K,
What a way to blast a discussion topic into the netherworld! You put us all on the Ferry to the River Styx straight to Hades...
Depravity and violence, sex, revenge and the mutated fringes of human behavior - these have all been the stuff of MacBeth, Oedipus Rex, The Sound and The Fury, The Iliad, and the Old Testament - why go on? If the tools fit the theme, use them.
What a way to blast a discussion topic into the netherworld! You put us all on the Ferry to the River Styx straight to Hades...
Depravity and violence, sex, revenge and the mutated fringes of human behavior - these have all been the stuff of MacBeth, Oedipus Rex, The Sound and The Fury, The Iliad, and the Old Testament - why go on? If the tools fit the theme, use them.
1st everyone WATCH THIS FILM- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071615/ - Holy Mountain
this is a film that layers one 'hard to swallow' scene ontop of another. I honestly had to turn away from alot of it. But the ending turns out to be somewhat of a critique on filmmakers and artist. Because lets face it were the ones that have made society so obsessed with (sex, violence, ect!) in the 1st place. But this was only a reflection of actual society in the 1st place.
Drug use is often categorized as violence and can effect the rating of your film. But what's drug use? taking a pill for a headache? how about taking a pill because your depressed, to me its all the same. I'm not a fan of violence but violence is oh so human. and more human than violence is pain. And No clearer way to make your self feel human than cause your self pain. The best way to do that is to fall in love. Love and pain are clearly very connected. So a film about love, in my mind leads to drug use, pain, and eventually violence.
blood is a visually gripping image. I like it most in film when somebody randomly gets a nose bleed or paper cut and it simply reminds them that they are human. Drugs indicate a character as being on the outside of society, and violence is the ultimate expression of conflict. "I've tried everything to get the ...." "did you try hitting him?" "oh right"
this is a film that layers one 'hard to swallow' scene ontop of another. I honestly had to turn away from alot of it. But the ending turns out to be somewhat of a critique on filmmakers and artist. Because lets face it were the ones that have made society so obsessed with (sex, violence, ect!) in the 1st place. But this was only a reflection of actual society in the 1st place.
Drug use is often categorized as violence and can effect the rating of your film. But what's drug use? taking a pill for a headache? how about taking a pill because your depressed, to me its all the same. I'm not a fan of violence but violence is oh so human. and more human than violence is pain. And No clearer way to make your self feel human than cause your self pain. The best way to do that is to fall in love. Love and pain are clearly very connected. So a film about love, in my mind leads to drug use, pain, and eventually violence.
blood is a visually gripping image. I like it most in film when somebody randomly gets a nose bleed or paper cut and it simply reminds them that they are human. Drugs indicate a character as being on the outside of society, and violence is the ultimate expression of conflict. "I've tried everything to get the ...." "did you try hitting him?" "oh right"
You know, I've come to love these little talks we have here. No one agrees and everyone is right!
Sex, drugs, and violence have their place in a story, but like (John) says you shouldn't just throw such things in just to have them. If we've learned anything from James Cameron, it's that no amount of explosions or gunfire can make up for thin characters. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that shows that choosing NOT to play out such scenes and still relay the same sort of power and emotion.
On the other hand...
J.C. is right as well, that such things are not only real, but are also undeniable aspects of the human situation. Some things just can't be explained in any plainer terms, and for some situations you'd be doing both your story and your subject matter a disservice if you didn't display things in all their graphic goodness.
But then again, Kinsey and D.A. have valid points. The question isn't "how far CAN you go," but "how far SHOULD you go." Some situations call for the grisly details, but others don't.
To change gears a bit, I'd like to pose a question: Have you ever had a scene that went SO far that you've had trouble writing it? Something that was so gory or graphic that you just couldn't put the words together comfortably, either because you'd never experienced such horror, or perhaps because you had?
Sex, drugs, and violence have their place in a story, but like (John) says you shouldn't just throw such things in just to have them. If we've learned anything from James Cameron, it's that no amount of explosions or gunfire can make up for thin characters. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that shows that choosing NOT to play out such scenes and still relay the same sort of power and emotion.
On the other hand...
J.C. is right as well, that such things are not only real, but are also undeniable aspects of the human situation. Some things just can't be explained in any plainer terms, and for some situations you'd be doing both your story and your subject matter a disservice if you didn't display things in all their graphic goodness.
But then again, Kinsey and D.A. have valid points. The question isn't "how far CAN you go," but "how far SHOULD you go." Some situations call for the grisly details, but others don't.
To change gears a bit, I'd like to pose a question: Have you ever had a scene that went SO far that you've had trouble writing it? Something that was so gory or graphic that you just couldn't put the words together comfortably, either because you'd never experienced such horror, or perhaps because you had?
OK K, now u made me just really look forward to reading Corpus' script. Time to start!!
READ it, loved it.
It's good, it really DID push the envelope, and as someone who's totally for weird and wacky, that definitely was a good read!
Now, IMO, my preference for direction is a film that has high artistic value. The question here being: How far do you push this metaphorical envelope until it becomes not art, anymore, but EXPLOITATION?
Quentin Tarentino: A case study.
Grindhouse, Kill Bill: The violence is ENORMOUS. But at the same time, can anyone say Kill Bill was not art? It was so perfectly executed, with such perfect cultural impositions, that the film became an embodiment of beauty and revolutionary anti-society views.
Not to be plugging, but can now someone read my Sisters script if it balances the "pushing the envelope" and "art" midline?
It's good, it really DID push the envelope, and as someone who's totally for weird and wacky, that definitely was a good read!
Now, IMO, my preference for direction is a film that has high artistic value. The question here being: How far do you push this metaphorical envelope until it becomes not art, anymore, but EXPLOITATION?
Quentin Tarentino: A case study.
Grindhouse, Kill Bill: The violence is ENORMOUS. But at the same time, can anyone say Kill Bill was not art? It was so perfectly executed, with such perfect cultural impositions, that the film became an embodiment of beauty and revolutionary anti-society views.
Not to be plugging, but can now someone read my Sisters script if it balances the "pushing the envelope" and "art" midline?
Maybe it's not about pushing the envelope. Maybe it's about having the right size push for the right size envelope.
Take "Requiem For a Dream." It pushes the envelope in a way that seriously disturbed me. Or take "A Clockwork Orange" and "Trainspotting." I saw all three of these movies around the same time period, and I have to say that the manner in which they handled creating deeper problems and worse situations for the characters has greatly influenced how I imagine things. NOT because of how gratuitous the violence, sex, and drugs are... but because the subtlety of the characters happens to be present through the entire course of the film.
We are, in each instance, shown the inner workings of the characters through the exaggerated and grotesque, and while the situations are base or humiliating, the characters themselves react with humanity. I'm not talking about the kind of humanity where you clasp hands and sing kum-ba-yah. I'm talking about the kind of humanity shown here: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=58320993&FORM=VIRE3
...where humanity is not infallible. Where humanity is not pretty or morally clear. And while people are rarely faced with such concise situations, such as shocking a person to death at the urges of television producers and an audience, we see writ large in their struggles our own failings.
Like so many phrases that have been bastardized by the money-dealing legal-wheeling results-focused public relations and marketing experts found wherever there is a product to exploit, "pushing the envelope" has been turned from it's original meaning.
"To attempt to extend the current limits of performance. To innovate, or go beyond commonly accepted boundaries." It originates from the mathematical envelope of air that hinders/aids the flight of an aircraft.
Why do people automatically assume that "pushing the envelope" can only be applied to "shock factor" or tastelessness? I think EVERY person who considers themselves a writer should "push the envelope," personally and professionally. I think we should strive to extend past the limits of performance, to be innovative and creative, and go beyond the common boundaries.
There is nothing more common than violence, sex, and drugs as a boundary. It's when writers and actors take those common elements and make them new to us once again that they have raised the standard, and "pushed the envelope." This can't be said of block-busters like "Fast and Furious the 19th" or "Rollerball - TNG". Gratuitous or copious doesn't mean the same thing as "pushing the envelope."
I mean, if you had the best cheesecake in the world in front of you, and you thought, this could be made better with chocolate sauce, but instead of using the right kind of chocolate, or instead of using the right amount, you drowned the cheesecake in the cheapest, most mass-produced chocolate ever, to the point where the cake itself is meaningless...
You've just ruined a great dessert. But if you had been innovative, and creative, and thought outside typical American culinary wisdom, had thought instead like an artisan or chef and used a dark sauce combined with chili peppers or pomegranates, then your cheesecake would have been elevated instead of denigrated, and the dessert would be better.
That's why you need the right sized envelope to push certain situations. If it's overkill, it drowns the script. If it's too weak, then it does nothing to enhance the script. The envelope should be pushed, but if writers and artists don't even understand the meaning of the phrase, then it's pointless... because they'll be focusing on exaggerating the wrong things for the wrong reason. They'll be painting the portrait of Mary, MOG, in elephant dung or with used tampons, which will ultimately end up as just another gimmick in a world of art being flooded with such gimmicks.
Take "Requiem For a Dream." It pushes the envelope in a way that seriously disturbed me. Or take "A Clockwork Orange" and "Trainspotting." I saw all three of these movies around the same time period, and I have to say that the manner in which they handled creating deeper problems and worse situations for the characters has greatly influenced how I imagine things. NOT because of how gratuitous the violence, sex, and drugs are... but because the subtlety of the characters happens to be present through the entire course of the film.
We are, in each instance, shown the inner workings of the characters through the exaggerated and grotesque, and while the situations are base or humiliating, the characters themselves react with humanity. I'm not talking about the kind of humanity where you clasp hands and sing kum-ba-yah. I'm talking about the kind of humanity shown here: http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=58320993&FORM=VIRE3
...where humanity is not infallible. Where humanity is not pretty or morally clear. And while people are rarely faced with such concise situations, such as shocking a person to death at the urges of television producers and an audience, we see writ large in their struggles our own failings.
Like so many phrases that have been bastardized by the money-dealing legal-wheeling results-focused public relations and marketing experts found wherever there is a product to exploit, "pushing the envelope" has been turned from it's original meaning.
"To attempt to extend the current limits of performance. To innovate, or go beyond commonly accepted boundaries." It originates from the mathematical envelope of air that hinders/aids the flight of an aircraft.
Why do people automatically assume that "pushing the envelope" can only be applied to "shock factor" or tastelessness? I think EVERY person who considers themselves a writer should "push the envelope," personally and professionally. I think we should strive to extend past the limits of performance, to be innovative and creative, and go beyond the common boundaries.
There is nothing more common than violence, sex, and drugs as a boundary. It's when writers and actors take those common elements and make them new to us once again that they have raised the standard, and "pushed the envelope." This can't be said of block-busters like "Fast and Furious the 19th" or "Rollerball - TNG". Gratuitous or copious doesn't mean the same thing as "pushing the envelope."
I mean, if you had the best cheesecake in the world in front of you, and you thought, this could be made better with chocolate sauce, but instead of using the right kind of chocolate, or instead of using the right amount, you drowned the cheesecake in the cheapest, most mass-produced chocolate ever, to the point where the cake itself is meaningless...
You've just ruined a great dessert. But if you had been innovative, and creative, and thought outside typical American culinary wisdom, had thought instead like an artisan or chef and used a dark sauce combined with chili peppers or pomegranates, then your cheesecake would have been elevated instead of denigrated, and the dessert would be better.
That's why you need the right sized envelope to push certain situations. If it's overkill, it drowns the script. If it's too weak, then it does nothing to enhance the script. The envelope should be pushed, but if writers and artists don't even understand the meaning of the phrase, then it's pointless... because they'll be focusing on exaggerating the wrong things for the wrong reason. They'll be painting the portrait of Mary, MOG, in elephant dung or with used tampons, which will ultimately end up as just another gimmick in a world of art being flooded with such gimmicks.
Well said s.w. Good metaphor of the cheesecake. We're all trying to add flavor/bring out flavor in our scripts, and it takes a great deal of expertise to be able to elevate the taste and impression of it, and not drown it. I think it's better to at least go a little much further than less... I would much rather have something shock me, even if it is not necessarily art anymore, than leave no impression or a bland taste in my, well, mind.
I don't think, S.W., that these facts are lost on K's original point at all.
Who defines what is gratuitous use of sex violence and "rock and roll"?
What are the acceptable limits?
What are those limits and why should I care?
Who decides them?
What are they in relationship to the lives of the author? The artist?
What is Greg babbling about now?
If I as an artist and writer within the confines of my story world can justify through my character's reactions to the circumstances presented him, what proverbial "envelope" have I pushed?
Here's the real meat of the biscuit... it is you as the audience member that has had your own prejudicial mental envelope pushed and now tout the work as either groundbreaking or morally offensive.
I don't really buy that it has to make story sense either. There are plenty of movies, PLENTY of great movies, (not trash, snuff or pabulum type movies) that use baser moral actions as visual and auditory devices in ways which no logical sense can be made of their use.
Janet Leigh's murder in the shower scene in Psycho (1960), pushes the envelope. We, as audience members, are inexorably changed after the experience. Psycho has no discernible or definable handle on the traditional narrative or story as we know it now. It was even odder then. Hitch's disregard for the narrative in Psycho was completely unheard of prior to the release of that film in the history of cinema. The violence and sexual innuendo portrayed on film was visceral, affective and totally ancillary to the narrative, and in fact the scene itself goes on to totally fool the eye.
But, like his cameos, that is another of Hitchcock's jokes on the audience. A signature from the man as an artist (he was a draftsman and an advertising designer way before he was a filmmaker)
Was Hitch pushing the envelope yes. Was it over the top for its time? Yes. It is now one of the most important and memorable scenes in cinema history. Yes.
Is that because of the killing off of Hollywood's hottest star, or the killing of the "hero" (if there is one in Psycho) in the first 35 minutes of the movie? No. Was it for shock value? No. It was the surreal use of violence that had nothing to do with story and was merely a commentary on Andre Breton's essay and Trompe L'oeil.
There are long sequences in the film that are taken from Janet Leigh's perspective and juxtapose her world view on the viewer's. This causes us to empathize with her character when she being stabbed and while she is vulnerable. We, in a sense become her. It's not because of her story. She a thief. It's not because we empathize with her position. She's an adulteress, morally and spiritually reprehensible, a liar. Why would we want to be like that, even vicariously?
It also is not because we like Norman. He's a dissociative sociopath. The reason the scene works so well has very little to do with story. There is no story. It called Psycho for a very specific reason, one in which Hitchcock was very aware of. He had specific motivations within the field of psychology and his study of Freud and its relation to media. He was well aware of what the role of media was and where it was failing and what this relatively new art form of cinema had the potential to do and was not doing.
Renoir's Rules Of The Game, (1946) a film that critics are now calling the greatest film in the history of cinema also has a deconstructed narrative, his father Pierre Auguste Renoir was arguably the greatest painter of the 19th century. In the center of this film there is a hunt sequence of unspeakable violence. Even for 21 century audiences. Much less 1936 French and 1946 American ones.
Un Chien Andalou (1929), co-directed by Salvador Dali, an artist is a totally surrealist film uses both violence and sex and is completely disconnected any semblance of a story. There is no story. The viewer makes the story.
I hear the dissenters... "But Greg those are old movies. The rules were different."
Nonsense. But I do have a point here that is greater than what is currently being discussed.
Let's talk about two newer movies then:
Hostel: Excessive violence taken to one stop short of torture porn and a strong argument could be made that it is an excuse for torture porn. The violence in the movie does absolutely nothing to advance the plot or story. Hostel how ever is unique in that it defines an entirely new genre of film. It has been made into a now mainstream staple. Again, not because its story. The story is not logical. It is the display of violence and torture on film, that draws the male viewer. Could easily go off on a tangent here as to why this is so but...
Pulp Fiction: Profanity does not one thing to advance Vincent or Jules' story, doesn't add color, make them more believable. Vincent's totally surreal use of drugs, (trust me heroin addict can't, won't shouldn't shoot dope while driving) the fact that he shoots dope is not an additional character flaw, we already see he's a hired murderer and has a problem, his addiction does not one thing to help his story. He knows a dope dealer for later in the story? Of course he does. This dope dealer just happens to have the magic cure for overdosing addicts as well as dope. Of course he does. He violently stabs a needle into the chest of the previously off screen and overly protective crime boss' wife, of course he does. Only all of this has nothing to do with story. It is rational and logical but it is not believable. It is quite the contrary. It is surreal. The rape scene at the end of the movie is also unnecessary. For a number of different similar reasons.
Is it less enjoyable despite all of these story flaws? No.
Is it less enjoyable because of the violence, drugs, and sex that is ancillary and totally unnecessary? No.
We live in the world that Howard Beale so aptly describes in Paddy Chafesky's Network.
We just want to be left alone with our toaster ovens and steel belted radial tires.
So this type of violence, sex and drugs is logical to us. The "news" tells us so. It is rational. We have seen or been victims ourselves of violence or the fall out from it. The difference between what is real and what is on film however is surreal and has nothing to do with story.
Is the film groundbreaking? Yes, but it is because of the way the film is edited, not because of the way it is written. What the viewer puts together as the story, how the viewer collates the story is more important than any of the character's actions individually. We invest in characters of a superhuman nature where drugs and medicine and bullets and crashes defy the laws of physics and somehow still manage to elicit a rationality from the viewer that these events are somehow part of a true and believable story. Or we set aside personal values and live vicariously through characters that are morally reprehensible yet we refuse to pass that judgement on them for the two hours of movie time. The facts of the story are neither. They are surrealist, dreamlike landscapes and no logical pedantic methodology can be used to define their boundaries.
Here is my point: Un Chien Andalou is no longer visceral or even shocking because of Psycho and Psycho is no longer shocking because of Hostel.
Each of these film will be remembered for different reasons in the history of cinema. None of which came from the point of view of the writer, director or producer consciously thinking "I'm gonna really push the envelope with this one."
SW said something of vital importance though in his post. "Trainspotting and Requiem disturbed me"...""it has greatly influenced how I imagine things. NOT because of how gratuitous the violence, sex, and drugs are... but because the subtlety of the characters happens to be present through the entire course of the film."
AND I SAY NOT TRUE.
It is ONLY because of those things. Your envelope has been pushed. It is BECAUSE of those immoral ideals having now entered your "comfortable, (read:moral)" space. It shakes your sensibilities because of how glaringly apparent the gratuitous violence, sex and drugs are, that baser instinctual functions and vices that these characters indulge in run as a blatantly open torrent of negative information about the world we live in and yet you do not act immediately in revulsion. That you find yourself inexorably connected the lives of the characters and yet your higher states of consciousness won't let you turn it off, walk out or allow you to disavow their existence or reality in the temporal space of the world outside of the movie theatre. You are forced to make an on the spot decision at the end of the movie.
Was that true and real or not? And what can I do about it. It was, of course, a beautiful lie told at 24 frames per second and the central dramatic question of it is much larger than the story or the characters and has a much more lasting effect than either. You cannot shoot the messenger for the message or the way that it was delivered or the way that you receive it. I cannot judge accurately when the societal envelope has been pushed or broken. I can only tell you a story from my standpoint and ask the toughest CDQ's I know how in the process. How they are perceived by others is not really my concern as a artist. As a commercial writer, a whole different question. You sell out all these things for ferraris and oscar nods.
Cinema consistently tries to reemphasize the surrealist nature that it has and that nature is built on two very simple premises: violence and madness. All conflict within film has these elements, in fact these are the only elements within conflict.
If there are only seven stories in the world and we have heard them all, why are these retellings different? Because times are different. The quote from adaptation only appeals to the sensibilities in the time and context in which it was written.
On film, violence will become more graphic, sex more explicit, language more colloquial and abusive because these are "the rules of the game" It is what is needed in order to awaken us as to what is acceptable and what is not these boundaries always get tested. It has very little to do with story. It has to do with art and how the artist sees the world around him.
Camus said "it is not the job of the artist to put himself in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it."
The artist cannot sit idly by without testing the boundaries of what is acceptable societally if it is in the pursuit of truth. We as artists and writers test the boundaries constantly and unwittingly and the audience processes them constantly and unwittingly. This cycle continues unencumbered by consideration or thought.
I could go on forever but Mc Clure and Chomsky have made careers out of explaining this type of stuff.
As for the artist smearing feces on a picture of the Virgin Mary I would have to ask myself two questions before denouncing or accepting the artist's work.
If it is a rebellious commentary on how the Di Medici family used money power and influence to not only shape the iconography of Christianity with their own likenesses as members of the Holy Trinity with absolutely no regard or idea of the sanctity of that those beliefs stand for but to also use that same money to corrupt and elect the early Popes of the Church and also to rebel against the ingrained notion of what this method of idol worship represents in relation to the actual text, if it is also that the art is an attempt to try to break form these constructed truths as actual events show them for the reality they present as we believe in paeanistic power of the images even fully aware of the historical truth rather than upholding a belief in the spirt of teachings themselves. Then, I say the work is mindblowingly groundbreaking.
if the work is merely weakhanded attempt from an artist who is protesting religion as the opium of the masses in an attempt to exercise his right to free speech then I say the art and the artist not only begins the artistic and creative debate from an indefensible position and degenerates into absurdity quickly from there, but it is also intellectually offensive and morally insulting.
Others will have other opinions. that's the great thing about what we do.
Namaste,
G
Who defines what is gratuitous use of sex violence and "rock and roll"?
What are the acceptable limits?
What are those limits and why should I care?
Who decides them?
What are they in relationship to the lives of the author? The artist?
What is Greg babbling about now?
If I as an artist and writer within the confines of my story world can justify through my character's reactions to the circumstances presented him, what proverbial "envelope" have I pushed?
Here's the real meat of the biscuit... it is you as the audience member that has had your own prejudicial mental envelope pushed and now tout the work as either groundbreaking or morally offensive.
I don't really buy that it has to make story sense either. There are plenty of movies, PLENTY of great movies, (not trash, snuff or pabulum type movies) that use baser moral actions as visual and auditory devices in ways which no logical sense can be made of their use.
Janet Leigh's murder in the shower scene in Psycho (1960), pushes the envelope. We, as audience members, are inexorably changed after the experience. Psycho has no discernible or definable handle on the traditional narrative or story as we know it now. It was even odder then. Hitch's disregard for the narrative in Psycho was completely unheard of prior to the release of that film in the history of cinema. The violence and sexual innuendo portrayed on film was visceral, affective and totally ancillary to the narrative, and in fact the scene itself goes on to totally fool the eye.
But, like his cameos, that is another of Hitchcock's jokes on the audience. A signature from the man as an artist (he was a draftsman and an advertising designer way before he was a filmmaker)
Was Hitch pushing the envelope yes. Was it over the top for its time? Yes. It is now one of the most important and memorable scenes in cinema history. Yes.
Is that because of the killing off of Hollywood's hottest star, or the killing of the "hero" (if there is one in Psycho) in the first 35 minutes of the movie? No. Was it for shock value? No. It was the surreal use of violence that had nothing to do with story and was merely a commentary on Andre Breton's essay and Trompe L'oeil.
There are long sequences in the film that are taken from Janet Leigh's perspective and juxtapose her world view on the viewer's. This causes us to empathize with her character when she being stabbed and while she is vulnerable. We, in a sense become her. It's not because of her story. She a thief. It's not because we empathize with her position. She's an adulteress, morally and spiritually reprehensible, a liar. Why would we want to be like that, even vicariously?
It also is not because we like Norman. He's a dissociative sociopath. The reason the scene works so well has very little to do with story. There is no story. It called Psycho for a very specific reason, one in which Hitchcock was very aware of. He had specific motivations within the field of psychology and his study of Freud and its relation to media. He was well aware of what the role of media was and where it was failing and what this relatively new art form of cinema had the potential to do and was not doing.
Renoir's Rules Of The Game, (1946) a film that critics are now calling the greatest film in the history of cinema also has a deconstructed narrative, his father Pierre Auguste Renoir was arguably the greatest painter of the 19th century. In the center of this film there is a hunt sequence of unspeakable violence. Even for 21 century audiences. Much less 1936 French and 1946 American ones.
Un Chien Andalou (1929), co-directed by Salvador Dali, an artist is a totally surrealist film uses both violence and sex and is completely disconnected any semblance of a story. There is no story. The viewer makes the story.
I hear the dissenters... "But Greg those are old movies. The rules were different."
Nonsense. But I do have a point here that is greater than what is currently being discussed.
Let's talk about two newer movies then:
Hostel: Excessive violence taken to one stop short of torture porn and a strong argument could be made that it is an excuse for torture porn. The violence in the movie does absolutely nothing to advance the plot or story. Hostel how ever is unique in that it defines an entirely new genre of film. It has been made into a now mainstream staple. Again, not because its story. The story is not logical. It is the display of violence and torture on film, that draws the male viewer. Could easily go off on a tangent here as to why this is so but...
Pulp Fiction: Profanity does not one thing to advance Vincent or Jules' story, doesn't add color, make them more believable. Vincent's totally surreal use of drugs, (trust me heroin addict can't, won't shouldn't shoot dope while driving) the fact that he shoots dope is not an additional character flaw, we already see he's a hired murderer and has a problem, his addiction does not one thing to help his story. He knows a dope dealer for later in the story? Of course he does. This dope dealer just happens to have the magic cure for overdosing addicts as well as dope. Of course he does. He violently stabs a needle into the chest of the previously off screen and overly protective crime boss' wife, of course he does. Only all of this has nothing to do with story. It is rational and logical but it is not believable. It is quite the contrary. It is surreal. The rape scene at the end of the movie is also unnecessary. For a number of different similar reasons.
Is it less enjoyable despite all of these story flaws? No.
Is it less enjoyable because of the violence, drugs, and sex that is ancillary and totally unnecessary? No.
We live in the world that Howard Beale so aptly describes in Paddy Chafesky's Network.
We just want to be left alone with our toaster ovens and steel belted radial tires.
So this type of violence, sex and drugs is logical to us. The "news" tells us so. It is rational. We have seen or been victims ourselves of violence or the fall out from it. The difference between what is real and what is on film however is surreal and has nothing to do with story.
Is the film groundbreaking? Yes, but it is because of the way the film is edited, not because of the way it is written. What the viewer puts together as the story, how the viewer collates the story is more important than any of the character's actions individually. We invest in characters of a superhuman nature where drugs and medicine and bullets and crashes defy the laws of physics and somehow still manage to elicit a rationality from the viewer that these events are somehow part of a true and believable story. Or we set aside personal values and live vicariously through characters that are morally reprehensible yet we refuse to pass that judgement on them for the two hours of movie time. The facts of the story are neither. They are surrealist, dreamlike landscapes and no logical pedantic methodology can be used to define their boundaries.
Here is my point: Un Chien Andalou is no longer visceral or even shocking because of Psycho and Psycho is no longer shocking because of Hostel.
Each of these film will be remembered for different reasons in the history of cinema. None of which came from the point of view of the writer, director or producer consciously thinking "I'm gonna really push the envelope with this one."
SW said something of vital importance though in his post. "Trainspotting and Requiem disturbed me"...""it has greatly influenced how I imagine things. NOT because of how gratuitous the violence, sex, and drugs are... but because the subtlety of the characters happens to be present through the entire course of the film."
AND I SAY NOT TRUE.
It is ONLY because of those things. Your envelope has been pushed. It is BECAUSE of those immoral ideals having now entered your "comfortable, (read:moral)" space. It shakes your sensibilities because of how glaringly apparent the gratuitous violence, sex and drugs are, that baser instinctual functions and vices that these characters indulge in run as a blatantly open torrent of negative information about the world we live in and yet you do not act immediately in revulsion. That you find yourself inexorably connected the lives of the characters and yet your higher states of consciousness won't let you turn it off, walk out or allow you to disavow their existence or reality in the temporal space of the world outside of the movie theatre. You are forced to make an on the spot decision at the end of the movie.
Was that true and real or not? And what can I do about it. It was, of course, a beautiful lie told at 24 frames per second and the central dramatic question of it is much larger than the story or the characters and has a much more lasting effect than either. You cannot shoot the messenger for the message or the way that it was delivered or the way that you receive it. I cannot judge accurately when the societal envelope has been pushed or broken. I can only tell you a story from my standpoint and ask the toughest CDQ's I know how in the process. How they are perceived by others is not really my concern as a artist. As a commercial writer, a whole different question. You sell out all these things for ferraris and oscar nods.
Cinema consistently tries to reemphasize the surrealist nature that it has and that nature is built on two very simple premises: violence and madness. All conflict within film has these elements, in fact these are the only elements within conflict.
If there are only seven stories in the world and we have heard them all, why are these retellings different? Because times are different. The quote from adaptation only appeals to the sensibilities in the time and context in which it was written.
On film, violence will become more graphic, sex more explicit, language more colloquial and abusive because these are "the rules of the game" It is what is needed in order to awaken us as to what is acceptable and what is not these boundaries always get tested. It has very little to do with story. It has to do with art and how the artist sees the world around him.
Camus said "it is not the job of the artist to put himself in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it."
The artist cannot sit idly by without testing the boundaries of what is acceptable societally if it is in the pursuit of truth. We as artists and writers test the boundaries constantly and unwittingly and the audience processes them constantly and unwittingly. This cycle continues unencumbered by consideration or thought.
I could go on forever but Mc Clure and Chomsky have made careers out of explaining this type of stuff.
As for the artist smearing feces on a picture of the Virgin Mary I would have to ask myself two questions before denouncing or accepting the artist's work.
If it is a rebellious commentary on how the Di Medici family used money power and influence to not only shape the iconography of Christianity with their own likenesses as members of the Holy Trinity with absolutely no regard or idea of the sanctity of that those beliefs stand for but to also use that same money to corrupt and elect the early Popes of the Church and also to rebel against the ingrained notion of what this method of idol worship represents in relation to the actual text, if it is also that the art is an attempt to try to break form these constructed truths as actual events show them for the reality they present as we believe in paeanistic power of the images even fully aware of the historical truth rather than upholding a belief in the spirt of teachings themselves. Then, I say the work is mindblowingly groundbreaking.
if the work is merely weakhanded attempt from an artist who is protesting religion as the opium of the masses in an attempt to exercise his right to free speech then I say the art and the artist not only begins the artistic and creative debate from an indefensible position and degenerates into absurdity quickly from there, but it is also intellectually offensive and morally insulting.
Others will have other opinions. that's the great thing about what we do.
Namaste,
G
So, in your opinion, does "Saw VI" push the envelope? Does "Hostel III" or "Jaws IX"?
I don't think we really disagreed with each other... I think Pulp Fiction, Hostel, Psycho, pushed the envelope, and they used violence to do it. So, for that matter, did Reservoir Dogs. But the movie isn't affective because it HAS violence, it's affective because the script USES violence to ENHANCE the movie.
I think that's the difference. Gratuitously sprinkling violence and sex and drugs and rock 'n roll around like so much fairy dust for a 400 pound Peter Pan... that's different from having a good script or an artistic vision that uses those things as tools, rather than crutches.
Too often, they're used as crutches, just like embarrassing sexual situations in romantic comedies. What was ground-breaking in "There's Something About Mary" is far more stale in "Along Came Polly." And what was culturally riveting in the ORIGINAL "Look Whose Coming To Dinner," is only farcical in a remake with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher.
Film-makers use action, sex, violence, drugs, and special effects like day-glo band-aids to staunch the hemorrhage of poorly executed or thought-out scenes that make up the majority of films. They assume that if they add enough distractions, bad story-telling will be ignored.
Like the film "09". You know, fantastic animation... and a script with so many over-used phrases I could have quoted it word for word.
Fine, a film-maker can create a movie that spreads sex and violence around because it's a cheap and easy way to get a rise out of the audience they have to dumb things down for. But calling that "pushing the envelope" simply because it offended the audience is saying that movies like "Jackass II" or "Poultry-geist" are the equivalent of "Schindler's List" because the audience leaves the theater feeling disgust.
Once, my older siblings and I fed my younger sibling dog food, telling her it was candy. She knew it was dog food, no matter how much we tried to persuade her that it was candy.
You can't feed me dog food like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and tell me it's candy like "Fight Club." But that's just my personal preference. I happen to like candy better than dog food, and try very hard to distinguish the difference so I don't eat too much dog food by accident in my life.
Then again, can any non-objective, opinionated human being ever TRULY be capable of judging movies or the tenuous saying "pushing the envelope" when they are prejudiced by matters of taste? No?
Then somebody should go tell that to film critics. They need to know that they're completely useless since it's all a matter of opinion.
I don't think we really disagreed with each other... I think Pulp Fiction, Hostel, Psycho, pushed the envelope, and they used violence to do it. So, for that matter, did Reservoir Dogs. But the movie isn't affective because it HAS violence, it's affective because the script USES violence to ENHANCE the movie.
I think that's the difference. Gratuitously sprinkling violence and sex and drugs and rock 'n roll around like so much fairy dust for a 400 pound Peter Pan... that's different from having a good script or an artistic vision that uses those things as tools, rather than crutches.
Too often, they're used as crutches, just like embarrassing sexual situations in romantic comedies. What was ground-breaking in "There's Something About Mary" is far more stale in "Along Came Polly." And what was culturally riveting in the ORIGINAL "Look Whose Coming To Dinner," is only farcical in a remake with Bernie Mac and Ashton Kutcher.
Film-makers use action, sex, violence, drugs, and special effects like day-glo band-aids to staunch the hemorrhage of poorly executed or thought-out scenes that make up the majority of films. They assume that if they add enough distractions, bad story-telling will be ignored.
Like the film "09". You know, fantastic animation... and a script with so many over-used phrases I could have quoted it word for word.
Fine, a film-maker can create a movie that spreads sex and violence around because it's a cheap and easy way to get a rise out of the audience they have to dumb things down for. But calling that "pushing the envelope" simply because it offended the audience is saying that movies like "Jackass II" or "Poultry-geist" are the equivalent of "Schindler's List" because the audience leaves the theater feeling disgust.
Once, my older siblings and I fed my younger sibling dog food, telling her it was candy. She knew it was dog food, no matter how much we tried to persuade her that it was candy.
You can't feed me dog food like "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" and tell me it's candy like "Fight Club." But that's just my personal preference. I happen to like candy better than dog food, and try very hard to distinguish the difference so I don't eat too much dog food by accident in my life.
Then again, can any non-objective, opinionated human being ever TRULY be capable of judging movies or the tenuous saying "pushing the envelope" when they are prejudiced by matters of taste? No?
Then somebody should go tell that to film critics. They need to know that they're completely useless since it's all a matter of opinion.
I think NO, NO, and NO. To your first questions.
I don't think we disagree either in theory or substance either.
In fact, I don't think your point goes far enough or I am not being clear.
Violence exists in all conflict whether its a love scene or which character is taking out the garbage or whose choosing shirts or skins for the soccer game. Madness also exists in all conflict. Raise the stakes on any of the circumstances surrounding your characters and tell me what happens.
All of those movies you have mentioned call direct attention to the fact that there is this amount of extreme violence and madness in the world. The scripts in this regard are fervent statements of that which is so. Their "use of violence and madness" is merely meant to affect the viewer. To "influence" his moral and ethical decisions in the future in some life renewing way. However this amount of violence exists in the world whether it has been called attention to or not. No enhancement of this fact is necessary.
Again, so what "proverbial" envelope is being pushed? The viewer's.
"Little Children" is a story would not get even covered much less a first meeting at a studio 25 years ago. Even in the face of the America's most prolific child molester running rampant through the streets of Atlanta. And child molestation, in modern day parlance, has gone on since Ancient Greece. It is not something that we, societally, have just become aware of. So what makes this film made in 2006, so "envelope" pushing? Simply, that it is a story that we are ready hear and be affected by. We, as an audience and a society, are ready for to deal with it as a moral and ethical dilemma. We are ready to allow it to affect our collective social consciousness. Here's the part that is either envelope pushing or morally offensive: though events are things that happen and exist why should I as an audience member be subjected to or affected by their story? This is the great and difficult question. That is a difference between "affective" and "effective". I did not say that those movies were effective because of the their uses of the devices. Effective is a judgmental choice and that I leave for other critics.
Do you think that the writer, director, producer ever considered the fact that what they were doing was "over the top"? I don't. I think they think they were telling a story. Do we see Jackie Earle Haley masturbate in the car? Do we see Jackie Earle Haley chop off his penis? Do we see Jackie Earle Haley molest little children? NO. NO. and NO.
Yet, as a viewer, I am affected by his story. The violence and sex in the film is explicit and yet surreal. I am left to my own devices, my own mental and emotional acumen to empathize with the character. And in that empathetic cathartic experience at the end of two hours, I am still left with the big question. Why? It is a puzzlement to me as a thinking rational and logical human being.
I agree that spreading sex, violence and drugs around like "fairy dust" does nothing. My larger point is what gives the artist the sense of entitlement to even consider what he is doing is "groundbreaking"? His task is monumental enough in the pursuit of truth. Just tell the story. Violence, sex and all. The audience will tell you whether what your doing is groundbreaking, artistic, creative or just pure schlock. At the end of the day though you just gotta tell it the best, most honest, truthful and sincere way you know how and damn the torpedoes.
I have compartmentalized my discussion to films that are of creative and artistic value. There is plenty of pabulum and crap made that I don't understand. And don't wish to understand. So I "get your message" in your paragraphs following your opening question.
On another note for us as writers: Everyone of the films I have mentioned disregards every single rule of screenwriting and narrative storytelling I can think of. That, too, is groundbreaking. Are the two linked?
Namaste,
G
I don't think we disagree either in theory or substance either.
In fact, I don't think your point goes far enough or I am not being clear.
Violence exists in all conflict whether its a love scene or which character is taking out the garbage or whose choosing shirts or skins for the soccer game. Madness also exists in all conflict. Raise the stakes on any of the circumstances surrounding your characters and tell me what happens.
All of those movies you have mentioned call direct attention to the fact that there is this amount of extreme violence and madness in the world. The scripts in this regard are fervent statements of that which is so. Their "use of violence and madness" is merely meant to affect the viewer. To "influence" his moral and ethical decisions in the future in some life renewing way. However this amount of violence exists in the world whether it has been called attention to or not. No enhancement of this fact is necessary.
Again, so what "proverbial" envelope is being pushed? The viewer's.
"Little Children" is a story would not get even covered much less a first meeting at a studio 25 years ago. Even in the face of the America's most prolific child molester running rampant through the streets of Atlanta. And child molestation, in modern day parlance, has gone on since Ancient Greece. It is not something that we, societally, have just become aware of. So what makes this film made in 2006, so "envelope" pushing? Simply, that it is a story that we are ready hear and be affected by. We, as an audience and a society, are ready for to deal with it as a moral and ethical dilemma. We are ready to allow it to affect our collective social consciousness. Here's the part that is either envelope pushing or morally offensive: though events are things that happen and exist why should I as an audience member be subjected to or affected by their story? This is the great and difficult question. That is a difference between "affective" and "effective". I did not say that those movies were effective because of the their uses of the devices. Effective is a judgmental choice and that I leave for other critics.
Do you think that the writer, director, producer ever considered the fact that what they were doing was "over the top"? I don't. I think they think they were telling a story. Do we see Jackie Earle Haley masturbate in the car? Do we see Jackie Earle Haley chop off his penis? Do we see Jackie Earle Haley molest little children? NO. NO. and NO.
Yet, as a viewer, I am affected by his story. The violence and sex in the film is explicit and yet surreal. I am left to my own devices, my own mental and emotional acumen to empathize with the character. And in that empathetic cathartic experience at the end of two hours, I am still left with the big question. Why? It is a puzzlement to me as a thinking rational and logical human being.
I agree that spreading sex, violence and drugs around like "fairy dust" does nothing. My larger point is what gives the artist the sense of entitlement to even consider what he is doing is "groundbreaking"? His task is monumental enough in the pursuit of truth. Just tell the story. Violence, sex and all. The audience will tell you whether what your doing is groundbreaking, artistic, creative or just pure schlock. At the end of the day though you just gotta tell it the best, most honest, truthful and sincere way you know how and damn the torpedoes.
I have compartmentalized my discussion to films that are of creative and artistic value. There is plenty of pabulum and crap made that I don't understand. And don't wish to understand. So I "get your message" in your paragraphs following your opening question.
On another note for us as writers: Everyone of the films I have mentioned disregards every single rule of screenwriting and narrative storytelling I can think of. That, too, is groundbreaking. Are the two linked?
Namaste,
G
DONT LET ME BE "THE GREAT THREAD KILLER".
as far as script writting is concerned, i do believe a writter should not be self centred especially now in this computer age where there is available information on every media,like the internet,news papers, radios, television etc. i would suggest that it is writting about corruption ,violence, child sacrifice etc knowlegde has to be got from the countries or areas where the are best practiced so as to make the scripts not only entertaining but also educating,informing and innovating.
I will attempt to revive this thread -- by being contrary. :)
In response to Greg's long, well-thought-out post: balderdash! :)
In my opinion, the shower scene in Psycho is absolutely necessary to the plot. That scene takes the audience so completely into the story that to NOT do it, would be to lessen the impact of the film. Hitchcock always knew exactly what he wanted to say, and how to say it. To me, that's the essence of storytelling.
I can't speak to the other "old" movies, but re:Pulp Fiction. Again, every scene Greg mentioned is critical to the film (I believe), because, if nothing else, it deepens the characters. Without the profanity, drug use and rape, the characters would have become caricatures, less real -- easier for the audience to dismiss.
BTW, I loathed all that stuff. I found it morally offensive. But it still was necessary to the film.
Now on to the real clunker: filmmaking IS NOT ART. By my own personal definition, and by others' definition of what art is, filmmaking is not art.
Wikipedia (okay, not the most definitive source, but it's an example) defines art as: "Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions."
The key word for me is "affect." The definition of affect is about the consequences of change, rather than "effect," which is to cause change.
In other words, art is about the consequences of the change the viewer undergoes when viewing the art. Each person will be "affected" differently by the same piece of art, because we are all different. Granted there are some common human themes, but our personal histories make us all different. So viewing the same painting or sculpture will generate different emotions in different people.
With film, however, those changes (affects) are deliberately manipulated by dialogue, lighting, composition, music and so on. The filmmaker is dictating, by these elements, how the audience is supposed to react. There is no freedom of emotion for the viewer -- his/her emotions are being manipulated by the filmmaker. There is no "affect" in the audience's mind, only a Pavlovian "response" mechanism. Despite our personal histories, the responses are generally all the same.
The filmmaker is arbitrarily and arrogantly saying, "this is what I want you to feel."
Hitchcock, Michael Bey and James Cameron are all masters of this, that's what makes them so popular. They are able to evoke EXACTLY the emotional response they want, when they want, in the audience.
I personally don't think that's bad. I love film. I just don't confuse it with ART. It's a craft, and it's entertainment. That's all.
Bring on the hue and cry! :)
In response to Greg's long, well-thought-out post: balderdash! :)
In my opinion, the shower scene in Psycho is absolutely necessary to the plot. That scene takes the audience so completely into the story that to NOT do it, would be to lessen the impact of the film. Hitchcock always knew exactly what he wanted to say, and how to say it. To me, that's the essence of storytelling.
I can't speak to the other "old" movies, but re:Pulp Fiction. Again, every scene Greg mentioned is critical to the film (I believe), because, if nothing else, it deepens the characters. Without the profanity, drug use and rape, the characters would have become caricatures, less real -- easier for the audience to dismiss.
BTW, I loathed all that stuff. I found it morally offensive. But it still was necessary to the film.
Now on to the real clunker: filmmaking IS NOT ART. By my own personal definition, and by others' definition of what art is, filmmaking is not art.
Wikipedia (okay, not the most definitive source, but it's an example) defines art as: "Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions."
The key word for me is "affect." The definition of affect is about the consequences of change, rather than "effect," which is to cause change.
In other words, art is about the consequences of the change the viewer undergoes when viewing the art. Each person will be "affected" differently by the same piece of art, because we are all different. Granted there are some common human themes, but our personal histories make us all different. So viewing the same painting or sculpture will generate different emotions in different people.
With film, however, those changes (affects) are deliberately manipulated by dialogue, lighting, composition, music and so on. The filmmaker is dictating, by these elements, how the audience is supposed to react. There is no freedom of emotion for the viewer -- his/her emotions are being manipulated by the filmmaker. There is no "affect" in the audience's mind, only a Pavlovian "response" mechanism. Despite our personal histories, the responses are generally all the same.
The filmmaker is arbitrarily and arrogantly saying, "this is what I want you to feel."
Hitchcock, Michael Bey and James Cameron are all masters of this, that's what makes them so popular. They are able to evoke EXACTLY the emotional response they want, when they want, in the audience.
I personally don't think that's bad. I love film. I just don't confuse it with ART. It's a craft, and it's entertainment. That's all.
Bring on the hue and cry! :)
I agree with JE.
A proverbial first, I am sure...8^).
It is only on one point, however. But it's a start. LOL.
Filmmaking is definitely not art.
I would even go as so far as to say that the filmmaker is as much a spectator in the creation of art (which takes place in front of the lens before the film rolls) as anyone in the audience. The camera captures. There is no direct mind-eye-hand coordination in filmmaking.
A proverbial first, I am sure...8^).
It is only on one point, however. But it's a start. LOL.
Filmmaking is definitely not art.
I would even go as so far as to say that the filmmaker is as much a spectator in the creation of art (which takes place in front of the lens before the film rolls) as anyone in the audience. The camera captures. There is no direct mind-eye-hand coordination in filmmaking.
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