(no subject)
Has it been that long since I posted?
And even though there are big things to post about, I'm still working on that, so instead a smaller thing.
Recently I friend asked if I wanted to go and see a movie with him, I said OK since I hadn't seen him a while and had to turn him down before. I also haven't had the patience to sit through a movie for a long while now as there seemed so little actually new things happening in the medium for years now.
Thankfully he didn't ask if I wanted to go and see Watchmen. I have actually read the comic and have no intention to spend money or time on that travesty of a film adaptation. Especially not after having spent the time watching LXG.
Nope, he was an Aranofsky fan and had only just learned there was a movie out by the guy. We went to see the 'Wrestler'. I hadn't seen it but knew of it and had warned him ahead that this wasn't a film with the sort of technical wizz-bang that Aranofsky had done before.
The Wrestler impressed me, a lot.
Oh, the story is nothing special. It's the same arc we've seen before of a natural criminal trying to quit his life for some reason but since he's the classic anti-hero he can't allow himself to be happy and his nature lashes onto an incedent to make him fall back to his old life but now with a more final self-destructive bent.
Blah, blah blah, seen it, done it.
Not like this though.
The clue is in the title.
This movie actually is at least, if not moreso, as experimental as Aranofsky's other work. Though I'm sure it has been done before in another film elsewhere, I haven't seen it like this before. Well, maybe. When I was watching the movie, the other film that immediatly sprang to mind as being similar to this was Bladerunner. The Wrestler has the same ammount of obsession in it's production of creating a believable fiction as Bladerunner did. The same idea that the story wasn't in the plot, but in the place it would draw the audience into.
When the audience watched Bladerunner, they lived in that world. When I watched The Wrestler, with great care, I poured into the main character Randy. The world the film is placed in, the alternate history of his life, his entire fictonal life was made with such care and detail. Everything fit everything else, every choice right, it was real.
More then that, and here's where I come back to the title, not just his world and his life; his body. His body, his physical form is so present, so constant in all situations and circumstances in so many little details, well. The audience doesn't just inhibit the world of the film, the life of the character, but also his physical presence. I can't think of any other film where the sensation of a viewer is anchored to such a physical presence rather then some ghostly distance. It's absolutely relentless, not escapism but total immersion.
Then there's the most vital thing for this effect that makes me think I'm on the money about this. THe thing that's not notable by it's presence but by it's absence. Randy himself. Randy doesn't talk much, he certainly doesn't explain much. We don't really - Really - get to know who Randy is. What he thinks, what he feels what his reasons exactly are. This is vital. We inhabit his world, his life his body and his actions but we won't find himself. He never contradicts our interpretations.
If Randy's self had a presence in the film then at some point he would contradict us, the audience. And we'd be thrown out of the fiction because then we'd realise there's no space for our own selves there. But with that area of ambiguity there's a shape to fit in.
And there I noticed one little unexpected but fantastic thing I was completely unaware of for a few days. I thought that the ambiguity about his self allowed us to make rationalisations about his actions that would make sense to us. And this is true, but only sort of.
It took me a while to realise the last step in the logical procession of the technique in the film: it's completely subjective. Ok, one or two concessions here and there, but these are only two tiny glimpses into another character's life. Unfortunate neccesities because otherwise the film would be too realistic and no-one would believe in it anymore.
Anyway. Completely subjective. And that does things in such a structure. When we live in the Randy shape, we become Randy shaped. No reflection, outside view. If it wasn't for those two brief moments outside of Randy I would have never twigged to the archtype of his story. I thought the ambiguity allowed me to imprint my shape on him, but actually he imprinted his shape on me.
I only figured this out once I started thinking about the other characters. With a few days distance since seeing it I started to wonder why the characterisation of the other characters was so weird. Some people were so real they almost broke the immersion as they reminded me the lead was an actor. Others though, totally flat, one-note stereotypes. No way could this be a mistake, not if I assumed the immersion wasn't an accident. Then it clicked. It's because of the immersion that these people seemed so diffirent. The people Randy cares about are actual people. The time onscreen might be brief but there is definatly a sense of depth to them, little touches that hints to a whole world. But the people Randy doesn't care about, isn't interested in, those are just surface. Even though one of them is one of the more prominent characters. He doesn't care, he doesn't even believe they have lives, he could never understand their lives. He can't see it, we can't see it. And it can take quite a bit of effort to see what he couldn't see.
Yep, that was a good one.
Now why can't I buy a DVD yet? Why film companies insist on mantaining theatres in their traditional roles in this age of home theatre setups at, what they claim, great cost through piracy I'll never know.
What's in it for them to and artificially lengthen the current form of the film theatre by inconveniencing the consumer ?
And even though there are big things to post about, I'm still working on that, so instead a smaller thing.
Recently I friend asked if I wanted to go and see a movie with him, I said OK since I hadn't seen him a while and had to turn him down before. I also haven't had the patience to sit through a movie for a long while now as there seemed so little actually new things happening in the medium for years now.
Thankfully he didn't ask if I wanted to go and see Watchmen. I have actually read the comic and have no intention to spend money or time on that travesty of a film adaptation. Especially not after having spent the time watching LXG.
Nope, he was an Aranofsky fan and had only just learned there was a movie out by the guy. We went to see the 'Wrestler'. I hadn't seen it but knew of it and had warned him ahead that this wasn't a film with the sort of technical wizz-bang that Aranofsky had done before.
The Wrestler impressed me, a lot.
Oh, the story is nothing special. It's the same arc we've seen before of a natural criminal trying to quit his life for some reason but since he's the classic anti-hero he can't allow himself to be happy and his nature lashes onto an incedent to make him fall back to his old life but now with a more final self-destructive bent.
Blah, blah blah, seen it, done it.
Not like this though.
The clue is in the title.
This movie actually is at least, if not moreso, as experimental as Aranofsky's other work. Though I'm sure it has been done before in another film elsewhere, I haven't seen it like this before. Well, maybe. When I was watching the movie, the other film that immediatly sprang to mind as being similar to this was Bladerunner. The Wrestler has the same ammount of obsession in it's production of creating a believable fiction as Bladerunner did. The same idea that the story wasn't in the plot, but in the place it would draw the audience into.
When the audience watched Bladerunner, they lived in that world. When I watched The Wrestler, with great care, I poured into the main character Randy. The world the film is placed in, the alternate history of his life, his entire fictonal life was made with such care and detail. Everything fit everything else, every choice right, it was real.
More then that, and here's where I come back to the title, not just his world and his life; his body. His body, his physical form is so present, so constant in all situations and circumstances in so many little details, well. The audience doesn't just inhibit the world of the film, the life of the character, but also his physical presence. I can't think of any other film where the sensation of a viewer is anchored to such a physical presence rather then some ghostly distance. It's absolutely relentless, not escapism but total immersion.
Then there's the most vital thing for this effect that makes me think I'm on the money about this. THe thing that's not notable by it's presence but by it's absence. Randy himself. Randy doesn't talk much, he certainly doesn't explain much. We don't really - Really - get to know who Randy is. What he thinks, what he feels what his reasons exactly are. This is vital. We inhabit his world, his life his body and his actions but we won't find himself. He never contradicts our interpretations.
If Randy's self had a presence in the film then at some point he would contradict us, the audience. And we'd be thrown out of the fiction because then we'd realise there's no space for our own selves there. But with that area of ambiguity there's a shape to fit in.
And there I noticed one little unexpected but fantastic thing I was completely unaware of for a few days. I thought that the ambiguity about his self allowed us to make rationalisations about his actions that would make sense to us. And this is true, but only sort of.
It took me a while to realise the last step in the logical procession of the technique in the film: it's completely subjective. Ok, one or two concessions here and there, but these are only two tiny glimpses into another character's life. Unfortunate neccesities because otherwise the film would be too realistic and no-one would believe in it anymore.
Anyway. Completely subjective. And that does things in such a structure. When we live in the Randy shape, we become Randy shaped. No reflection, outside view. If it wasn't for those two brief moments outside of Randy I would have never twigged to the archtype of his story. I thought the ambiguity allowed me to imprint my shape on him, but actually he imprinted his shape on me.
I only figured this out once I started thinking about the other characters. With a few days distance since seeing it I started to wonder why the characterisation of the other characters was so weird. Some people were so real they almost broke the immersion as they reminded me the lead was an actor. Others though, totally flat, one-note stereotypes. No way could this be a mistake, not if I assumed the immersion wasn't an accident. Then it clicked. It's because of the immersion that these people seemed so diffirent. The people Randy cares about are actual people. The time onscreen might be brief but there is definatly a sense of depth to them, little touches that hints to a whole world. But the people Randy doesn't care about, isn't interested in, those are just surface. Even though one of them is one of the more prominent characters. He doesn't care, he doesn't even believe they have lives, he could never understand their lives. He can't see it, we can't see it. And it can take quite a bit of effort to see what he couldn't see.
Yep, that was a good one.
Now why can't I buy a DVD yet? Why film companies insist on mantaining theatres in their traditional roles in this age of home theatre setups at, what they claim, great cost through piracy I'll never know.
What's in it for them to and artificially lengthen the current form of the film theatre by inconveniencing the consumer ?