Things are Coalescing; Or, My Subconscious on the Eve of Turning Thirty (a Transcription):
From 9/18/06, a 3,000 word exegesis in three parts:
Awakening
I awoke this morning to a revelation: As I turned off my alarm I saw my poster/advertisement of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9, and that set the course of a surging, articulate discovery within my mind while I showered and readied, despite only four hours' sleep.
As I've long suspected, traditional movies on film (or digital, if you prefer) as art is dead dead dead. Sure many elements that go to make up a narrative film are inherently artpieces on their own (cinematography, sets, props, score, directing styles, editing, acting, et al), and certainly the final product could be considered as such on a technical level, but I refuse to believe it anymore, in terms of where we now stand. When I saw De Palma's The Black Dahlia this past weekend, it said a lot that attempted recreations of specific time periods and genres just aren't inherently special anymore, no matter the versimilitude.
For many years I've been waiting for the next art movement, only to discover there won't be one. The only thing left (which has been happening due to the assistance of the handy, speedy internet in years of late) is that things can only become more postmodern than they already were in the early nineteen-sixties. "Mash-up" is the newest label, up from "deconstruction" as it was known in the 1990's.
I think I prefer "mash up", for it presents a better abstract clue as to the idea behind it. Deconstructionism has an emphasis on dissection of what motivates and invests a symbol or theme, whereas mash-up suggests new life from old, a veritable Frankenstein's monster if you will.
I'm so sick of films that look like movies, no matter if they're emulating a specific period or not. Yes I am a film snob, but I think everyone is a snob about something, and I've certainly earned the right to be after eight years of specialized schooling. So screw the look of gritty realism. Screw modern television, its whole "television-look", and its presumptiousness that any story is worth telling over the course of dozens of hours. Screw hand-held camera for a reality "verite" look. Screw that darkly-lit cold-steel sci-fi. Screw slow-motion in war movies, heavy refrains of the score, monologues delivered by esteemed actors in such a performance to make one aware of the "acting-ness" of it all (I'm looking at you Denzel Washington). Screw mindless comedies, the springtime pastels of the romantic comedy world and the predictable-ness within. Give me Shampoo or Moonstruck as romantic comedy any day.
Listen, after studying thousands of films, of every differing genre, from 1893-present, I have begun to see why so many critics are jaded. Its the sameness of everything that drives me to madness. But unlike them, I just can't go on. I used to think that I needed to constantly feed and feed and feed myself with film in order to help myself as Quentin Tarantino did prior to directing his first feature Reservoir Dogs at the age of 32. And so I have; But its time to stop, at least like I have been the past nine years.
I was floored last week by an interview with Werner Herzog (aka one of the top five directors living today, and one of my idols) that arrived in my inbox: The interviewer asked him what movies he's seen in the past full year, and here's what he said: Peter Jackson's King Kong, and "that movie where kids go on spring break and are taped" (The Real Cancun). The latter was more than likely something he passively happened-upon due to him not remembering the title. That's all there is; He shot movies last year, so what could you expect?
The point is, those in the film profession should ground themselves in the film classics, anything in the top 250 ranking, with a heavy-dose of silent, experimental and foreign as well, and with a keen amount of context accompanying each one, to ground each entry's reason for being notable in whatever regard. Orson Welles famously watched Stagecoach (1939) 80 times in preparation for directing the greatest American film, Citizen Kane (1941). He knew that it was such a solid film that, like a celluloid-craving Prometheus, he saw within it a spark he needed to capture and deliver.
However, this shouldn't divide one's life into the academic world as it so easily can. I am guilty of this; The past few years have been a blind struggle between the academic film world, and the "Vo-Tech" world of filmmaking as I call it. I have always been drawn to critical analysis and study of form, just as much as my love for creating media in all its incarnations. With my Master's Degree in Media Arts I can easily be trapped into a University teaching position, which more and more I think I should eschew. On the other hand I need something tangentially-related in order to keep my feet wet. I do have projects lined up (Loads of Dames and the untitled Bald Knobbers project) soon, and was discussing funding with my producing partner last night. But fortunately my years-long mental struggle has solidified as of this morning, faring well for those seeded opportunities.
Let me be clear and honest when I say that Natural Born Killers (1994), and to some small extent, Pulp Fiction (1995), are the only true post-modernist movies I can think of. The former film will certainly surprise many later generations, for it was decades ahead of its time. The editing style is sheer genius, even moreso when you learn about editing, and it says worlds more about where we are in terms of visual culture than any other films I can think of. Tarantino taps a postmodernist vein in all his "movie-world" works, but Oliver Stone drilled it out with Natural Born Killers (it is interesting that Tarantino wrote the screenplay to that film, but that its greatest postmodernist conceits only came in the directing and editing, not in the script other than thematically).
Guy Maddin can be thought of as post-modernist, yet he seems to be postmodernist in scripting only, as his visual and aural components are purposefully painted into a retroactive corner. The point of blatantly bottling his essence into the crusted and stained conventions of a bygone-era is postmodernist in a fundamentally thematic manner, but once the idea has been absorbed, only his scripts convey a cutting-edge quality to them. Don't get me wrong; He's my favourite living director, and I think he's the one doing the most interesting stuff out there today, but in the end he's not able to connect with a mainstream audience.
On Why a Mainstream Audience Matters
The Matthew Barney flyer spurred on this debate within my head, and it is quite fitting. As most of you probably know, Barney is and has been the foremost artist of the last twenty years. Most of his works deal with video installation, and part of his success within the art world stems from his embrace of new media in pushing into a new postmodernist age. With multi-million-dollar budgets, surreal settings, costumes, and performance art, Barney has helped close the gap between art and mainstream film. But aside from the museum setting, is it any different than what Alejandro Jodorosky has done starting in the sixties through the early nineteen-seventies with El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973)? I was floored by The Holy Mountain when I finally viewed it recently, and found it to be immensely refreshing cinema, but its already 33 years old! This is something that the masses should be feeling in the here and now.
When Judy Homemaker (aka "the layperson") goes to an art museum and views an art film, even something as surreal or culturally "mashed-up" as Barney's work, she will appreciate it as art, and though she probably won't put forth the energy trying to understand it, she doesn't doubt that the artist had very specific meaning invested within the work, no matter how much gore or graphic nudity may be involved that she would normally shirk from.
But if she were to go down to the local cineplex and was presented with a Matthew Barney video installation or a Jodorowsky film, she'd get frustrated and angry, and would likely leave the theatre early on. I observed this sort of reaction firsthand with something as benign as Punch Drunk Love, where a mother and daughter angrily huffed out in the first ten minutes, muttering about how the film was "weird". I had to applaud P.T. Anderson's bait-and-switch in using such a mainstream-friendly headline actor as Adam Sandler in his latest art film! But as you can guess, the film didn't make too much at the box-office. Audiences want entertainment when they go to "the movies". Its the same concept with them that good painting or drawing must be "realistically-rendered", or that portraiture or landscape paintings, however rendered, is always "art".
If the masses want art, they'll go to a museum, missing the point entirely that music concerts of any variety is art, or that street performers fall into the same category. On a point-by-point basis they wouldn't make argument, but they do make exceptions in their arguments for films. Why? It's because movies can engage us like no other form. In essence, film is the culmination of all art: dance, music, painting (with light, colour, balance, and form), sculpture, acting, fiction writing, et cetera. They often supercede a museum setting and have a public draw because of their alternate nature (or primary nature in the case of money-grubbing producers) to entertain. Because film transcends its many components, it becomes the most accessible of them all next to music. And even then it is more accessible because if ever there was a dividing point across the board in individual taste, never is it more pronounced than in personal music preferences. There are enough other elements in a film to keep one's mind active even if they dislike several of the baser elements.
But put it this way: How many people actively visit museums seeking culture each year? Compare that amount to the number that actively view movies in theatres. Then add to the theatre crowd the number of those who also rent/download/passively watch movies at home. The difference is staggering. While I don't have the current statistics, I wouldn't doubt we're talking about at least a ten to one ratio, with the majority seeking out movies for entertainment. Now, as an artist, isn't it natural to want to reach the highest number of people possible? Wouldn't you rather reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide than perhaps tens of millions? And if you account for the permanence of a movie against the temporal boundaries of a play, dance, et cetera, you include hundreds of millions more audience members in the coming centuries. Given the future's increasingly-efficient and niche-producing indexing capabilities, any film on any topic is guaranteed to thrive and be remembered for whatever it stood for or became within society.
"Know your audience", they teach you in creative writing. Audience reaction is precisely the thing: That mother and daughter that stormed out of Punch Drunk Love were ostensibly there to see Adam Sandler doing what he does; Without him it would've been an art film they wouldn't have even heard about, much less cared to see. So as I reflected online recently, you have to make some concessions if you're going to play the game and successfully reach that highest number of patrons of your art: This includes three maxims: 1. Use of at least one well-known actor, or multiple decently-known actors (i.e. - big television actors) 2. a strong script featuring "good dialogue" (i.e. plain, everyday-speak) 3. non-mannered acting: audiences without training generally can't tell the difference between stylistic acting and the traditional "realistic" approach they see in films today.
Now, an audience will allow for A LOT when it comes to abstraction and general surrealism in images and sound, so long as its relegated to those elements alone and not part of the story structure. The Cell (1999) should've kept many away due to its highly-stylistic polish, but no, the storyline was mundane enough that it held their hand through it all, even through "the scary parts". Again, you can get as experimental as you wish with what's onscreen and floating through the speakers, but if you get experimental in story structure, you "lose" people because they're not formally-trained to know how to access the material. When people get lost, they get frustrated, and that leads to anger, distaste, and bad word-of-mouth, not to mention never being trusted to work at that level of budget again.
As in haunted house attractions, people like to know they're ultimately safe, and that there's a reason for the path they're investing in. Sure they care that the mood and atmosphere are right, but not at the expense of the gratification they receive from vicariously living through the characters. Hence, the protagonist, even if he/she/it is an antihero, must also be accessible, i.e. very likable in some regard (Jules and Vince of Pulp Fiction). Play with the style, but guide the audience by the hand the whole way (think Spielberg, but in a Schindler's List way, not with Jurassic Park gaping-mouth methodology). Occasional gaps in logic are fine if they're setting up a jarring effect, but should be used sparingly, else they think it a jumbled mess. I'm not saying a film narrative should be as tediously cliche as in The Cell, but clarity of purpose is of prime concern.
Resolution
So where does this leave me? Because I disagree with classical screenplay structure, modern acting styles, and what is considered "good dialogue", I have to adapt if I'm going to succeed. The easiest way to do this is with the following:
Concerning structure: Since I favour mood and atmosphere over actual plot-points, keep in mind that an episodic approach will always work. So long as you give the audience frequent reminders of where the characters are heading, they're fine with you rendering out a scene as an extended sequence. Clarity is key. Give the character a mission then let the audience sit back and watch it unfold. Ambiguity is fine so long as there's at least one narrative throughline for the audience to follow.
On acting and dialogue: Because the layperson doesn't always understand the many differing styles and appropriate uses of dialogue and/or acting, be sure to be crystal clear whenever a non-traditional method is employed (i.e. a style that's not "realistic", as modern movies are wont to do). Illustrate often the reason why its being used as needed. Audiences in the 1940's didn't have to be told why the actors were acting the way they were, because that's how the "movie-style" of acting had evolved up to that point, and the way it would remain for another fifteen years. But if it was used today in a modern setting, it would be laughed at as "bad acting", even if it were set within the 1940's context. So you've got to add something more as indicator.
My biggest gripe about people half-heartedly watching a film is that unless you've seen every shot you can't be sure that you didn't miss something tremendously important to understanding a film. Case in point: Imagine if you watched The Sixth Sense (I'm not an advocate of this film, but it makes a good example), and you are a few minutes late, or after a few minutes into it you decide to go get more popcorn. You'll maybe see the first few minutes, but miss the very brief gunshot. When the "twist" ending arrives, you'll be pretty confused, dismayed, and unhappy you "wasted your time", even though it hinged on you missing a single instant as the result of a distracted physical desire. In the past I dreamed of making a film whose seeds for resolution came early on as the occurrence of a single two-to-three second shot, as a big kiss-off to those that distractedly watch films. But the positive goal should be to make people perfectly understand your film so they can be merely entertained if they wish, but hopefully also take more salient things into their lives from the artistic vision you communicate along the path. If you have to resort to skirting the Spielbergian hammer-over-the-head theme now and then, its okay, because its human nature we're dealing with here. Just remember to do it as subtly as Kubrick. Letting the audience connect things on their own involves them, and makes the film more of an experience they have been involved in, and thus enjoyed and learned from.
To be a succesful visual artist in this over-cramped post-modernist society, you can't afford to play fast-and-free with your audience like our forefathers did in the 1960's. As much as I'd love it if The Monkees' Head (1968) was a huge classic of American cinema, I realize that's never going to happen because audience needs context, and without it they're lost. And if they're lost, they hate it. It becomes masturbation for the artist, and a hilarious in-joke for fellow cineastes and art literatii.
In closing, how will my personal style that I developed and maintained so carefully in my graduate art program manifest itself beyond these few observations? Well, let's compare the thesis work to this morning's points: My thesis film, Let Us Go and Burn Her Body; Or, the Devil Done Let Out, actually more-or-less stands up to those observations above, with a notable addition. The nature of hybrid-documentary says much about our post-modern fixation with reality-based work (i.e. reality television), yet also infuses the work with a genuine meaning beyond the purely personal issues and tics I relayed. For anyone interested in theology, madness, or paranormal investigation, the documentary sections infuse what is otherwise a fictional "entertainment" with a solid foundation that inspires and educates. Curiously, the hybrid documentary feature-film is a form that hasn't had much exposure or manifestation yet, and I believe this is why it appealed to me in grad school; I saw the form as the natural next step in terms of where cinema is headed, integrated DVD extras within the body of the main feature type of approach.
With my increasing distaste with the traditional form of movies, the hybrid documentary continues to look more and more like a constant in my future works. My thesis had a clear narrative with a likable protagonist, a reason for its lapses into expressionistic acting styles (though this could've been better motivated with harsher couloured lighting), and segments of mood as extensions of well-planned and placed plot-points. The only thing I now believe I was lacking was indicators of the dialogue style. What may be easily dismissed as occasionally stagey dialogue wasn't rooted enough in communication to the audience that this was a hint of what constitutes mundane reality, and what was imagination (or the uncanny). But the hybrid-documentary approach glosses over that, and provides me a working-platform from which I can continue in the future. I'm not asserting that I'll go off and make "Scurvy" (my pirate musical) with the hybrid approach, but I suppose a faux-hybrid would work, since it is closer to how cinema is evolving; Time will tell.
Awakening
I awoke this morning to a revelation: As I turned off my alarm I saw my poster/advertisement of Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9, and that set the course of a surging, articulate discovery within my mind while I showered and readied, despite only four hours' sleep.
As I've long suspected, traditional movies on film (or digital, if you prefer) as art is dead dead dead. Sure many elements that go to make up a narrative film are inherently artpieces on their own (cinematography, sets, props, score, directing styles, editing, acting, et al), and certainly the final product could be considered as such on a technical level, but I refuse to believe it anymore, in terms of where we now stand. When I saw De Palma's The Black Dahlia this past weekend, it said a lot that attempted recreations of specific time periods and genres just aren't inherently special anymore, no matter the versimilitude.
For many years I've been waiting for the next art movement, only to discover there won't be one. The only thing left (which has been happening due to the assistance of the handy, speedy internet in years of late) is that things can only become more postmodern than they already were in the early nineteen-sixties. "Mash-up" is the newest label, up from "deconstruction" as it was known in the 1990's.
I think I prefer "mash up", for it presents a better abstract clue as to the idea behind it. Deconstructionism has an emphasis on dissection of what motivates and invests a symbol or theme, whereas mash-up suggests new life from old, a veritable Frankenstein's monster if you will.
I'm so sick of films that look like movies, no matter if they're emulating a specific period or not. Yes I am a film snob, but I think everyone is a snob about something, and I've certainly earned the right to be after eight years of specialized schooling. So screw the look of gritty realism. Screw modern television, its whole "television-look", and its presumptiousness that any story is worth telling over the course of dozens of hours. Screw hand-held camera for a reality "verite" look. Screw that darkly-lit cold-steel sci-fi. Screw slow-motion in war movies, heavy refrains of the score, monologues delivered by esteemed actors in such a performance to make one aware of the "acting-ness" of it all (I'm looking at you Denzel Washington). Screw mindless comedies, the springtime pastels of the romantic comedy world and the predictable-ness within. Give me Shampoo or Moonstruck as romantic comedy any day.
Listen, after studying thousands of films, of every differing genre, from 1893-present, I have begun to see why so many critics are jaded. Its the sameness of everything that drives me to madness. But unlike them, I just can't go on. I used to think that I needed to constantly feed and feed and feed myself with film in order to help myself as Quentin Tarantino did prior to directing his first feature Reservoir Dogs at the age of 32. And so I have; But its time to stop, at least like I have been the past nine years.
I was floored last week by an interview with Werner Herzog (aka one of the top five directors living today, and one of my idols) that arrived in my inbox: The interviewer asked him what movies he's seen in the past full year, and here's what he said: Peter Jackson's King Kong, and "that movie where kids go on spring break and are taped" (The Real Cancun). The latter was more than likely something he passively happened-upon due to him not remembering the title. That's all there is; He shot movies last year, so what could you expect?
The point is, those in the film profession should ground themselves in the film classics, anything in the top 250 ranking, with a heavy-dose of silent, experimental and foreign as well, and with a keen amount of context accompanying each one, to ground each entry's reason for being notable in whatever regard. Orson Welles famously watched Stagecoach (1939) 80 times in preparation for directing the greatest American film, Citizen Kane (1941). He knew that it was such a solid film that, like a celluloid-craving Prometheus, he saw within it a spark he needed to capture and deliver.
However, this shouldn't divide one's life into the academic world as it so easily can. I am guilty of this; The past few years have been a blind struggle between the academic film world, and the "Vo-Tech" world of filmmaking as I call it. I have always been drawn to critical analysis and study of form, just as much as my love for creating media in all its incarnations. With my Master's Degree in Media Arts I can easily be trapped into a University teaching position, which more and more I think I should eschew. On the other hand I need something tangentially-related in order to keep my feet wet. I do have projects lined up (Loads of Dames and the untitled Bald Knobbers project) soon, and was discussing funding with my producing partner last night. But fortunately my years-long mental struggle has solidified as of this morning, faring well for those seeded opportunities.
Let me be clear and honest when I say that Natural Born Killers (1994), and to some small extent, Pulp Fiction (1995), are the only true post-modernist movies I can think of. The former film will certainly surprise many later generations, for it was decades ahead of its time. The editing style is sheer genius, even moreso when you learn about editing, and it says worlds more about where we are in terms of visual culture than any other films I can think of. Tarantino taps a postmodernist vein in all his "movie-world" works, but Oliver Stone drilled it out with Natural Born Killers (it is interesting that Tarantino wrote the screenplay to that film, but that its greatest postmodernist conceits only came in the directing and editing, not in the script other than thematically).
Guy Maddin can be thought of as post-modernist, yet he seems to be postmodernist in scripting only, as his visual and aural components are purposefully painted into a retroactive corner. The point of blatantly bottling his essence into the crusted and stained conventions of a bygone-era is postmodernist in a fundamentally thematic manner, but once the idea has been absorbed, only his scripts convey a cutting-edge quality to them. Don't get me wrong; He's my favourite living director, and I think he's the one doing the most interesting stuff out there today, but in the end he's not able to connect with a mainstream audience.
On Why a Mainstream Audience Matters
The Matthew Barney flyer spurred on this debate within my head, and it is quite fitting. As most of you probably know, Barney is and has been the foremost artist of the last twenty years. Most of his works deal with video installation, and part of his success within the art world stems from his embrace of new media in pushing into a new postmodernist age. With multi-million-dollar budgets, surreal settings, costumes, and performance art, Barney has helped close the gap between art and mainstream film. But aside from the museum setting, is it any different than what Alejandro Jodorosky has done starting in the sixties through the early nineteen-seventies with El Topo (1970) and The Holy Mountain (1973)? I was floored by The Holy Mountain when I finally viewed it recently, and found it to be immensely refreshing cinema, but its already 33 years old! This is something that the masses should be feeling in the here and now.
When Judy Homemaker (aka "the layperson") goes to an art museum and views an art film, even something as surreal or culturally "mashed-up" as Barney's work, she will appreciate it as art, and though she probably won't put forth the energy trying to understand it, she doesn't doubt that the artist had very specific meaning invested within the work, no matter how much gore or graphic nudity may be involved that she would normally shirk from.
But if she were to go down to the local cineplex and was presented with a Matthew Barney video installation or a Jodorowsky film, she'd get frustrated and angry, and would likely leave the theatre early on. I observed this sort of reaction firsthand with something as benign as Punch Drunk Love, where a mother and daughter angrily huffed out in the first ten minutes, muttering about how the film was "weird". I had to applaud P.T. Anderson's bait-and-switch in using such a mainstream-friendly headline actor as Adam Sandler in his latest art film! But as you can guess, the film didn't make too much at the box-office. Audiences want entertainment when they go to "the movies". Its the same concept with them that good painting or drawing must be "realistically-rendered", or that portraiture or landscape paintings, however rendered, is always "art".
If the masses want art, they'll go to a museum, missing the point entirely that music concerts of any variety is art, or that street performers fall into the same category. On a point-by-point basis they wouldn't make argument, but they do make exceptions in their arguments for films. Why? It's because movies can engage us like no other form. In essence, film is the culmination of all art: dance, music, painting (with light, colour, balance, and form), sculpture, acting, fiction writing, et cetera. They often supercede a museum setting and have a public draw because of their alternate nature (or primary nature in the case of money-grubbing producers) to entertain. Because film transcends its many components, it becomes the most accessible of them all next to music. And even then it is more accessible because if ever there was a dividing point across the board in individual taste, never is it more pronounced than in personal music preferences. There are enough other elements in a film to keep one's mind active even if they dislike several of the baser elements.
But put it this way: How many people actively visit museums seeking culture each year? Compare that amount to the number that actively view movies in theatres. Then add to the theatre crowd the number of those who also rent/download/passively watch movies at home. The difference is staggering. While I don't have the current statistics, I wouldn't doubt we're talking about at least a ten to one ratio, with the majority seeking out movies for entertainment. Now, as an artist, isn't it natural to want to reach the highest number of people possible? Wouldn't you rather reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide than perhaps tens of millions? And if you account for the permanence of a movie against the temporal boundaries of a play, dance, et cetera, you include hundreds of millions more audience members in the coming centuries. Given the future's increasingly-efficient and niche-producing indexing capabilities, any film on any topic is guaranteed to thrive and be remembered for whatever it stood for or became within society.
"Know your audience", they teach you in creative writing. Audience reaction is precisely the thing: That mother and daughter that stormed out of Punch Drunk Love were ostensibly there to see Adam Sandler doing what he does; Without him it would've been an art film they wouldn't have even heard about, much less cared to see. So as I reflected online recently, you have to make some concessions if you're going to play the game and successfully reach that highest number of patrons of your art: This includes three maxims: 1. Use of at least one well-known actor, or multiple decently-known actors (i.e. - big television actors) 2. a strong script featuring "good dialogue" (i.e. plain, everyday-speak) 3. non-mannered acting: audiences without training generally can't tell the difference between stylistic acting and the traditional "realistic" approach they see in films today.
Now, an audience will allow for A LOT when it comes to abstraction and general surrealism in images and sound, so long as its relegated to those elements alone and not part of the story structure. The Cell (1999) should've kept many away due to its highly-stylistic polish, but no, the storyline was mundane enough that it held their hand through it all, even through "the scary parts". Again, you can get as experimental as you wish with what's onscreen and floating through the speakers, but if you get experimental in story structure, you "lose" people because they're not formally-trained to know how to access the material. When people get lost, they get frustrated, and that leads to anger, distaste, and bad word-of-mouth, not to mention never being trusted to work at that level of budget again.
As in haunted house attractions, people like to know they're ultimately safe, and that there's a reason for the path they're investing in. Sure they care that the mood and atmosphere are right, but not at the expense of the gratification they receive from vicariously living through the characters. Hence, the protagonist, even if he/she/it is an antihero, must also be accessible, i.e. very likable in some regard (Jules and Vince of Pulp Fiction). Play with the style, but guide the audience by the hand the whole way (think Spielberg, but in a Schindler's List way, not with Jurassic Park gaping-mouth methodology). Occasional gaps in logic are fine if they're setting up a jarring effect, but should be used sparingly, else they think it a jumbled mess. I'm not saying a film narrative should be as tediously cliche as in The Cell, but clarity of purpose is of prime concern.
Resolution
So where does this leave me? Because I disagree with classical screenplay structure, modern acting styles, and what is considered "good dialogue", I have to adapt if I'm going to succeed. The easiest way to do this is with the following:
Concerning structure: Since I favour mood and atmosphere over actual plot-points, keep in mind that an episodic approach will always work. So long as you give the audience frequent reminders of where the characters are heading, they're fine with you rendering out a scene as an extended sequence. Clarity is key. Give the character a mission then let the audience sit back and watch it unfold. Ambiguity is fine so long as there's at least one narrative throughline for the audience to follow.
On acting and dialogue: Because the layperson doesn't always understand the many differing styles and appropriate uses of dialogue and/or acting, be sure to be crystal clear whenever a non-traditional method is employed (i.e. a style that's not "realistic", as modern movies are wont to do). Illustrate often the reason why its being used as needed. Audiences in the 1940's didn't have to be told why the actors were acting the way they were, because that's how the "movie-style" of acting had evolved up to that point, and the way it would remain for another fifteen years. But if it was used today in a modern setting, it would be laughed at as "bad acting", even if it were set within the 1940's context. So you've got to add something more as indicator.
My biggest gripe about people half-heartedly watching a film is that unless you've seen every shot you can't be sure that you didn't miss something tremendously important to understanding a film. Case in point: Imagine if you watched The Sixth Sense (I'm not an advocate of this film, but it makes a good example), and you are a few minutes late, or after a few minutes into it you decide to go get more popcorn. You'll maybe see the first few minutes, but miss the very brief gunshot. When the "twist" ending arrives, you'll be pretty confused, dismayed, and unhappy you "wasted your time", even though it hinged on you missing a single instant as the result of a distracted physical desire. In the past I dreamed of making a film whose seeds for resolution came early on as the occurrence of a single two-to-three second shot, as a big kiss-off to those that distractedly watch films. But the positive goal should be to make people perfectly understand your film so they can be merely entertained if they wish, but hopefully also take more salient things into their lives from the artistic vision you communicate along the path. If you have to resort to skirting the Spielbergian hammer-over-the-head theme now and then, its okay, because its human nature we're dealing with here. Just remember to do it as subtly as Kubrick. Letting the audience connect things on their own involves them, and makes the film more of an experience they have been involved in, and thus enjoyed and learned from.
To be a succesful visual artist in this over-cramped post-modernist society, you can't afford to play fast-and-free with your audience like our forefathers did in the 1960's. As much as I'd love it if The Monkees' Head (1968) was a huge classic of American cinema, I realize that's never going to happen because audience needs context, and without it they're lost. And if they're lost, they hate it. It becomes masturbation for the artist, and a hilarious in-joke for fellow cineastes and art literatii.
In closing, how will my personal style that I developed and maintained so carefully in my graduate art program manifest itself beyond these few observations? Well, let's compare the thesis work to this morning's points: My thesis film, Let Us Go and Burn Her Body; Or, the Devil Done Let Out, actually more-or-less stands up to those observations above, with a notable addition. The nature of hybrid-documentary says much about our post-modern fixation with reality-based work (i.e. reality television), yet also infuses the work with a genuine meaning beyond the purely personal issues and tics I relayed. For anyone interested in theology, madness, or paranormal investigation, the documentary sections infuse what is otherwise a fictional "entertainment" with a solid foundation that inspires and educates. Curiously, the hybrid documentary feature-film is a form that hasn't had much exposure or manifestation yet, and I believe this is why it appealed to me in grad school; I saw the form as the natural next step in terms of where cinema is headed, integrated DVD extras within the body of the main feature type of approach.
With my increasing distaste with the traditional form of movies, the hybrid documentary continues to look more and more like a constant in my future works. My thesis had a clear narrative with a likable protagonist, a reason for its lapses into expressionistic acting styles (though this could've been better motivated with harsher couloured lighting), and segments of mood as extensions of well-planned and placed plot-points. The only thing I now believe I was lacking was indicators of the dialogue style. What may be easily dismissed as occasionally stagey dialogue wasn't rooted enough in communication to the audience that this was a hint of what constitutes mundane reality, and what was imagination (or the uncanny). But the hybrid-documentary approach glosses over that, and provides me a working-platform from which I can continue in the future. I'm not asserting that I'll go off and make "Scurvy" (my pirate musical) with the hybrid approach, but I suppose a faux-hybrid would work, since it is closer to how cinema is evolving; Time will tell.