Alex_W wrote:then there's always Werner Herzog, who supposedly claimed that "If I had to climb into hell and wrestle the devil himself for one of my films, I would do it". (imdb.com) You would believe him after seeing Burden of Dreams.
That is an interesting quote from Herzog. I just watched Lars Von Trier's "The Five Obstructions" and was very inspired by it. I love the idea of making films that will "hurt" to make. I also like the idea of making bad films that are interesting as opposed to good films that are boring....
I'm making reference to Von Trier's argument that his friend Jorgen Leth is incapable of making a bad film. His project was to constrain Leth's process until it broke him psychologically in some way. He faild to do this, but the idea is interesting for me and it reminds me of Werner Herzog's art-under-duress approach to filmmaking.
Von Trier describes the project as filmmaking therapy. I see this approach as very inventive and authentic. The filmmaking method is organic and prone to accidents that lead to inovation. This kind of filmmaking keeps cinema fresh and alive.
What I mean by the *idea* of making bad films that are interesting comes out of the recognition that filmmakers become preoccupied with making *good* films that people will like. When you think about it - that is a very economic way of thinking - wanting to produce a product that consummers will consume. e.g. good film is film that sells. I'm not saying there is something wrong with thinking this way, I'm just saying it is a distict way of thinking and if it is a distict way of thinking, then it can also be seen as a confinement of ideas about what a film is supposed to be. This binds a filmmakers creative reach.
If a filmmaker is free to purse the themes and ideas that are most important to him or her without having to worry about what is "good" cinema or "bad" cinema - the filmmaker can free themselves from this bind that can and does restrict an artists creative reach.
I'm just saying that preconceived ideas about what good cinema is or looks like need to be cast away from time to time to see what happens.
Otherwise filmmakers end up reheating leftovers....and now we are back to the death of cinema if you see what I mean.
"I'm just saying that preconceived ideas about what good cinema is or looks like need to be cast away from time to time to see what happens."
Definitely, but the way you use the term "good" in the above post (although in quotes) still reinforces the dominating concept of what constitutes a "good" film. Is it good taste? Critical appreciation? None of these things play a large part in my own evaluation. Paracinema and fringe works are one of my main interests so my criteria are probably different from most. For example, "Cannibal Holocaust" is a very "good" film in that it is productive for the spectator and author.
"What I mean by the *idea* of making bad films that are interesting comes out of the recognition that filmmakers become preoccupied with making *good* films that people will like."
Yes - but why are they "good" just because people like them? There are definitely directors that want to make films that will be "appreciated" and consumed by the market. Those are only "good" from the perspective of the market. If they really want to make films that are "good" from a more legitimate perspective I'm not sure the popular or critical reception would be as important.
Something that your post didn't point to directly, but which is still interesting to think about, is how performing too much exegesis as you are making a film can be fatal. I would argue that there is the alluring tendency to fall into a production mode which invokes "textual quality" as the ultimate goal; by this I mean embedding enough into the film thematically that it will be perceived as something more than a simple narrative.
I know that I personally have been guilty of trying to do this. The "art" aesthetic can be immensely heavy and oppressive by itself, and following that too closely sucks the life and immediacy out of anything. I had an idea a few minutes ago for a short about two Beavis and Butt-head-like characters who sit on a sofa and watch exploitation and '80s action flicks on TV all day. They shout performatively at the TV and their bodies become corpulent, eventually growing into the fabric of the sofa like that woman in Florida who died. The simple visualization of characters screaming banal phrases at the TV - "That's fucking awesome!" as Arnold blows off an alien's head - was pretty enjoyable at the time.
Sometimes humor can create the illusion of greater darkness...
Evan Kubota wrote:
Something that your post didn't point to directly, but which is still interesting to think about, is how performing too much exegesis as you are making a film can be fatal. I would argue that there is the alluring tendency to fall into a production mode which invokes "textual quality" as the ultimate goal; by this I mean embedding enough into the film thematically that it will be perceived as something more than a simple narrative.
Definately, but this is difficult to respond to since you will be self-conscious of this aspect in any case.
You can either chose:
Denial: To attempt to 'forget' the wider themes to concentrate on the core material and narrative. Bela Tarr frequently claims he never thinks about anything more than 'camera angles' when making a film.
Mollification: To recognize that you are going to saddle the script with this stuff anyway and try to strip it down as much as possible. This was my approach is 'The Burning of..'
Encasemenet: This is where you allow the wider themes to become the narrative, where the filmmaking becomes ideologically driven with the aesthetics and narrative performing feats to match the themes. I would say Tarkovsky's last 3 films increasingly went this way.
steve hyde wrote:I just watched Lars Von Trier's "The Five Obstructions" and was very inspired by it. I love the idea of making films that will "hurt" to make. I also like the idea of making bad films that are interesting as opposed to good films that are boring....
Judging from all I've seen by v. Trier so far, I'd rather speak of 'making movies that'll hurt by watching' because they're so bad.
NpCoombs wrote:Mollification: To recognize that you are going to saddle the script with this stuff anyway and try to strip it down as much as possible. This was my approach is 'The Burning of..'
So that's called 'softening up'?
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tlatosmd wrote:
Judging from all I've seen by v. Trier so far, I'd rather speak of 'making movies that'll hurt by watching' because they're so bad.
Bad? Breaking the Waves is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. The idiots was similarly fantastic and Dancer in the Dark was formally daring. There is no doubt he is one of the most interesting contemporary directors.
"Denial: To attempt to 'forget' the wider themes to concentrate on the core material and narrative. Bela Tarr frequently claims he never thinks about anything more than 'camera angles' when making a film."
Yes...
IMO trying to deconstruct your film's themes as it is in production is like trying to do a tight U-turn on a motorcycle while staring at the ground. You always fall.
I'm not entirely convinced that Tarkovsky didn't attempt to 'forget' thematic elements - certainly in his book he claims that he didn't intentionally include a lot of the things that people have seized upon. Of course, we all know that what he wrote and what he actually did were quite different.
Kieslowski also claimed that he barely considered symbolism, etc. during production and writing. How much of this is the director trying to conceal the source of their ideas, or the constructed nature of the film, and how much of it is true?
I rigorously try to avoid intentionally writing things just for symbolism's sake - I don't want that kind of disconnected representation. On my current project I realized some things about the script, but I have to try to ignore that realization until the film is finished, since if I acknowledge those things (that are nevertheless there) it will completely deflate the entire film.
The problem I have with the 5 Obstructions (gleaned from reviews; I haven't seen it) is its commodification of suffering. Two rich, priveleged filmmakers go slumming in the worst pits of human despair and then go back to their studios to have bad dreams and make an art film of their experience?
I suppose it qualifies as art, if you consider art to be entertainment for the ruling class; watching the suffering of others is almost as entertaining as causing it ... (pardon my heart on the sleeve; my wife just got the shaft from a DC insider)
I haven't seen the movie, but I have to question how you know it 'commodifies' suffering when you haven't seen it either...?
I agree that it seems exploitative, at least superficially. The film itself could be disarmingly non-exploitative, though. I don't believe that there are certain topics which are "unrepresentable" in the Hollywood sense; anything can be depicted without exploitation if the intent is correct.
On the other hand, I'm not sure what's wrong with exploitation. In fictional films, exploitation can be fun and productive. Obviously if it carries very negative real-world consequences (Holocaust horror flicks?) it's more of an issue.
audadvnc wrote:The problem I have with the 5 Obstructions (gleaned from reviews; I haven't seen it) is its commodification of suffering. Two rich, priveleged filmmakers go slumming in the worst pits of human despair and then go back to their studios to have bad dreams and make an art film of their experience?
I suppose it qualifies as art, if you consider art to be entertainment for the ruling class; watching the suffering of others is almost as entertaining as causing it ... (pardon my heart on the sleeve; my wife just got the shaft from a DC insider)
....well, you should see it before claiming that it is a "commodification of suffering." It think the reviewer who wrote this (??) missed the mark and I urge you to decide for yourself. The only person being exploited in the film is Jurgen Leth. (One filmmaker (Von Trier), trying to destroy another filmmaker's (Leth) "perfect film" about a "perfect human".
It think the film is interesting from a filmmaking process perspective. The film shows how a film that is based on solid conceptual foundation is almost impossible to destroy, if the conceptual foundation remains in tact for each of its iterations.
(pardon my heart on the sleeve; my wife just got the shaft from a DC insider)