Watched Atonement last night and I understand why it is an Oscar nominee. Every year, the Academy is virtually obligated to nominate some epic period piece, in recent years often about World War II. This year, it's Atonement.
Don't get me wrong. It was a fine film. Well made. Well acted. But it's not in the same league as No Country for Old Men, which is my personal favorite from this year.
I read a review of Atonement earlier this year which said something about how the character very nearly achieves something like actual atonement. The character in question is a girl, Briony Tallis, who sends a man to prison by providing false testimony. As one might imagine, this has a detrimental effect on his life and the life of Briony's sister who was in love with the man.
The movie has been out for a while, so I am going to discuss the ending. So, fair warning: spoilers ahead.
Throughout the movie, Briony is shown writing. At the beginning of the movie, it's a play, in the middle it's a novel. At the end, she is discussing a novelization of the story of the movie. She is an old woman and is dying. So, she finally completes an autobiographical novel where she tells the whole story. Why she lied, how she lied, and how she came to realize the full import of her actions. But it's a novel because she changes the ending. Both her sister and the man she sent to prison died in World War II, and thus she has been unable to remedy her actions. For the novel, she changes the ending of the story so that her sister and the man both live and are reunited--so that at least in her story they have the years of happiness that they deserved.
Writing out that description, it is quite a bit more powerful than what I experienced while watching it in the theater. (That may be attributable to the single worst audience I've ever sat with.) I was going to complain that writing a fictional ending to a real story doesn't really do much to atone for the harm that she caused as a child. But for an old woman, dying, that is the best she can offer. Unfortunately, we don't know how she spent the rest of her life. We know that she spent some time working as a nurse and skipped going to college as some form of personal flagellation, but that's about it. It would have been nice to know how the rest of her life was affected.
Anyway, decent flick. Worth a rental.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Anti-Theory Theory
As I wrote below, I'm not the type of person who really wants to get deeply involved in the "mythology" of Lost. I don't want to try to figure out all the little clues and I am not trying to divine the ultimate explanation for what is happening in the show. In fact, I tend to think that looking for that sort of explanation can hurt one's appreciation of the show. But with a show so mysterious I think it is reasonable to expect some bigger issues will be resolved as the show proceeds to its conclusion in three seasons.
So, I was frustrated last week when the show deliberately brought up the issue of the smoke monster only to quickly refuse to explain it. When I mentioned this over on the AV Club, several people told me that I need to accept that some things won't be explained and that I need to simply accept that Lost will proceed on it's own terms. I was told this by people who view the show in exactly the way I think it shouldn't be viewed--people who are deeply involved in trying to figure out all the little mysteries that can detract from the larger story it has to tell.
To me the discussion just begged the question of what accepting Lost on it's own terms would in fact mean. Apparently, some people have theorized that the island is located under the arctic ice cap, or under Antarctica, or it's Atlantis. Other people think that the people on the island are time travellers, or that time is slower on the island than elsewhere. Others think that the all the characters are in fact dead and the island represents Purgatory. Still others think that the crash and subsequent events were all orchestrated by the parents of the people on the island. Of course it goes on and I hope that actually stating these things shows why I think it is a mistake to look for these sorts of explanations in the show--they are all ridiculous.
Accepting Lost on its own terms requires us to refuse to look for theories like this. If we are to accept the story, we should accept that it is a strange tropical island in the South Pacific, that the island has some personality probably in Jacob; that the island has some sort of healing aura; that some people are able to have prophetic visions; and that the island has some ability to make certain dreams or wishes materialize. Importantly, accepting Lost would mean accepting these things without other explanations. It may simply be that within the show all these things are true without there being some grand explanation of time travel or Atlantis or big conspiracies.
Those sorts of explanations are deeply ingrained in the sci-fi tradition and Lost may simply be creating it's own stories independent of those sorts of explanations. Battlestar Galactica operates in a similar way. The Cylons are robots but they are also in some way biological and potentially capable of reproducing with human beings. If you try to express that to other people, it becomes very hard to explain since people tend to use categories that they are used to and comfortable with. Battlestar Galactica is asking us to accept that some cylons are both robotic and biological, and that transcends our preexisting categories.
Lost is doing the same thing, and to accept it on it's own terms is to accept that many of the categories existing in the sci-fi tradition probably have no utility within the framework of the show. And that is my anti-theory theory: The show will explain itself and will not use time travel, Atlantis, odd locations, or anything along those lines to create an ultimate explanation.
Stop looking for theories and your enjoyment of the show will increase.
So, I was frustrated last week when the show deliberately brought up the issue of the smoke monster only to quickly refuse to explain it. When I mentioned this over on the AV Club, several people told me that I need to accept that some things won't be explained and that I need to simply accept that Lost will proceed on it's own terms. I was told this by people who view the show in exactly the way I think it shouldn't be viewed--people who are deeply involved in trying to figure out all the little mysteries that can detract from the larger story it has to tell.
To me the discussion just begged the question of what accepting Lost on it's own terms would in fact mean. Apparently, some people have theorized that the island is located under the arctic ice cap, or under Antarctica, or it's Atlantis. Other people think that the people on the island are time travellers, or that time is slower on the island than elsewhere. Others think that the all the characters are in fact dead and the island represents Purgatory. Still others think that the crash and subsequent events were all orchestrated by the parents of the people on the island. Of course it goes on and I hope that actually stating these things shows why I think it is a mistake to look for these sorts of explanations in the show--they are all ridiculous.
Accepting Lost on its own terms requires us to refuse to look for theories like this. If we are to accept the story, we should accept that it is a strange tropical island in the South Pacific, that the island has some personality probably in Jacob; that the island has some sort of healing aura; that some people are able to have prophetic visions; and that the island has some ability to make certain dreams or wishes materialize. Importantly, accepting Lost would mean accepting these things without other explanations. It may simply be that within the show all these things are true without there being some grand explanation of time travel or Atlantis or big conspiracies.
Those sorts of explanations are deeply ingrained in the sci-fi tradition and Lost may simply be creating it's own stories independent of those sorts of explanations. Battlestar Galactica operates in a similar way. The Cylons are robots but they are also in some way biological and potentially capable of reproducing with human beings. If you try to express that to other people, it becomes very hard to explain since people tend to use categories that they are used to and comfortable with. Battlestar Galactica is asking us to accept that some cylons are both robotic and biological, and that transcends our preexisting categories.
Lost is doing the same thing, and to accept it on it's own terms is to accept that many of the categories existing in the sci-fi tradition probably have no utility within the framework of the show. And that is my anti-theory theory: The show will explain itself and will not use time travel, Atlantis, odd locations, or anything along those lines to create an ultimate explanation.
Stop looking for theories and your enjoyment of the show will increase.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
National Primary
What kind of blogger would I be if I didn't have something to say about Super Tuesday? Probably a better one.
Super Tuesday was roundly and repeatedly described as the closest thing we have ever had to a national primary day because Republicans and Democrats were both holding contests in more than 20 states. We know now that it hasn't settled anything, and it doesn't seem that it was a truly representative contest. Is it possible to say, based on the results of Tuesday's elections, that we know what the country as a whole wants? Simply, no.
We won't ever have a national primary unless there is a nationwide electoral process--a process that is not dependent on state divisions and subdivisions for apportioning votes. A primary cannot be a national process unless everyone is voting in the same election, and as long as Californians are voting in a California primary, it's not a national process.
A national process would be something like the French electoral system wherein all the presidential candidates compete in a two round election. If any candidate wins 50% +1 in the first election, he or she is elected president. If no one gets a majority, then the top two candidates compete in a second election a few months later in order to select one. With only two on the ballot, this process ensures that the president is elected with majority support from the population.
In this country, it would mean that all the Republicans and Democrats would compete with each other in a single vote. There would not be separate Republican primaries and Democratic primaries, but a single vote with everyone on the ballot. Then, assuming the vote is split in several ways, the top two candidates would compete for the presidency in a later general election.
I have thought for a long time that the French model was a better system than what we use. Our system is based on a fractured electorate voting in different contests at different times. It gives disproportional power to small states that vote early and discounts the votes of states that hold later primaries. Furthermore, in the general election, it is often the case that the President is elected with a minority of votes. Not just George Bush in 2000, but Bill Clinton in both 1996 and 1992 became president without having a majority of Americans supporting him. We can't say that simple majority rule is the sufficient for democracy, but it is necessary for democracy. It is anti-democratic to elect a president with less than 50% of the vote.
This primary season has been wildly different from the past several cycles. Thus, I have come to realize that the French double vote system is a product of their broader political system and may not be easily grafted on to our system.
For one, the French system does not usually operate to select party representatives where as out primary system is designed to do just that. The French two round system by contrast operates to winnow the field of parties who have a chance at winning. There are three to four viable parties in France and preselected candidates from those parties compete in the first round of voting. One or two are typically knocked out
and the other parties compete for the endorsement of the eliminated parties.
With just two parties, we would have three or four Democrats competing with three or four Republicans. Then the candidates eliminated in the first round would just be expected to back the candidate from their party. So, in this way, a two round election wouldn't settle anything in the first round in our system. And without multiple parties, we might not benefit from having this sort of primary.
Second, as this primary season has shown, there is some value in having a series of elections that allow lesser known candidates to build support over time. If we had a single national primary, I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani would be the nominees from each party. From my perspective, it is a good thing for a solid candidate to be able to build support over time through a series of small elections. A national primary would effectively eliminate that possibility and would instead mean that national name recognition would be the essential quality for a successful candidacy.
I still think the French system is a good idea, however, because it ensures that the President has a majority support in the electorate. So, now there are two questions. First, since there is no need to reinvent the wheel, are there small ways to change our system so that a two round election could be used and combined with the advantages of our primary season? Second, if that is not possible, what is the best way to ensure that we can get the benefits of the French system without actually using it?
I'm pretty much going to leave it there for now so that I have more time to think about those questions. The short answer to the first question is that we might need to change party organization and regulation so that parties are prepared to have an early election and so that third parties can viably contest a national election. The short answer of the second question is that it is always possible to restrict the ballot so that voters are forced to choose between no more than two candidates and thus produce a majority.
Super Tuesday was roundly and repeatedly described as the closest thing we have ever had to a national primary day because Republicans and Democrats were both holding contests in more than 20 states. We know now that it hasn't settled anything, and it doesn't seem that it was a truly representative contest. Is it possible to say, based on the results of Tuesday's elections, that we know what the country as a whole wants? Simply, no.
We won't ever have a national primary unless there is a nationwide electoral process--a process that is not dependent on state divisions and subdivisions for apportioning votes. A primary cannot be a national process unless everyone is voting in the same election, and as long as Californians are voting in a California primary, it's not a national process.
A national process would be something like the French electoral system wherein all the presidential candidates compete in a two round election. If any candidate wins 50% +1 in the first election, he or she is elected president. If no one gets a majority, then the top two candidates compete in a second election a few months later in order to select one. With only two on the ballot, this process ensures that the president is elected with majority support from the population.
In this country, it would mean that all the Republicans and Democrats would compete with each other in a single vote. There would not be separate Republican primaries and Democratic primaries, but a single vote with everyone on the ballot. Then, assuming the vote is split in several ways, the top two candidates would compete for the presidency in a later general election.
I have thought for a long time that the French model was a better system than what we use. Our system is based on a fractured electorate voting in different contests at different times. It gives disproportional power to small states that vote early and discounts the votes of states that hold later primaries. Furthermore, in the general election, it is often the case that the President is elected with a minority of votes. Not just George Bush in 2000, but Bill Clinton in both 1996 and 1992 became president without having a majority of Americans supporting him. We can't say that simple majority rule is the sufficient for democracy, but it is necessary for democracy. It is anti-democratic to elect a president with less than 50% of the vote.
This primary season has been wildly different from the past several cycles. Thus, I have come to realize that the French double vote system is a product of their broader political system and may not be easily grafted on to our system.
For one, the French system does not usually operate to select party representatives where as out primary system is designed to do just that. The French two round system by contrast operates to winnow the field of parties who have a chance at winning. There are three to four viable parties in France and preselected candidates from those parties compete in the first round of voting. One or two are typically knocked out
and the other parties compete for the endorsement of the eliminated parties.
With just two parties, we would have three or four Democrats competing with three or four Republicans. Then the candidates eliminated in the first round would just be expected to back the candidate from their party. So, in this way, a two round election wouldn't settle anything in the first round in our system. And without multiple parties, we might not benefit from having this sort of primary.
Second, as this primary season has shown, there is some value in having a series of elections that allow lesser known candidates to build support over time. If we had a single national primary, I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani would be the nominees from each party. From my perspective, it is a good thing for a solid candidate to be able to build support over time through a series of small elections. A national primary would effectively eliminate that possibility and would instead mean that national name recognition would be the essential quality for a successful candidacy.
I still think the French system is a good idea, however, because it ensures that the President has a majority support in the electorate. So, now there are two questions. First, since there is no need to reinvent the wheel, are there small ways to change our system so that a two round election could be used and combined with the advantages of our primary season? Second, if that is not possible, what is the best way to ensure that we can get the benefits of the French system without actually using it?
I'm pretty much going to leave it there for now so that I have more time to think about those questions. The short answer to the first question is that we might need to change party organization and regulation so that parties are prepared to have an early election and so that third parties can viably contest a national election. The short answer of the second question is that it is always possible to restrict the ballot so that voters are forced to choose between no more than two candidates and thus produce a majority.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Expanding on that
Last night I watched The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and Once; two movies that allow me to expand on some thoughts from the last post.
The King of Kong is a documentary about an informal competition between two men to get the highest score on Donkey Kong. The original record was set in 1983 by Billy Mitchell and stood for over 20 years before a serious challenger came along. The movie follows Steve Wiebe, the challenger, who sets a new record at home only to have his score rejected by a refereeing organization because they think the motherboard in his arcade cabinet had been tampered with. Weibe subsequently beats the old record again in public on a verified machine, but is immediately upstaged by Mitchell who sent his own questionable video tape to the referees. When the Guinness Book of World Records decides to include the highest score on Donkey Kong in their next book, Wiebe tries again to beat the score in public.
I really enjoyed this movie. It follows a fascinating cast of characters through some serious conflict. The fact that the conflict is about video games adds to the movie rather than detracting. The men and women involved in this movie care about their high scores not simply as a few hours of entertainment but as world records worthy of comparison to the 100 meter dash and the marathon. And if you watch the movie, you will find there is little reason to disagree. High scores are serious business.
Once is billed as a modern day musical. The main character is a nameless street musician. He survives by fixing vacuum cleaners but prefers to spend his time playing standards for passersby. At night when the crowds are smaller, he plays his own music. This attracts the attention of a nameless girl; a Czech immigrant who plays the piano. They spend a week together sharing music. I also really enjoyed this movie. It is about being lonely and finding companionship. It is about the process of creating music and how music plays a role in our life.
What really surprised me about Once was that it was shot in a documentary style. The director and producers of this movie want to call it a musical, but it does not function like most musicals. In the standard musical, Rent for example, the characters go through dialog and then burst into songs at dramatic moments. The songs may emphasize particular points but are often self contained and in so way independent of the drama going on. In other words, the standard musical is supposed to present a story and a set of songs that are together but that are not necessarily related in any important way.
Once, however, presents the music as an integral part of the story. The songs that the characters sing are not merely entertaining props to between story elements but are creations of the characters and an essential part of the story. That is how Once manages to survive being shot in a documentary style. It is presented as if it is documenting the actions of these characters and their creation of the music.
In my last post I stated tried to argue that television has improved in part because it is trying harder to convince the audience that a show is something that is happening. Lost achieves this by shooting outside and on location even though it uses traditional film techniques. Other shows such as The Office achieve this by shooting in a documentary style. So, what is a documentary style and why can it help in fictional storytelling?
Of course, in actual documentaries such as The King of Kong, the story is told in a documentary style. At first this means camera work that is occasionally unsteady. Unsteady camera work is the result of two things: lower production values and the act of recording events as they happen. Almost no documentaries, if any at all, are shot on film by professional camera operators for the simple reason that it would be extremely expensive to do so. More importantly, however, a camera operator in a documentary will not be able to perfectly anticipate how events will play out. A sudden move of the camera may be necessary to capture an unexpected event or to react to a person saying something that is potentially important.
Second, documentaries are shot at a distance from the immediate subject of the film. In trying to document some event, the camera crew must provide some distance to the people who are participating in the event. This is done, I assume, in order to allow the people the opportunity to act as they would if the documentary crew were not there, and thus provide a more 'true' representation of what happened. In practice this means that while shooting outside, the environment is allowed to intrude into the movie--people, noises, and some events that are external to the movie are often captured by the camera.
In interior scenes, documentaries are often shot from a perspective that is internal to the action such that events are perceived to be happening around the camera and not merely in front of it. Again, this is a result of being at actual locations where people are going about business that is independent of the film.
Third, since documentaries are designed to capture events as they happen, the filmmakers rely on ambient lighting and do not provide makeup or costumes to the subjects. The subjects are to be presented in a naturalistic manner.
Finally, documentaries often use direct interviews with the subjects to explain events in the film.
Three of these elements of documentaries were used successfully in Once. The camera work was occasionally unsteady, which suggested the camera was reacting to events as they happened. The subjects were often shot at a distance with intruding extras and external events, and from within the action in interior shots. The filmmakers effectively used ambient lighting and were careful to present the characters in normal clothing and makeup. They did not use interviews with the characters in the way that The Office does to complete the illusion of a documentary.
I wouldn't be so stupid as to claim that a documentary style is always a good way to go with a fictional story, but it does have some advantages. The above elements of documentary style filmmaking are the natural result of documentaries. The camera work, space, naturalistic presentation of the subjects and use of ambient lighting is the result of documentary filmmaking. As the audience we have learned to interpret these elements are reflecting actual events. Thus, in a very simple manner, fictional films shot in a documentary style use these elements as cues to the audience that what they are watching is something that actually happened. The elements of documentaries are used to reinforce the illusion of the scripted story and that can help us to suspend our disbelief. This was all very effective in Once.
It can help, but not always. Cloverfield stands as an obvious counterpoint to what I have just said. Cloverfield was shot on film by a professional camera crew. The professional crew was told to shoot it in a way that seemed amateurish, because the character who was supposed to be using the camera was not supposed to be good with it. But in Cloverfield, the unsteady camera work often failed to reinforce the reality of the story, because it was both too professional and too amateurish.
One on hand, the camera-character was often unable to keep the horizon in the most simple circumstances. Thus, we got dramatically angled shots of other characters even when there was no reason for the character holding the camera to hold it at a severe angle. Rather than suggesting amateurishness, it suggested a professional trying to emulate an amateur, which is what is exactly what happened.
On the other hand, when extreme circumstances did occur in the film, the camera-character was able to keep filming. For example, the camera successfully follows the other characters as they run across a street just a few yards from the gigantic monster attacking the city. With the expansion of home video TV shows, especially those featuring videos of extreme sports, videos of criminals, and videos of simply stupid behavior, I have come to expect a person operating a camcorder to drop the camera when some extreme event happens. The fact that the camera-character in Cloverfield was able to keep filming while running from a giant monster again served to reinforce the fact that the movie was being shot by a professional cameraman.
So, it is not simply a matter of using a documentary style, but as with everything else, it matters how it is done. Cloverfield failed where Once succeeded.
The King of Kong is a documentary about an informal competition between two men to get the highest score on Donkey Kong. The original record was set in 1983 by Billy Mitchell and stood for over 20 years before a serious challenger came along. The movie follows Steve Wiebe, the challenger, who sets a new record at home only to have his score rejected by a refereeing organization because they think the motherboard in his arcade cabinet had been tampered with. Weibe subsequently beats the old record again in public on a verified machine, but is immediately upstaged by Mitchell who sent his own questionable video tape to the referees. When the Guinness Book of World Records decides to include the highest score on Donkey Kong in their next book, Wiebe tries again to beat the score in public.
I really enjoyed this movie. It follows a fascinating cast of characters through some serious conflict. The fact that the conflict is about video games adds to the movie rather than detracting. The men and women involved in this movie care about their high scores not simply as a few hours of entertainment but as world records worthy of comparison to the 100 meter dash and the marathon. And if you watch the movie, you will find there is little reason to disagree. High scores are serious business.
Once is billed as a modern day musical. The main character is a nameless street musician. He survives by fixing vacuum cleaners but prefers to spend his time playing standards for passersby. At night when the crowds are smaller, he plays his own music. This attracts the attention of a nameless girl; a Czech immigrant who plays the piano. They spend a week together sharing music. I also really enjoyed this movie. It is about being lonely and finding companionship. It is about the process of creating music and how music plays a role in our life.
What really surprised me about Once was that it was shot in a documentary style. The director and producers of this movie want to call it a musical, but it does not function like most musicals. In the standard musical, Rent for example, the characters go through dialog and then burst into songs at dramatic moments. The songs may emphasize particular points but are often self contained and in so way independent of the drama going on. In other words, the standard musical is supposed to present a story and a set of songs that are together but that are not necessarily related in any important way.
Once, however, presents the music as an integral part of the story. The songs that the characters sing are not merely entertaining props to between story elements but are creations of the characters and an essential part of the story. That is how Once manages to survive being shot in a documentary style. It is presented as if it is documenting the actions of these characters and their creation of the music.
In my last post I stated tried to argue that television has improved in part because it is trying harder to convince the audience that a show is something that is happening. Lost achieves this by shooting outside and on location even though it uses traditional film techniques. Other shows such as The Office achieve this by shooting in a documentary style. So, what is a documentary style and why can it help in fictional storytelling?
Of course, in actual documentaries such as The King of Kong, the story is told in a documentary style. At first this means camera work that is occasionally unsteady. Unsteady camera work is the result of two things: lower production values and the act of recording events as they happen. Almost no documentaries, if any at all, are shot on film by professional camera operators for the simple reason that it would be extremely expensive to do so. More importantly, however, a camera operator in a documentary will not be able to perfectly anticipate how events will play out. A sudden move of the camera may be necessary to capture an unexpected event or to react to a person saying something that is potentially important.
Second, documentaries are shot at a distance from the immediate subject of the film. In trying to document some event, the camera crew must provide some distance to the people who are participating in the event. This is done, I assume, in order to allow the people the opportunity to act as they would if the documentary crew were not there, and thus provide a more 'true' representation of what happened. In practice this means that while shooting outside, the environment is allowed to intrude into the movie--people, noises, and some events that are external to the movie are often captured by the camera.
In interior scenes, documentaries are often shot from a perspective that is internal to the action such that events are perceived to be happening around the camera and not merely in front of it. Again, this is a result of being at actual locations where people are going about business that is independent of the film.
Third, since documentaries are designed to capture events as they happen, the filmmakers rely on ambient lighting and do not provide makeup or costumes to the subjects. The subjects are to be presented in a naturalistic manner.
Finally, documentaries often use direct interviews with the subjects to explain events in the film.
Three of these elements of documentaries were used successfully in Once. The camera work was occasionally unsteady, which suggested the camera was reacting to events as they happened. The subjects were often shot at a distance with intruding extras and external events, and from within the action in interior shots. The filmmakers effectively used ambient lighting and were careful to present the characters in normal clothing and makeup. They did not use interviews with the characters in the way that The Office does to complete the illusion of a documentary.
I wouldn't be so stupid as to claim that a documentary style is always a good way to go with a fictional story, but it does have some advantages. The above elements of documentary style filmmaking are the natural result of documentaries. The camera work, space, naturalistic presentation of the subjects and use of ambient lighting is the result of documentary filmmaking. As the audience we have learned to interpret these elements are reflecting actual events. Thus, in a very simple manner, fictional films shot in a documentary style use these elements as cues to the audience that what they are watching is something that actually happened. The elements of documentaries are used to reinforce the illusion of the scripted story and that can help us to suspend our disbelief. This was all very effective in Once.
It can help, but not always. Cloverfield stands as an obvious counterpoint to what I have just said. Cloverfield was shot on film by a professional camera crew. The professional crew was told to shoot it in a way that seemed amateurish, because the character who was supposed to be using the camera was not supposed to be good with it. But in Cloverfield, the unsteady camera work often failed to reinforce the reality of the story, because it was both too professional and too amateurish.
One on hand, the camera-character was often unable to keep the horizon in the most simple circumstances. Thus, we got dramatically angled shots of other characters even when there was no reason for the character holding the camera to hold it at a severe angle. Rather than suggesting amateurishness, it suggested a professional trying to emulate an amateur, which is what is exactly what happened.
On the other hand, when extreme circumstances did occur in the film, the camera-character was able to keep filming. For example, the camera successfully follows the other characters as they run across a street just a few yards from the gigantic monster attacking the city. With the expansion of home video TV shows, especially those featuring videos of extreme sports, videos of criminals, and videos of simply stupid behavior, I have come to expect a person operating a camcorder to drop the camera when some extreme event happens. The fact that the camera-character in Cloverfield was able to keep filming while running from a giant monster again served to reinforce the fact that the movie was being shot by a professional cameraman.
So, it is not simply a matter of using a documentary style, but as with everything else, it matters how it is done. Cloverfield failed where Once succeeded.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Hooray for Scripted Programming
Lost premiered last night, and I am glad it's back. The writer's strike is going to be hard to get through so long as the networks keep putting crap like celebrity Apprentice on the air. Lost is arguably the show that started the recent renaissance in quality television, and that renaissance is part of the reason I have begun to think that TV should be counted among the arts as film is. When there is no significant qualitative difference between the two media, they ought to be susceptible to the same sort of criticism.
I don't want to worry about at right now, however. Instead I simply want to argue that one doesn't have to be a huge Lost nerd to watch and enjoy the show. Lost is known for being a long running mystery. The main characters are survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island who are confronted by mystical experiences, tangential connections, monsters made of smoke, and the unexplained existence of a group of menacing "Others." The series essentially begs the question, "what the hell is happening here?"
The producers of the show occasionally provide obscure clues and have intentionally left many questions unanswered. Building the mystery around the show has in no small part helped to create a strong base of fans who tune in each week to scrutinize every episode for any new information that will shed light on the story.
Stop and think about that for a second. It is remarkable in itself that a television show can create such a devoted fan base. The fans aren't tuning in simply because the show is well written or because of good acting or because of any of the other technical areas in which Lost excels. These fans watch the show because they have become invested in the characters and the plot. That alone is a proxy for the quality of the show. It may not be a precise proxy since people often become devoted fans of programs that are of lower quality, but it doesn't happen very often.
It can be tempting to think that the fans of the show ought to be dismissed out of hand for being sci-fi nerds and television geeks. After all, they are seriously invested in a fictional show that is about things that could never happen. But that would not be fair. The goal of drama ought to be to bring the audience into the world of the characters so that the audience has some stake in the final outcome. When the audience has a stake in the outcome, the drama can actually matter. It is only when a play, movie, or show is very good that we actually care about the characters and their lives.
If you are to like any show or movie at all, I think you have to be ready to believe that the characters have lives--that they aren't simply actors playing roles before a camera. In other words, that is the minimum suspension of disbelief necessary for a drama to succeed. A recent failure on this standard for me was Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst. While watching that movie I had the distinct awareness that I was watching something that was being filmed. Most of the time I can watch a movie as something that is happening and not something that has been staged or filmed, but I couldn't get past that roadblock with Marie Antoinette. And I simply didn't enjoy it.
When it comes to Lost, I am able to suspend my disbelief that minimal amount. Again, I think this is remarkable in a television program For most of television's history, programs have been obviously staged. Your typical sitcom--Friends, Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, all the way back to The Dick Van Dyke Show--is shot on a static stage. Three cameras are placed in specific locations before the stage in order to provide the necessary variety of angles and the actors simply perform a play before the cameras. While that can work well enough, it also degrades the reality of the shows. In the past few years we have seen the proliferation of single camera sitcoms such as Sports Night and sitcoms that aren't shot on traditional soundstages such as The Office, 30 Rock, and My Name is Earl. Most of the time I would much rather watch those shows than the traditional three camera sitcom.
Lost does the same thing. It takes the drama out of a sound stage and puts it on a tropical island. Yes, there are indoor and sound stage scenes, but the show is a large improvement for the simple reason that it shoots on location so much. Almost all the other major dramas from the past several years have gone in the same direction. The Sopranos shot on location in New Jersey much of the time, and The Wire has made Baltimore into a character.
If it is possible to become involved in Lost in a serious manner, is it bad to take it too far? Over it's three seasons, Lost has become notorious for creating more story lines than it resolves. To that end, being a Lost nerd may be more a hindrance to appreciating the show. If you are wrapped up in some subplot, you may become frustrated with the show when the producers decide to discard it or otherwise change their focus. While Lost succeeds in part because it is a long form mystery that can draw in strong fans, it may be better television if appreciated from an arms length.
If you get deeply involved in the details of Lost, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees. The essential truth of Lost is that as human beings we will face conflict and challenge in our lives, but no matter what we have done in our past, we can survive those challenges if we stick together. It is at bottom a show about friendship in dire circumstances and managing to care how you survive and not merely that you do. In the end, Lost is a well made human drama, even as it teases the audience with indefinite clues and leads us down paths that go no where.
That is why I think it is possible to watch Lost without being a fanboy: even if you miss all the details, it is still possible to appreciate the show for it's themes and the story that is being told.
I don't want to worry about at right now, however. Instead I simply want to argue that one doesn't have to be a huge Lost nerd to watch and enjoy the show. Lost is known for being a long running mystery. The main characters are survivors of a plane crash on a tropical island who are confronted by mystical experiences, tangential connections, monsters made of smoke, and the unexplained existence of a group of menacing "Others." The series essentially begs the question, "what the hell is happening here?"
The producers of the show occasionally provide obscure clues and have intentionally left many questions unanswered. Building the mystery around the show has in no small part helped to create a strong base of fans who tune in each week to scrutinize every episode for any new information that will shed light on the story.
Stop and think about that for a second. It is remarkable in itself that a television show can create such a devoted fan base. The fans aren't tuning in simply because the show is well written or because of good acting or because of any of the other technical areas in which Lost excels. These fans watch the show because they have become invested in the characters and the plot. That alone is a proxy for the quality of the show. It may not be a precise proxy since people often become devoted fans of programs that are of lower quality, but it doesn't happen very often.
It can be tempting to think that the fans of the show ought to be dismissed out of hand for being sci-fi nerds and television geeks. After all, they are seriously invested in a fictional show that is about things that could never happen. But that would not be fair. The goal of drama ought to be to bring the audience into the world of the characters so that the audience has some stake in the final outcome. When the audience has a stake in the outcome, the drama can actually matter. It is only when a play, movie, or show is very good that we actually care about the characters and their lives.
If you are to like any show or movie at all, I think you have to be ready to believe that the characters have lives--that they aren't simply actors playing roles before a camera. In other words, that is the minimum suspension of disbelief necessary for a drama to succeed. A recent failure on this standard for me was Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst. While watching that movie I had the distinct awareness that I was watching something that was being filmed. Most of the time I can watch a movie as something that is happening and not something that has been staged or filmed, but I couldn't get past that roadblock with Marie Antoinette. And I simply didn't enjoy it.
When it comes to Lost, I am able to suspend my disbelief that minimal amount. Again, I think this is remarkable in a television program For most of television's history, programs have been obviously staged. Your typical sitcom--Friends, Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, all the way back to The Dick Van Dyke Show--is shot on a static stage. Three cameras are placed in specific locations before the stage in order to provide the necessary variety of angles and the actors simply perform a play before the cameras. While that can work well enough, it also degrades the reality of the shows. In the past few years we have seen the proliferation of single camera sitcoms such as Sports Night and sitcoms that aren't shot on traditional soundstages such as The Office, 30 Rock, and My Name is Earl. Most of the time I would much rather watch those shows than the traditional three camera sitcom.
Lost does the same thing. It takes the drama out of a sound stage and puts it on a tropical island. Yes, there are indoor and sound stage scenes, but the show is a large improvement for the simple reason that it shoots on location so much. Almost all the other major dramas from the past several years have gone in the same direction. The Sopranos shot on location in New Jersey much of the time, and The Wire has made Baltimore into a character.
If it is possible to become involved in Lost in a serious manner, is it bad to take it too far? Over it's three seasons, Lost has become notorious for creating more story lines than it resolves. To that end, being a Lost nerd may be more a hindrance to appreciating the show. If you are wrapped up in some subplot, you may become frustrated with the show when the producers decide to discard it or otherwise change their focus. While Lost succeeds in part because it is a long form mystery that can draw in strong fans, it may be better television if appreciated from an arms length.
If you get deeply involved in the details of Lost, it can be easy to miss the forest for the trees. The essential truth of Lost is that as human beings we will face conflict and challenge in our lives, but no matter what we have done in our past, we can survive those challenges if we stick together. It is at bottom a show about friendship in dire circumstances and managing to care how you survive and not merely that you do. In the end, Lost is a well made human drama, even as it teases the audience with indefinite clues and leads us down paths that go no where.
That is why I think it is possible to watch Lost without being a fanboy: even if you miss all the details, it is still possible to appreciate the show for it's themes and the story that is being told.
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