Aristotle says George Lucas can suck it.

I started reading James Monaco's How to Read Film a while back but go sidetracked by the bar exam. Monaco, however, includes a discussion on the nature of art and theories of aesthetics in order to make the point that film is an art. Monaco starts with Aristotle's Poetics, and since I have a copy of that sitting on my shelf, I decided to give it a quick read before continuing with Monaco's book.

It is somewhat surprising how modern and relevant Poetics is. As a theory, it is not spectacular, but that is in large part because Aristotle was writing under certain cultural assumptions that no longer hold true, or are only partially true. For example, Aristotle wrote:

The perfect Plot, accordingly, must have a single, and not a double issue; the change in the hero's fortunes must be not from misery to happiness, but on the contrary from happiness to misery; and the cause of it must lie not in any depravity, but in some great error on his part.

This is pretty specific and contrary to a lot of our current cultural assumptions. We in fact like movies where people move from misery to happiness. We like to say they evidence a "triumph of the human spirit." And furthermore, we often like movies about depraved characters. The prime example of this is would be There Will Be Blood, which was critically acclaimed and essentially a study of an evil character.

So, Aristotle's theory isn't perfect, but he still makes a lot of excellent points that remain relevant today. For example, he argues that plots should be tightly constructed:

The truth is that, just as in the other imitative arts one imitation is always of one thing, so in poetry the story as imitation of action, must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole.

And he says that episodic plots are to be avoided:

Of simple Plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a Plot episodic when there is neither probability nor necessity in the sequence of its episodes. Actions of this sort bad poets construct through their own fault, and good ones on account of the players. His work being for public performance, a good poet often stretches out a plot beyond its capabilities, and is thus obliged to twist the sequence of incident.

My favorite part, however, is Aristotle's argument about the proper use of "Spectacle." Simply put the Spectacle is the "stage-appearance of the actors." The point of a tragedy, in Aristotle's view is to make the audience feel fear and pity for main character and the events in the drama. He writes:

The tragic fear and pity may be aroused by the Spectacle; but they may also be aroused by the very structure and incidents of the play--which is the better way and shows the better poet. The Plot in fact should be so framed that, even without seeing the things take place, he who simply hears the account of them shall be filled with horror and pity at the incidents; which is just the effect that the mere recital of Oedipus would have on one. To produce this same effect by means of the Spectacle is less artistic, and requires extraneous aid. Those, however, who make use of the Spectacle to put before us that which is merely monstrous and not productive of fear, are wholly out of touch with Tragedy.

Suck it George Lucas.

Is This Funny? #1: Humiliation

Issue: Can we say that humiliation is funny?

Example: ABC's new series Eli Stone.

Discussion: This entire show bases it's supposed humor on humiliating its titular character. You see, he suffers from very realistic hallucinations that interrupt his normal life. He becomes so involved in the hallucinations that he will do things like dive under desks at inopportune times or start singing and dancing in public. Suddenly, he will open his eyes only to see many people staring at him. Oh, isn't it so funny?

No, actually, it's not. These sorts of jokes only work on the assumption that there are rules of acceptable behavior that generally should not be violated, and when they are violated, the person in question is deserving of ridicule. That is simply not the case. There are no oppressive, puritan, middle class standards of behavior by which we are all bound. To the extent that anything of that sort ever existed, it has been repeatedly attacked and destroyed by punk music, independent films, and social satire of every sort. That is in fact the point of satire: it punctures and destroys the extraneous and oppressive rules of society.

Conclusion: Humiliation is not funny. I submit that Eli Stone should be immediately canceled for crimes against comedy.

Purposes

Having a discussion with friends last night about life and art which has lead me to some interesting points and conclusions.

In the course of the conversation, I mentioned that there was a girl I went to college with who I came to think of as a horrible person largely because she was extremely self-centered, but also because her ultimate dream in life was to get married and have kids. In response, one of my friends made the fair point that there isn't really wrong with that so long as the person has chosen that life.

Another friend argued, however, that there are some people who never aspire to even that but instead want to experience life simply by traveling, watching movies, listening to music, and otherwise taking in the world. It's important that this is described as "taking in" the world for that is what I maintained: that such a life cannot be as highly valued as those people would want because in fact all they will have done with their life is consume and ultimately, they will have nothing to say for themselves. Furthermore, that you cannot even say that you have experienced life to its fullest if you never act, do, make, create, or whatever synonym you want to use.

So, the question becomes, if that is the case, what is the purpose of art. If in fact it is basically or essentially empty to consume art, then what purpose can it have. This is not to denigrate the value of art directly, since art can have a large impact on our lives. It can produce catharsis, it can change our mood, or console our melancholy. But after the immediate perception, its effects seem to just float away.

One friend made the cogent and intelligent point that in the first place, the purpose of art is for the artist. It is for the artist to act, do, make, or create. In the second place, from the audience's standpoint, it is there for consumption my friend maintained.

And here's the big conclusion: The reason that a life spend consuming the world is ultimately empty, even if it's spent consuming the greatest works of art in the world, is that such a life would never put the message into practice. If art is in some way going to make us better people, we can't be better people without taking some action. A life spent in consumption is one without action, and being a good person requires getting out of your own head and engaging with the world.

Sartre bites everyone in the ass.

A Quick Note about FAMILY GUY

I'm not a huge Family Guy fan largely because I don't think its pop culture reference humor is very funny. They occasionally get a good joke out of a random reference to an obscure movie from the 1980's, but they just as often misfire. In a 22 minute episode, the references can leave me feeling bored and frustrated. "You want me to laugh at this?" I angrily ask in my mind.

But when they do story related humor or make up their own jokes, they still get a good one in there sometimes. Case in point is this scene where Peter, Bryan, Chris, and Stewie all drink ipecac and try to see who can hold out the longest. Yes, I hear you saying, it is just bodily function humor. But it's still damn funny.

Cupcakes

A few weeks back, I went to a movie with some friends, but we got there late and decided to catch a later show instead of going in late. To pass the time, we decided to get a cup of coffee. This plan was interrupted when we walked past a little shop with a sign that said simply, "Georgetown Cupcake." A line of 20 or 30 people stretched out of the shop and up the street, and on this basis my friends decided they wanted to get cupcakes. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: Ooooh, cupcakes, let's go there.

Me: Really? You feel like a cupcake?

Friend: Yeah, cupcakes sound good!

Me: And you want to go stand in that line?

Friend: Yeah, it has to be good if it has a line like that!

Me: So you really don't know anything about this place?

Friend: Nope, never even heard of it before.

Me: But you're willing to stand in a line just because all those other people are standing in line?

Friend: Yeah!!!

Me: You realize that this place is just exploiting twenty-something nostalgia for childhood.

Friend: I love the marketing!

And this is what really bothered me. I maintained that people were being exploited through a specific emotional manipulation and my friend said that he loved it. Since I am not good at letting things go, this developed into a bigger argument. My position was that we shouldn't let ourselves fall prey to such emotional manipulation and his position was that everything attempts to exploit your emotions.

This exploitation of twenty-something nostalgia for childhood is extremely prevalent in our society right now, and I think we need to be on guard against it. It is the reason that Michael Bay got to make Transformers and Broken Lizard got to make The Dukes of Hazzard. Both movies have nothing to recommend them except the fact that they are recognizable franchises that are well known to men in the 18-29 demographic. The other thing that both have in common is that in retrospect both series have elements that are risible. Transformers was originally part of Hasbro's Saturday morning cartoon lineup, which was probably the best toy marketing scheme ever devised. The Dukes of Hazzard is a crazy story about two Southern brothers who use their stock car to escape inept police officers while stopping the evil plans of the short and fat Boss Hogg.

It's their ridiculousness that makes these sorts of aging cultural artifacts so central to "college humor," and even to the website of the same name. That website and the associated "college" culture is continually fascinated by things like ninjas and pirates because ninjas and pirates are basically absurd myths that we tell children. By talking about ninjas or Chuck Norris or The Dukes of Hazzard, people get to have two simultaneous reactions. First, they get to recognize the absurdity of these stories, to laugh at and make fun of them. But they also get to remember what it was like to be a child, to relive some part of their childhood for a few moments even as they make fun of it. It's a combination of mocking and sincere appreciation. I have to credit this popmatters article for making a similar point and influencing my thinking.

This is a particularly easy way to exploit people. For one thing, it is basically empty. This sort of humor doesn't require any originality or creative action. All one has to do is to point at some old TV show and note its particular stupidity. It doesn't increase one's appreciation of the old show, or or bring any insight into ninjas. But as a two for one, it might even be called efficient.

My disgust with these sorts of things is related to my hatred for affectation. People often go out of their way to merely to create an specific image for themselves, usually to find approval from a group. People do all kinds of things for show. They drink wine in order to appear sophisticated when they would rather have a shot of whiskey. They buy ugly clothes because everyone says the clothes are "cool." They buy expensive cars to keep up with the Joneses.

There are many things that bother me about affectations, but at the heart of it is that people choose to waste energy on activities and behaviors that are essentially empty. The wine snob is not a better person than the beer slob. In the mind of the wine snob, he is the better person because he appreciates something finer than other people. Obviously, it is often a sign of class bias since people try to emulate the upper classes as if wealth makes someone good and imitation will bring the same benefits.

Connoisseurship is empty because imparts no meaning. A good wine can give us some momentary pleasure, and it is not wrong to seek out that pleasure, but drinking good wine to the extent it is about the quality of the wine doesn't tell us anything. Unlike art, literature, science, or philosophy it doesn't inform the human experience. It makes no argument.

Most affectations produce the same result. Wearing a specific garment won't improve one's life for the same reason that traveling is often disappointing: one always travels with oneself and no matter what clothes a man wears, it's still him underneath.

So, we should also be particularly wary of appeals to status and connoisseurship since these things are as empty as appeals to childhood nostalgia.

Cupcake shops make these appeals. Georgetown Cupcake--note the specific use of the singular--doesn't really offer anything to its patrons beside a brief moment to remember eating cupcakes in grade school at everyone's birthday. It sells cupcakes for exorbitant amounts and tries to convince its patrons that they are getting a special product--both appeals to status. In short, they are selling a product based largely on image rather than its quality or inherent value.

And this is where my friend and I disagreed. I maintain that we shouldn't allow ourselves to be susceptible to these sorts of appeals; that more often than not falling prey to them will lighten our wallet without an sufficient return in value. He, however, argued that every thing is sold to us in the same way. The conversation went something like this:

Me: So, was it worth it? Was it worth standing in that line for extremely expensive but mediocre cupcakes?

Friend: Oh come on, they were pretty good.

Me: They were ok, but we didn't eat them because they were good, we ate them because you bought into the appeal to nostalgia and status.

Friend: So what?

Me: I just don't like being sold something.

Friend: Ok, but you can say that about anything. Aren't you the guy who sits around Starbucks?

Me: Well, I go to Starbucks for internet access, not because I think they make a great cup of coffee, and certainly not because I'm trying to prove that I like good coffee.

It should be noted that there are still some people out there who think that Starbucks represents a pinnacle of coffee snobbery. But can it be said that every thing is just an appeal to snobbery?

That is something I struggle with, but ultimately I don't think so. My natural response is problematic. I want to say in the first instance that there are things that I genuinely like, and because I genuinely like them, I am not being sold something that isn’t worth it. In other words, in specific instances, I find the value of what I receive meets or exceeds the value of what I offer in exchange; and also that the object merits the quality that is attributed to it. That cannot be the case when something is sold based on status or nostalgia because these things neither add value to the object nor represent some value in the object.. They are qualities external to the object that may but probably won’t be realized—it’s the sizzle and not the steak.

However, it is a subjective test. Maybe the subjectivity implies that the object in question cannot be said to be appreciated for its inherent properties. We can improve the test a little bit by asking how someone is selling something rather than just why it appeals to us. It doesn’t remove the all the subjectivity, but it might improve the accuracy.

But perhaps I am a sucker. Perhaps I have convinced myself that I genuinely like things when without their sales pitch, I wouldn’t otherwise like. Or perhaps there are some things that I like that cannot be appreciated without a connected but external quality. That may be true, but I don’t see how that argument leads anywhere. After all, I have no reason to distrust myself about how genuinely I like the things that I like.

And I don’t see that as a problem. We are responsible for our actions and must find the right reasons and motivations for selecting a specific action. Ultimately, my argument is not about what how other people ought to market their cupcakes or what movies should be made. It’s about how I should act when presented with these things. In short, we shouldn’t let ourselves be susceptible to arguments and marketing that makes appeals that service our egos.

A few thoughts on Atonement

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Projects

More than anything I want this blog to simply be a place where I can work through my thoughts about pop culture as they come up. I do have some longer term projects along those lines that I want to pursue. So, here are some of my projects:

Try to understand how creative works become art. What counts? It seems that film is recognized as an art form, but TV is not. Massive interactive installations but not video games. I know this is pretentious, but I want to understand what art and creative work does in our lives, what purpose it serves and what it does for us.

-- Is TV art?
-- Why I don't rewatch movies very often.
-- Similarly why music loses power over time.
-- What is in the canon of popular music.
-- How do the artifacts of popular culture function in society compared to the fine arts artifacts of previous generations?

I also intend to write about politics so far as it interests me. I am primarily interested in systems and big picture issues. It often seems that we try to solve specific issues in society without fully considering how those changes can impact other parts of society. Again, I'm trying to think systemically and, as with my travels in pop culture, to understand the world around me.

Reading List

I am currently not reading much as I am trying to study for the next month, but these books are on my reading list:

How to Read a Film by James Manaco
For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia by Robert D. Crews
How I Found Livingstone by Henry Morton Stanley
Islam and Democracy by Esposito & Voll
The Secret History A Novel by Donna Tartt
No Country for Old Men A Novel by Cormac McCarthy
Electoral Systems and Democracy by Diamond and Plattner
The American State Constitutional Tradition by John J. Dinah
Mimesis by Erich Auerbach

And I have most recently finished The Freedom Manifesto by Tom Hodgkinson.

That book affected my thinking some. So, expect it to come up occasionally.

A few of my friends have repeatedly told me that I read too much. That's a strange thing, I think, since we often hear how people don't read enough. That criticism--that people don't read enough--usually comes up in some jeremiad, and of course has to be taken skeptically.

I read for a reason though. Despite having two novels on my current reading list, I generally don't read fiction. If I want a story or drama, I will watch a movie. I find movies and TV to be much better at conveying drama than literature. That is not to say, however, that I don't like literature. It's just that if I am going to spend some time reading, I want to learn something. Ultimately, reading is a way for me to learn about the world. And I think that is one of my primary duties as a human being.

Kurt Vonnegut died last year. One retrospective listed this quote from his book God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Here Vonnegut revealed one of the plain truths of our existence. We don't have much time on this little speck of dirt as it circles the sun, so we've got to do the best that we can. For me that does not simply mean being kind but also trying to understand the world.

And that's why I read so much.