Warning: This is long winded, and maybe veer from my points a little (and focus on me a little), for that I apologize. It just felt so good to be writing about film again. Matt and Chelsea: I envy you and your friends at St. Andrews.*
He told me that mumblecore films are about the topic, not the film. I wanted to smack him in the face. He clearly doesn't know he's talking about. I love him to death, but he sounds ignorant (and a little stupid). First of all, cinema is not simply about everything looking cool...if that was the case Micheal Bay will be standing next to Truffaut in heaven watching new Hollywood actions films, and saying, "Look at that shot, look at Chanum Tatting shooting that gun. Marvelously brilliant. Oh, cinema you live on." NO. Truffaut is looking down on cinema going, "WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING!?" OK. Maybe not. Maybe he enjoys them, what do I know. But what I think is that cinema can offer many different things, and just because a film doesn't look like it's well-crafted (according to some) doesn't mean it's not well-thought out or beautiful. In fact, when talking to my brother, I'm appalled that he finds Hannah Takes the Stairs and LOL ugly. The camera in those films is an eye. The camera is well framed and moves fluidly, unnoticed. It doesn't point at things and say LOOK the way a tracking shot might, but it tells the viewer, "There's more outside the frame. We may get to it and we may not. Just watch. Don't worry. There's no director, just window into this world."
Don't get me wrong. There's nothing more pleasing than a wonderfully constructed shot (Think of The Player, Children of Men, Irreversible, Day for Night, every Godard film, Touch of Evil, every PT Anderson film, etc), but there's something to be said of Cinéma vérité, when the camera functions organically rather than orchestrated--not to say that shots of this nature can't be orchestrated, many are, even if loosely orchestrated...but I digress.
Ugly is sloppiness. Ugly means there is no care. But to say that a film like Hannah Takes the Stairs ugly is offensive to any cinephile. My brother made some comment about David Gordon Green's use of handheld. I wanted to point out his predecessors: Killer of Sheep and Medium Cool. I wanted to point out Squid and the Whale and Husbands and Wives. I want to point out every Cassavetes film. No one can tell that his films aren't beautiful, especially the rough hand-held parts that clearly have no plans--just a camera and actors. These films contain a looseness that correlates to the kind of organic energy that comes from the films of Joe Swanberg, Andrew Bujalski, the Duplass Brothers, and Aaron Katz. (The Duplass brothers seem a little more sloppy that the other films. But I like that. I like that their films fumble around, float, look like a couple of kids with a camera, and yet people still watch their films, people still distribute them. That's fucking hopeful.) But what I like most about these types of films is that they come from an honest place of cinema. They aren't lies. They are honest fictions. They are blurring the lines, they are simple, but challenging, they are kids making films about their lives. And they're beautiful--not in their own way, but hands down, good-looking films. And every film gets better looking, because these kids are getting better at it.
True film making is about compromising and not compromising at the same time. If a studio wants you to change things, but by yourself you have 10% of that studio budget...what do you do. Don't worry this isn't going to be a rant about selling-out, though the ghost of Cassavetes is tapping my shoulder like crazy, and screaming, "FUCK HOLLYWOOD, FUCK COMPROMISE!" But Cassavetes was crazy. If you don't know that, read Cassavetes on Cassavetes. The man was a loon! But he was brilliant. And he compromised. He put up his house as collateral. He put shoots on hold to go act for Hollywood. He put his marriage at risk. But he made his films regardless. So, what I'm trying to say is that if you have a choice between 10 hours of shooting with one hour set up and nine hours of scene-work vs. 10 hours of shooting with five for set up and five for shooting...what do you take? Well, first of all you plan the shit out of it, you rehearse and so on. But what about filmmakers that don't want rehearsals, that want that organic feel. Let's say that we're dealing with those kinds of film makers, then what would they choose. I guess, it depends. My feeling is that many young film makers with less-than-shoestring budgets would rather have time for performances than the style.
I do commend my brother (and myself, haha) and our film making friends who take the time to orchestrate and plan and set up. Because the films always look good. Yeah, I can say that. But looking back on our second film, Afraid to Merge, which we shot on film, and which we had three takes and a lot of set up, I wish that we would've just shot it organically. The film looks really good. The whole style was planned, every shot figured out, and it works--we never leave the POV of Preston (I'm using the POV loosely. We're actually hardly ever acting as him looking, but the camera is attached to him in every scene, in some way). But there were some scenes were we were so worried about our plans that we failed to capture the raw energy in the scene, and many of these came out wooden and lifeless, or more along the lines of bad mumblecore meets good Kevin Smith. The orchestrated shots that do work well are fucking great (if I can say that), but the ones that don't work feel contrived and canned. The use of film was supposed to give us a raw, post-Graduate feel (think 60s and 70s), but wasn't allowed because of our refusal to change and adapt. I think part of the planning was my brothers fear of not directing--he was acting and I was the director. He trusted me, as long as I followed the plan. But at times I didn't want to follow the plan...but he insisted, even to the point where he wouldn't take my direction, and wouldn't change lines in the script, even though they were feeling trite or forced. But I'm not here to bash on how difficult he was to direct. What I here to do is talk about the freedom a director gets when the plan can be scrapped, or if there is no real plan at all. I still believe scripts are sacred and should be learned and known before altered (like a writer learning the rules before he breaks them), but once that has happened, the characters belong to the actors, and the directors job is to allow them room to be those characters. If that means that the director has to get the fucking camera off the dolly and shoot the thing on a tripod, then that's what has to be done. Fuck plans once you're in the production. They're there to guide not to rule.
So, I'm bringing it back to beauty. I think that our old films are beautiful visually, but a lot of the slow pace (or I should say, the crawling pace) is part of the script, but without the energy these scenes are boring and lifeless at time. Without energy, OK acting becomes bad acting. I wish I had the balls to veers from the plans when I felt the energy drain. So, like I said, visually beautiful, but the beauty cannot be enjoyed if the film is not bring energy to the viewers. And while my brother claims that many "mumblecore" films lack beauty, they are charged with he kind of energy needed to propel a film that sifts through the often mudane life of twenty-somethingers that film these films. And what lacks in orchestration is made up in the camera's eyes, producing beautiful images of young people being young. If only my brother and I could've taken a page from the book of Swanberg, I think Afraid to Merge would've been something that would've drawn my family in, rather than have them checking their watches at minute 30.
OK. real quick. This is part promotion and part of my argument. Though, my brother and I agree about cinema half and half, I think my constant insistence about organic film making finally seeped into him--I also insisted this with all my film making friends. The film they just made last year...it's out for festival consideration and will have a premier this summer...was organic from day one. I started writing it during the pre-production of Afraid to Merge. That film was so well-planned and the script was constantly fine-tuned that I wanted to write something that was loose and messy. I wrote Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes? in three days. It was done. Over the next couple years, I barely revised, but added on scenes, never forced anything, hardly cut a scene, and changed the sex of one character. It was my baby. But I was not strict, nor did I discipline it. I set it on the road and in Bellingham. It could be made for cheap with young people, and it wouldn't be just a young film...I don't think. I did not direct it (though I get credit), though in meetings with crew and actors I only had a couple rules: 1) The characters belong to the actors ONLY. They make the call, they can change lines, they can make changes. 2) The director has say only over takes and where they shoot...(I'm not sure if these rules stuck, I wasn't on set) 3) This is a collaboration all the way. Every crew member...even assistants have a say! 4) Go easy on the pop songs and montages--Montages and songs co-existed but are only there to show the passing of time...NOT TO "FIX" a scene! (we did that a lot in earlier films and shorts). I don't want this to look like a music video at ANY TIME!
I've seen the film and it's pretty great. I think they stuck to my script and it feels like they stuck to my rules. Watching it, I know that things changed. But the crew and cast had no pre-production time to visit these place and plan the shoot. Most the times, they drove there, got out and shot. Many times, they would be driving and see a rest stop or field or park and Caleb (or one of the crew or cast) would say, "Stop that looks cool!" And it shows. The beauty is in the landscape more than the camera's movement (Though the camera does have it's moments...the film is littered with those moments...in a good way), but the beauty also comes in the fact that many of the scenes seem like they were capture on a whim, when the light was just right, or a setting looked to good to pass up.
So, in a sense, I want my brother to look at his own film making and ask himself if this beauty really came from a camera...or if it came organically. He'll probably tell you it came from him (and with some help from his crew), but I know it came from the freedom of not over planning, not over rehearsing, and just making the film. So, my brother, go back and watch these films you claim aren't that well-shot and see how beautiful the framing is, and how beautiful the film comes together...wholly, not in pieces and cool shots, but wholly.
*
Here's a trailer to watch of Colors:
Do You See Colors When You Close Your Eyes? from caleb young on Vimeo.
4 comments:
Dude, that trailer looks killer.
Thanks man!
Whatever. You suck, Josh.
J/K
:-)
You need to go back to grad school.
Post a Comment