Sunday, March 27, 2005

Natural editing and Napoleon Dynamite

There are some movies that you can start watching at any point on cable, convincing yourself that you just want to see “this one scene,” and then you find yourself sitting through the whole thing, again. Animal House, the first three Star Wars movies and The Matrix fell into this category, until ruined by sequels. Saving Private Ryan was, for awhile, though the ending never really held up. Of course Pirates of the Caribbean.
You might think this would never happen with a modest little movie like Napolean Dynamite. Did anything really even happen in the movie? Yet there I was, watching credits roll. I had already announced, long ago, I was just going to watch a few minutes. I even waited for the additional scene, the one that comes up after the credits. What makes this movie work?
To say it’s authentic because it is a modestly produced, real-life small-town movie with believable characters and a down-to-earth story is too easy. In spit of the constant wailing of critics about explosion laden block-busters, these little gems are actually coming out in a fairly steady stream. Many are good, some worth watching twice. Few will nail you randomly to the couch as try and tear yourself away to go do something else.
I believe it comes from the approach to writing each scene. Classic screenwriting philosophy is that each scene should rise to some conclusion or transformation. To tell a story, we’ve chosen only those elements which contribute most strongly to the development of the story. This parallels our real world experience only in the retelling of events. When we chat about our day, we recast it in terms a few scenes that lead to punchlines or emotional catharsis. As we retell the better stories, we usually refine and lengthen them, possibly integrating other, less complete events into more coherent narratives.
Real life, however, takes place in shorter, less conclusive sequences. The “first time” we remember is often the culmination of a variety of almost first events. The story of our day builds out of a set of shorter scenes, tied together in memory, and often merged together.
Napolean Dynamite captures this rhythm, building the story out of shorter, less dramatic scenes. Few of the scenes tries to get an over-the-top reaction or conclusion. Few contain all the elements necessary to tell us why it’s that gripping. But they slip from one to the next, each giving little satisfactions along the way.
One sequence departs from this philosophy, the time-travel scene. Here, a device is ordered over the internet. Napoleon sees it, is told by Chip not to try it. A moment later, we see him buckled in, part of the device clearly threatening his groin. Naturally, pain ensues. Moments later, to complete the humorous potential, we get a shot of Uncle Rico coming out of his room, walking funny. The scene is funny, and it doesn’t untrack the movie completely. But it is like something from another, more traditional film. One where the kick in the groin is an ever-ready fall-back to punch up the humor.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Somebody has to pay

Narrative drives to a satisfying conclusion. In the baldest melodrama, this is when the bad-guy gets his comeuppance, after dominating most of the story with his badness. In a horror story, this can be an exaggerated punishment. In the common action-drama, usually the good guys escape with a modicum of damage and suffering, and some side-character is usually destroyed to account for the fact that life is not that neat.
Death happens. Even when bullets are flying just in fun, and good guys bounce when they fall. There is some quantum level of badness that has to occur before we'll accept the story. In films such as Frantic and Godfather III, this has even involved an almost elemental virgin sacrifice.
In video games, one of the central problems is setting the exact price level of death. If a character can take infinite punishment and never die, the game is no fun. If a character dies at the drop of a hat, and only hours of learning allow really good players to expereince much of the game, then nobody will play it.
Death has a price, something which has to be paid in order for the game to be enjoyable. THe price often varies depending on the stage of the game. In some places you go back a few steps. In others, you might have to reload the whole game. In online games, apparently, you lose all your possessions.
The evidence indicates the price or sacrifice level goes up and down over the years. At one point in time, audeinces preferred all Shakespeare's stories with happy endings. For a time, horror movies all added an additional bad outcome after the apparent story had ended.
The classic case is the security guard in early Star Trek episodes. The guys who dressed in orange, and died anonymously so that the lead characters could improbably survive.

Monday, March 21, 2005

About this blog: low-budget authenticity

About this Blog

Unlike my other works, this one is not accompanied by any commitment to ongoing updates or constantly being witty, hip, and amusing. This topic is somewhat academic. Though I’m writing it with a sense of fun, I am still trying to get deep at something I first encountered when my ex-wife was studying film. I was tasked with helping her understand a lot of the theorists, and I got deeper into the whole project than I imagined I would.

I began exploring, thinking about, and uncovering ideas about “authenticity” in film. At first I thought the authentic was merely the sense of reality the viewer achieved with a well-told story. In that case the problem would merely be the combination of viewer’s willingness to suspend disbelief, and the craft of the film-maker in hiding the smoke and mirrors. However, this belief did not hold up on close analysis. Through study, through watching of many films, and through discussion with many people about what they sought, I realized that the thirst for authentic could be slaked in a variety of ways. Some of these are directly contradictory to the premise that the viewer must be totally within the story. For instance, Jackie Chan has been known to show two different landings to the same fall. Why? To show his fans that he is really doing those amazing stunts. Tony Jaa recently accompanied his press tour with live stunts to show that he didn’t even use wires.

I have read about the importance of physical reality underlying differing genre’s such as martial arts, musicals, and pornography. Then I’ve encountered a fetishistic approach to the medium itself. In the same way some people worship old-fashioned LPs and vacuum tubes, some fight for film over digital, clay-mation over CGI, and live actors over animation. On the other hand, we worship low-budget movies shot under difficult conditions over those slick “Hollywood” numbers.

So this Blog exists to help me put together all these pieces. It’s like potential energy. It can be heat, chemical, electrical, nuclear, or mechanical. You can convert it from one form to another. It can even come from it’s apparent opposite, matter. I’m not so bold as to think I can create a grand unifying theory. But I do hope to illuminate those apparently different things and see them as they relate to each other.
-daniel h. jeffers

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Misty Mundae: Brechtian Poptart

She’s not that hot. Not that compelling. Not too enthusiastic. In fact, she’s sort of like the girl in the drama club that you kind of like but who’s more of a friend. So why, in a field filled with silicon blonds and stripper types, does Misty Mundae have such a following?

She gets naked, but so do most actresses at some point in their careers. She does it a lot, but if you’ve got cable and the internet, nudity is something you get plenty of. What Misty seems to bring is a certain lack of interest. She gives her role an ironic reading, as if always slightly amused that she’s doing what she’s doing on screen. People love it.

Why? Maybe because she’s telling the audience that she’s just a regular girl up there playing with guns and doffing her clothes. It’s almost a Brechtian commentary on the genre. Or, possibly, very meta. It could be that she understands her appeal, and is acting the role of a regular girl. Either way, what she seems to be selling is, in a genre that isn’t quite pornography, not really adventure, and just short of comedy, the real feel of someone you might know making movies.