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September 1995, Week 4

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Subject:
From:
Randy Thom <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 21 Sep 1995 22:57:14 -0400
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On 9/21 MFrank wrote:
 
a comment on a comment on a comment:
 
on 20 sept. [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> MFrank wrote:
>
>
> somehow i just got around to liz weis's comments of 4 september in which
she
> says, in part:
>
>
> > Often a naive or biased narrator is contradicted by the images--which are
> > SOMEHOW even more "objective" in contrast to the unreliable speaker.
> > Case in point:  "Badlands" with its naive narration spoken by Sissy
> > Spacek's character. [caps mine]
>
> yes . . . terrence malick's entire two-[wonderful]-film career was based on
> this device, a kind of eisensteinian montage in which the image track
> collides with the sound track to produce something quite new . . . this
> device is not all that uncommon, but is rarely theorized in this way . . .
>
> . . . but more important [i think] . . . is the claim that images are
SOMEHOW
> more objective than speakers . . . is this always true? . . .  is it true
in
> cinema specifically or is it a generalization about all images vis a vis
> words?
> . . . is someone out there willing to speculate or theorize
> about why this should be so, how it is so, and what use the language[s] of
> cinema can make of it? . . . aren't these issues at the heart of
> understanding the way images communicate?
>
>
>
> Seeing is believing.  Right?   As to why we tend to believe what we see, I
am
> anxious to find out if anyone on the list is brave enough to even speculate
> on that one.
>
> Randy Thom
>
 . . . but i thought it was one of the biggest burdens of almost all
contemporary thought to dmonstrate that seeing is NOT always or necessarily
believing . . . that all vision is biased, partial, skewed, ideological . . .
a matter of representation rather than ding-an-sich-keit . . .
 
. . . this is where i hope we turn now
 
 
 
 
Only the most naive among us take any film (or even any shot from a film) to
be unbiased.
 
I seriously doubt if unbiased human behavior exists.  I can't imagine how
even the practice of physics or mathematics could be unbiased.  So how could
any artistic statement be unbiased?
 
Art, especially the best art, is comprised of tricks.  In some sense it is
always misleading, always devious.  It uses lies and half-truths.
 
With the application of enough skill, and the beneficence of luck, these lies
coalesce into something which seems to be true.  In fact, more than true.  A
painting, poem, song, film which really works is in some sense nearly alive.
 
Surely the bravest artistic goal is not to represent reality.  It is to
create reality.
 
In the case of film, the main trick of storytelling seems to be the use of
ambiguity.  Figuring out how to dole out bits of information in order to
tease the audience into injecting its own imagination into the process is the
key.
 
So in any well-done piece of photography there is mystery.  There are
question marks hanging in the air all over the carefully composed frame.  Of
course the storyteller does not tell everything she/he KNOWS in a shot.  That
would be the end of the story, and probably a pretty boring one, if she/he
did.
 
The most interesting thing in the world is a mystery for which we (the
audience) think we may have some useful clues that others don't possess.
 That element of human nature is the one which film makers exploit.  They
exploit it by visually and aurally teasing, withholding information,
misleading, lying, implying, etc.  Only the most boring film makers think
that film is about explaining things.  The best films, like the best art of
all kinds, use mystery in order to suggest greater mystery.  The thousands of
little question marks hanging in the space of a film can be made to resolve
themselves into a few bigger and more interesting questions if things go
well.
 
The point of all of this is:
 
Every frame of every film ever made is "unreliable."  I honestly can't think
of a way it could be otherwise.
 
Randy Thom
 
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