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Re: Rendering a tin man a straw man

Posted by Bulkington (A) on April 19, 2004 at 13:17:16

In Reply to: Rendering a tin man a straw man posted by rhizomatic on April 19, 2004 at 12:03:35:

Parse the difference. The reasons one gives for doing this or that, as an artist, can be 'justified' by any number things, but the decision to do this or that is, I think, finally based in self-satisfaction.

Of course you're right. Any artist should be the first and only intended audience of his own work. Make what you dig. My point: yes, a day in Dublin doesn't "justify" Joyce's stylistic choices, but Ulysses isn't just that, if it's that at all. His stylistic choices are coordinated to his larger artistic and metafictive end. The director of 21 Grams claims that the fragmentary structure of his film was decided upon for artistic/philosophical reasons as well. I don't see it.

Who said he's protected? You're asking for some transcendental derivation of the film's structure; maybe there isn't one. So what? How does it function anyway, in lieu of that? Why isn't it 'valid' to pick some elements almost at random (even though this isn't what the director did) and then see how they fit together?

Who says that isn't valid? I don't think the structure works. Feeling dissatisfied by the structure, I then asked: why did he do that? If the reasons are the reasons he gave in the interview, right now my response is that he wasn't successful. But his reasons give me something to look for on a second viewing, because they point to possible effects that I might have missed and might later pofit from. Were it structured almost at random it might still have worked, it might still result in certain effects. That wasn't how I saw it. I thought it was rather gimmicky attempt at complexity.

David Lynch has no idea why he does the things he does. He believes in angels. Should any analysis of his films proceed from the fact that he believes in angels?

I don't think so.

Why must we necessarily begin and end with the artist's intention?

We mustn't.

"Why did you structure it this way?" "I dunno. It looked cool." That's not even his explanation, but does that preclude any further consideration?

I generally want more than "it looked cool," and while I can also be reasonably satisfied by something merely looking cool, it stops looking so cool if it's being used to distract from short-comings or makes a false bid for sophistication.

You're not willing to proceed speculatively from matters of fact to matters of value, you're insisting that there must, by law, be some justification of the structure before you're even willing to engage the fact that that is just how it is structured, and to try and tease out how that works for the film and doesn't.

No, I want the structure to have an effect that enhances my experience of the film in a meaningful, substantial way. It didn't do that, and so I ask why. I proceeded in exactly the opposite order you describe.

And you're reason for wanting someone to convince you is because you suspect the director is being 'cynical.'

I don't get this. I want someone "to engage the fact that that is just how it is structured, and to try and tease out how that works for the film" because I think it doesn't. Until someone makes an argument for it on those terms, I'm left with my own judgement.

"How? What does that mean? That he's playing into the public's demonstrable, slavish taste for alinear, fragmented plot structures? Since when is that a 'popular' or formulaic convention?"

He's playing into the taste of a above-average film-goer for a measure of challenge and sophistication. As a friend of mine describes the experience of eating at Taco Bell: "the hunger's gone, but nothing's replaced it." I came away feeling that the film's structure functioned more or less like MSG. I'll be watching the film again, though. Maybe I'll change my mind.

What's 'cynical' about it? Do you just mean 'gimmicky'? But why 'gimmicky'? Because it's unusual? Why shouldn't each and every film that uses a linear plot be required to justify its use of linearity?

I think the fact of most films centering on plots dependent on chains of cause and effect is internal justification enough for linearity.

Do you find the director's explanation unconvincing?

I've already said as much.

Isn't that really how we do tell stories?

Sometimes.

What kind of explanation would satisfy you?

I don't know.

The very idea that the narrative has been 'restructured' is prejudicial.

It's a judgement arrived at from my dissatisfaction with the structure as it stands.

The idea that any 'deviant' narrative structure must justify itself vis a vis the default mode of 'linear' narrative (which, I suspect you know, is fraught with metaphysical connundra), is limiting.

Nevertheless unavoidable. The director understands the structure in exactly those terms.

The function it serves is immanent to the story itself. There isn't some isomimetic relationship between the plot and the structure, as there is in Memento, which I think is a lesser film. You spend time not knowing what's going on, the film proceeds the way one's recall of one's own life does. You have to correlate and correct different bits, and your internal sense of where you're 'at' in the plot is constantly shifting. Isn't the subjective experience of that interesting enough for you? Wouldn't it be far more 'cynical' or gimmicky if, a la Memento, there was some simple, wink-wink, it's structured this way because it has this one-to-one relationship with the content? Who needs that?

I agree, Memento is the lesser film. But I don't think 21 Grams functions as you claim it does. Again, the film you're describing sounds good to me; I'm just not sure 21 Grams is it.

Isn't that a bit like saying that the drums in 'When the Levee Breaks' are just there to conceal the fact that the song has no beat?

Only if it were true. Which is to say: to you yes; to me no. I guess.

Hmmm...are you sure you weren't high as a kite and watching the movie on a 12" TV screen? Somebody, somewhere in the world, should've months ago hipped you to the fact that this is a film that deserves to be seen in the theater...

No(!); no; where were you when I needed you?

I never said the structure was essential by virtue of---oh wait, yes I did. OK, what I was getting at was sort of IT'S HERE, IT'S QUEER, GET USED TO IT argument. Art works can't be derived from transcendental structures. So to try and determinately ground them is unfair and fruitless. Your charge of cynicism would make more sense if there was a) profit to be made or b) some hackneyed use of conventions that didn't serve to express anything.

My suspicion is b in the service of a.

Personally I think the fact that the movie requires you to work is enough;

I don't.

the juxtaposition of certain particular scenes next to one another, which couldn't be gotten from a linear plot, is affective enough to 'justify' the decision.

Again, I want to re-watch it. Would it remain as affective for you on repeated viewings?

It fills you alternately with dread and confusion.

But once the novelty has worn off, what then?

Like life.

But did it achieve it in a manner that was lifelike?

If it was structured another way, it would've been a less effective movie, probably. But that is a big 'if,' and I think if we're going to go around crippling artworks on the basis of how they might be weaker if they were significantly different, then that better than my points would render criticism irrelevant.

Usually I find myself asking what would have made an artwork stronger. My point is that the structure of 21 Grams may only make it look stronger. I think it's also possible that it works to the detrement of the film's real strength: the performances and the story told through them.

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