Nicolas Winding Refn and the supremacy of style over story

[Nicolas Courdouan]

I honestly don't understand the controversy here. Only God Forgives has an easy to understand, revenge-based plot. The characters I also found easy to read. Underneath the visuals is a very straight forward, almost conventional story the likes of which you might see in the Western or Samurai genre. Revenge is a universal, human theme that's found in both.

 

The debate never was about how complicated or obscure the film's plot was, but rather whether or not its plot mattered at all to the director.

 

It seems to me this movie was made not with the intention to tell a story, but rather to display stylish visuals without purpose. Create a mood and atmosphere through colours, light, editing, sounds and music, with a nearly complete disregard for the actual plot.

 

Oh and I don't mean that in a bad way. Valhalla Rising is by far my favourite film by Refn.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Sean Cunningham]

And I don't believe that at all. There is no evidence of this based on previous films or listening to the director himself talk about filmmaking and storytelling. The fact that a solid story is present there, beneath the stylish means of telling the story, is evidence enough. It is only the disregard or unawareness of the story that's there with its very easy to follow characters that would create such a theory, IMO.

 

There was purpose to the visuals. They were not random. That's why I reject any comparison of this film to Lynch as rather lazy, pedestrian film commentary. NWR isn't throwing in imagery of young boys in phallic Venetian masks hopping around out of the blue. The visuals and odd circumstances are all related to character. They're not an artificial, disconnected layer of aesthetic meant to provoke an emotional response without a direct connection to either the story or character.

 

His influences have no regard for plot. If you want to see what that's really like take a look at maybe NWR's greatest influence, the collective works of Kenneth Anger. Anger's Lucifer Rising is his favorite film. That is what a disregard for plot looks like. Look at Scorpio Rising and Kustom Kar Kommandos. You will see many of the visual motifs seen in NWR's films but, thankfully, he tempers this influence with a very solid underlying story.

Edited October 9, 2013 by Sean Cunningham

[Nicolas Courdouan]

What I don't believe at all is that "a solid story is present" in this film. The story was flimsy at best. I doubt the script ever exceeded 60 pages. I strongly believe that Refn thought the style would be enough to hold the film together, and this failed because like I said in a previous post, the style did not renew itself throughout the film and failed to keep things fresh.

 

The story was totally irrelevant, unambitious and uninspired. It was your basic revenge plot that you've seen hundreds of time, with nothing new added to the mix. Style was all that mattered to Refn, as he thought it would be enough to turn the most boring plot of the last ten years into a powerful arthouse film. But in this case, it wasn't good enough.

 

It's pretty hard to make a 90-minute long film boring, but NWR might have just achieved that with this film.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Nicolas Courdouan]

I want to add that I don't mean to be harsh on Refn, who like I said before is - to me - the most interesting filmmaker of these last few years.

 

I just believe that Only God Forgives is the work of a filmmaker who fell in love with his style so much that he tried to make a film that relied on it exclusively, using a story that was anything but as an excuse to just go out there and shoot stuff. And everything would have worked out just fine, had this style sufficed to convey something more. But I think it didn't.

[Sean Cunningham]

Again. Story is not script. Dialog is not story. The number of pages are entirely irrelevant. Dialog is what pads the length of a script, most of it saying nothing of consequence. I'm sure there's a mumblecore forum around here somewhere though with a writer-centric view of the filmmaking process.

 

Until we humans evolve to have greater motivations that love, hate, revenge, greed, etc. then I reject the notion that a "simple" revenge plot is somehow low grade storytelling. Yes, we've seen it before, like everything else. By your own judgement Yojimbo is a bad film. It has no compelling dialog. None of Leone's masterpieces do either, or most of the Kurosawa films that I've seen, all of which can be reduced to simple stories based on basic, human motivations.

 

The story was there. Simple and human, like what you'll find in a majority of the best films ever made, especially the classics. Personally, I prefer complex, compelling visuals to a writer's attempt to be clever by making a simple story more complicated than it needs to be. Filling a page with needless exposition that will ultimately affect the audience less than a carefully constructed held frame or series of images.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Sean Cunningham

[Nicolas Courdouan]

Until we humans evolve to have greater motivations that love, hate, revenge, greed, etc. then I reject the notion that a "simple" revenge plot is somehow low grade storytelling. Yes, we've seen it before, like everything else. By your own judgement Yojimbo is a bad film. It has no compelling dialog. None of Leone's masterpieces do either, or most of the Kurosawa films that I've seen, all of which can be reduced to simple stories based on basic, human motivations.

 

Wrong. You misunderstand my point. Only God Forgives not only had a poorly developed story, it had a poor repetitive style that failed on all counts. It wasn't original, it wasn't beautiful, it wasn't entertaining. And that is the only reason why the film is a failure.

 

If you re-read my posts from this thread - if you can be bothered - you will see that I don't care about compelling dialogues, intricate plot points, or "complicated" screenplays. What I care about the most is style. Mainly cinematography. And yes, cinematography conveys story (although I vehemently argue against it serving the script - I mean story as in thematic thread). But there was nothing in Only God Forgives that made me feel or think anything. Which are the only requisites for any film as far as I'm concerned. If I don't feel or think anything about it, the movie fails. Whether it is the simplest revenge story or a groundbreaking attempt at destroying all the rules of filmmaking, if I don't feel or if the movie doesn't make me think, it fails.

 

Personally, I prefer complex, compelling visuals to a writer's attempt to be clever by making a simple story more complicated than it needs to be.

 

You just described everything that was wrong with Only God Forgives. It was pretentious and boring. The two most fatal flaws a film can have. The director was so in love with the aesthetics of his shots that he completely forgot to stop and ask himself whether they were worth making a film about or not. They really were not.

 

He said so himself when he described the idea that turned into Only God Forgives.

 

Nicolas Winding Refn holds out his arm, palm up, then clenches his fist. "I wanted to make a film about this image".

 

Cool story, right?

 

If you want to make a film that relies exclusively on its style, or about people clenching their fists, then you'd better make sure your style will be the be-all end-all of styles and will keep people in awe for an hour and a half.

 

I thought Only God Forgives was more an attempt at artistic masturbation than a film at all.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Sean Cunningham]

Sorry, but you're going to have to do better than "because I said so." It did not have a poorly developed story. It had a very simple story that was very easy to follow.

 

All I read is opinion that doesn't jive with the fact of my experience or any meaningful examples or dissection to back any part of it up. What's repetitive and failing is the repeated rhetoric without substance falsely credited as criticism. ITT very wordy youtube comment hating.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

Wow, this is getting funny.

 

All I read in your posts is your opinion. All I read in mine is my opinion. What else did you expect? What else can you expect from a conversation about whether somebody liked a film or not?

 

Where are your meaningful examples? Phallic Venetian masks? I should hail this film as a good one because its director used phallic imagery throughout the film? Come on...

 

Do you really think that your super argument "The fact that a solid story is present" cannot be countered by an equally subjective opinion of the contrary? You haven't given any fact backing up your side of the argument. The difference is that I don't expect you to.

 

All I'm interested in is your personal opinion, and how it conflicts with mine. I already know you won't be able to find any hard evidence for or against the opinions you try to pass as facts. We're essentially saying "I fthought it was a boring film that had nothing to offer" vs. "It was a good film that had a lot to offer."Try and and show me the evidence that I didn't get bored watching it.

 

You probably have a lot of spare time on your hands. Good for you.

 

Here's a fact : Only God Forgives failed to keep me interested, entertained, or appreciative of its director's intentions. I can therefore only describe it as a big nothing.

 

It sure could have worked as a 10-minute short film though, I'll give you that. I just never understood, throughout its 90-minute running time, what exactly made this project meaningful or worthy of being a film at all.

Edited October 11, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[James Steven Beverly]

There is NO great film that has EVER pulled this particular rabbit out of it's ass! You need to go find a cave somewhere and wall yourself inside for a few years to figure out what CINEMA actually is, because at present, you COULDN'T BUY a XXXXing clue if you owned a XXXXING OIL WELL! AGAIN, this is an exorcise in futility, but THERE IS NO CINEMA WITHOUT STORY!!! EEVVEERRYYTTHHIINGG within each and every SINGLE XXXXING FRAME of EACH 24 FPS motion picture SERVES THE XXXXING PLOT!!!! WITHOUT PLOT YOU HAVE NO MOVIE!! What you have is a bunch of beautiful random images, that in the end, add up to JACK 5HIT!! STYLE without PLOT is like trying to drink a soda from a Pepsi commercial! NOTHING IS REAL!! It is smoke an mirrors that is, as Shakespeare put it,"Life's (IN THIS CASE the life of CINEMA WITHOUT PLOT) but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)" But honestly, I think the more appropriate metaphor for this particular assertion is found in an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" re-imagined for the stage as "A Little Night Music" (Stephen Sondheim, 1973) in a song title called "Send in the Clowns"! All I'm experiencing here is calliope music and the smell of white pancake. Then again, you can not teach those who will not learn! So to take a line from "Donnie Brasco" "Fogettaboutit!"

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZf0ZyoUn7Vk&ei=ROpYUpGOFonA9QTol4GYCA&usg=AFQjCNF6TLWfyIKWrJAoUjw2UqAc6gEPoQ

 

 

 

 

[Nicolas Courdouan]

There is NO great film that has EVER pulled this particular rabbit out of it's ass! You need to go find a cave somewhere and wall yourself inside for a few years to figure out what CINEMA actually is, because at present, you COULDN'T BUY a XXXXing clue if you owned a XXXXING OIL WELL! AGAIN, this is an exorcise in futility, but THERE IS NO CINEMA WITHOUT STORY!!! EEVVEERRYYTTHHIINGG within each and every SINGLE XXXXING FRAME of EACH 24 FPS motion picture SERVES THE XXXXING PLOT!!!! WITHOUT PLOT YOU HAVE NO MOVIE!! What you have is a bunch of beautiful random images, that in the end, add up to JACK 5HIT!! STYLE without PLOT is like trying to drink a soda from a Pepsi commercial! NOTHING IS REAL!! It is smoke an mirrors that is, as Shakespeare put it,"Life's (IN THIS CASE the life of CINEMA WITHOUT PLOT) but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)" But honestly, I think the more appropriate metaphor for this particular assertion is found in an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" re-imagined for the stage as "A Little Night Music" (Stephen Sondheim, 1973) in a song title called "Send in the Clowns"! All I'm experiencing here is calliope music and the smell of white pancake. Then again, you can not teach those who will not learn! So to take a line from "Donnie Brasco" "Fogettaboutit!"

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZf0ZyoUn7Vk&ei=ROpYUpGOFonA9QTol4GYCA&usg=AFQjCNF6TLWfyIKWrJAoUjw2UqAc6gEPoQ

 

 

Mmh-mm... So err...what exactly was your point again?

 

Or did you just choose to unearth this old debate without reading what the newer discussion between Sean and I was about? The whole point of my messages was that Only God Forgives had a story and sucked anyway.

 

I really don't know why you came up with that whole "style without story" argument again. We're passed that. You don't call story what I call story. Now let's move on.

 

And please, stop it with the all-caps words already. It doesn't make your point any clearer at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

As for movies never being able to make it without a plot-centric approach (since "plot" is what I have consistently referred to as "story" in my posts since I first created this thread), I encourage you to watch the following and broaden your horizon a little bit:

 

- The Mirror and Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky

- La Vie Nouvelle, by Philippe Grandrieux

- An Andalusian Dog, by Luis Bunuel

- Waking Life and Generation X, by Richard Linklater

- Lost In Translation, by Sofia Coppola

- the Three Colours trilogy, by Krzystof Kieslowski

- Everything Stan Brakhage has ever made

- Begotten, by E. Elias Merhige

- Koyaanisqatsi, and the whole Qatsi trilogy while you're at it, by Godfrey Reggio

- Baraka and its follow-up Samsara, by Ron Frickle

- The Thin Red Line, by Terrence Mallick (also: The New World and The Tree of Life come to mind)

- Clerks, by Kevin Smith

 

That's off the top of my head.

 

You're welcome.

Edited October 12, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Sean Cunningham]

And you don't have to throw a stone very far to find people who will, quite strongly, assert that most of these films are terrible, or failures, or every negative description I've read hurled at Only God Forgives. Not saying I'm one of them (though there are a few), but I'm stating a truth here. And a lot of them can back that opinion up with something less indefensibly subjective than "it sucked."

Edited October 12, 2013 by Sean Cunningham

[James Steven Beverly]

"You don't call story what I call story" . OK, I'm relaxed, had a beer and am calm. What the XXXX does that mean? Explain what YOU (oh sorry for the caps but DOES convey a visual means of expressing my frustration with this thread) mean? I'm not jumping on you, maybe I'm not understanding your interpretation of the definition of "story" which I use synonymously as "plot". Enlighten me. WHAT in your mind constitutes "plot"?

Edited October 13, 2013 by James Steven Beverly

[James Steven Beverly]

"Only God Forgives had a story and sucked anyway" Just a point of clarity, simply because a film has a story doesn't mean it's gonna be a GOOD movie. It has to be a good story, well executed that engages an audience. Great style pushes a good movie to a great movie but great style alone can never save a film devoid of substance, though elements can be gleaned from stylish, empty movies and salvaged to create true works o art. It happens again and again, style is salvaged from pointless films and recycled into fine art. Inspiration can be gleaned from a myriad of sources and a great director seeks out these obscure trash heaps mining the inspiration he needs to find the art within his sole, but the skeletal superstructure of a great film is story. Style is the edifice that adorns is facade.

[Gregg MacPherson]

Words belong to those that use them. One can say this and accept that language is a shifting, living thing. Or, one can be rigid or a fussy pedant, holding to fixed definitions that ignore common usage and evolvement. So what is "story"? And who has the right to define what it means? Equating story to plot is very limiting.

 

There is a tendency for film makers to romanticize and expand the notion of story and story telling. There is a sort of implied emotional, social and spiritual integration in the story word. An implication of wholeness. What the deconstruction crew might call the means of expressing or giving form to story is actually an integral part of that notion (the notion of "story").

 

Or not, as we see on these pages. Rationalizing or reducing "story" to mean "plot". Is this a deconstruction artifact? Does the universe need to be resolved as neatly fitting parts? Why is the dominant means of inquiry the examination of parts? Is this compromising our receptivity and sensitivity towards the more integrated, the more whole?

 

If those going to the cinema long only for "story" as "plot" with some formal embellishments, along with their popcorn and their chance for a good snog, then let the pragmatists rule. One can give up, I would say, on the audience and the cinema. But one could argue that elements in the audience long for poetry and magic. It (that) is inexpressible as a deconstructed collection of parts. So what value has that approach towards delivering this thing that they long for?

 

I would argue that a small element within each and all of the audience has some longing and receptivity for poetry and magic.

[James Steven Beverly]

Look, I'm a practical guy. I deal in imagery that tells a story. What happens within the story is what constitutes plot. Leave poetry to Shelley and Byron and magic to Merlin and Doug Henning. What does that mean, anyway? Poetry and freakin' MAGIC?!! If that's what audiences wanted, the only movies made would be about guys in tuxedos spouting Shakespearean sonnets as he saws his beautiful, sequined clad assistant in half while simultaneously pulling a rabbit out of a top hat. What audiences want is stories that they relate to, themes and characters that they identify with, films that draw them in and let them live vicariously through the people on screen.

 

Here's the crux of the problem, you think film making is an art. It's not. Film is a craft. Film makers are artisans. The crew are collaborators that serve the director's vision. The director, in turn, is dependent on the writer's script. All are kept in check by the producers which are limited by the investors and ultimately by the budget. Magic and poetry have nothing to do with this process. Practical problem solving aptitude and basic people skills combined with imagination. drive, flexibility and dogged stalwartness are what make the project breath and live.

 

NO ONE with any brains goes out to make a great movie. You go out to finish a movie on time and on budget because as William Goldman once said, "No one knows anything" and that means it's not up to you. ALL you can do is make your movie to the best of your ability and bring it in when you say you will and for what you say it will cost. Beyond that, it is 100% the audience who decides if it is a great movie or a do or something in between. Vision is a necessity but it is also NEVER 100% of what you envisioned. There are too many people between you and your vision, all necessarily adding their own essential visions to yours and in the end, it ends up a representation of your original vision, but on a positive note, it's usually far better than the original.

Edited October 14, 2013 by James Steven Beverly

[Nicolas Courdouan]

"You don't call story what I call story" . OK, I'm relaxed, had a beer and am calm. What the XXXX does that mean? Explain what YOU (oh sorry for the caps but DOES convey a visual means of expressing my frustration with this thread) mean? I'm not jumping on you, maybe I'm not understanding your interpretation of the definition of "story" which I use synonymously as "plot". Enlighten me. WHAT in your mind constitutes "plot"?

Hello again James. Had a Guinness too. Feels great. I'm in the mood for a calm, relaxed discussion without too many all-caps words.

 

Story = plot for me too. Whenever I wrote "story" in this thread, I meant "plot".

 

Here is my problem with the supremacy of plot (note that I did not write "importance of plot", since I deem plot extremely important - as far as narrative cinema is concerned anyway - I wrote the "supremacy of plot"): plot has weakened filmmaking. Because plot is a series of actions and events that are exactly the same whether they are written on a piece of paper or shot and edited into a film. Plot is everywhere, and it is always the same thing. A plot is a story.

 

My problem as far as we are all concerned here is this: if plot is ultimately the one thing that really matters to make a film great, then the main point of reference to judge or appraise the quality of a film becomes the plot. Which means that watching a film is exactly the same as reading a book without paying attention to the choice of words: all we become interested in is "what happens next?" and "is that satisfying?".

 

Humans crave stories and I'm fine with that. I do love stories as much as the next guy and I'm not here trying to establish one form of cinema as superior over another. The only thing I'm trying to get you to admit is that there are other forms of cinema out there, that do not rely on plot or do not even need a plot, and are yet just as valid as a form of filmmaking as narrative cinema is.

 

Certainly, these other forms of cinema do not make as much money as commercial narrative films, and in return do not get as much exposure as them, but they are still cinema. Because ultimately the definition of what a film is has nothing to do with whether it has a story or not - it's all about moving pictures on a screen, and nothing more. Can we at least agree on that? That would make my day.

 

So my point is that a film does not need a story to be a film. It would appear that a film needs a story to make millions at the box office though, there's no denying that. But I am not here to diss narrative films or spit at commercial cinema. They are great and I need them as much as you do.

 

Our main disagreement is seeing cinema as an art vs. a craft. You see it as the latter, and that is only true of big blockbusters, Film has always been an art form, and is defined as such in every single dictionary I've ever read. Maybe you don't see it as an art, and well, fine. Whatever floats your boat.

 

I however believe in cinema as an art form. That doesn't mean that I believe a film can change the world, but it can definitely change a person's view on life and leave an indelible print on history - as many movies have in the past -

 

And to that end, movies do not need to rely on plot. To move someone, you don't need a plot. You can just show them a few images edited together with or without sound/music.

 

I'm in a bit of a hurry, but I'll catch up with the rest of your posts + Sean's and Gregg's and come back for more.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Gregg MacPherson]

@James

 

Poetry, meaning the poetic. Magic, meaning the magical. These two words being used to suggest experience that transcends beyond the prosaic. Films containing or illustrating or founded on these qualities exist. Sometimes near or in the main stream cinema, or gradually accepted into the main stream.

Perhaps art in film and film makers who are artists or who attempt great films are like blue eyed dogs. Uncommon, and it may be more convenient for some to pretend that they just do not exist. Same for this problematic yearning for art that might exist within the audience. Problematic? Well, to be fair, neither Cameron's Avatar nor Lynch's Erazerhead seem to find this problematic at all.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

I believe that in general, but not as a rule, movies should be more than the plot they offer. i think plot, like cinematography, is no more than a tool that filmmakers can - but do not have to - use to achieve whatever their goal is.

 

Again, I'm not saying that films should serve a higher existential purpose nor should they aspire to reveal the truth of existence. There's nothing more annoying than a pompous film. There are far more modest goals, which I think are essential to a filmmaker's motivations to get on board a two to three-year project -in most cases-

 

For example, a filmmaker may want to study a certain aspect of life or an emotion. I don't mean "study" as in offering us a thesis in film form, although they are certainly allowed to do that if they so please, but maybe try to use images and sounds to recreate this emotion and manipulate their audience into feeling it. One of the latest examples coming to mind is Von Trier's Melancholia.

 

Or a filmmaker may just want to adapt a story they love, or even get a quick paycheck. Why not? I too wouldn't mind directing a high-adrenaline summer blockbuster some day. Maybe. I can see the appeal.

 

But James, what I mean is that this is just one example of what cinema can do, and there is a bigger world out there. You can choose the one that suits you and pretend the rest is not real, but it is. And Tarkovsky has made The Mirror. This is the world we live in.

 

None is better than the other. Certainly, one is louder and more ominous than the other. My fear is that cinema as a whole becomes nothing more than a plot, when the plot should only be a tool serving a greater purpose (even if that greater purpose is nothing more than entertaining the masses).

 

There is a reason why the simplest expression of cinema is moving images. Moving images are all you need to make a film, regardless of how shallow or deep, how explicit or arcane its plot is (David Lynch, I salute you). Plot is a drop in an ocean of tools. Take it away, you still have an ocean. Isolate it and put it on a pedestal, and you'll have a drop.

 

If you're hellbent on telling a story and nothing more, ask yourself this: Why a film? It's an expensive and exhausting process. Why not grab a pen and write that story instead? Why not make a song about it? Why not draw a graphic novel?

 

Why would you choose film, if it does not mean anything more than the story it tells? What will set your film apart from a book telling the same story? From a song telling the same story? From a movie telling the same story but made by somebody else? The answer: Everything BUT the story. The "how". The subtext. The essence. The "style". Your story has been told a thousand times before. The only thing that matters is how you're going to make it more than a plot. And the only thing that can help you is your ability to express it with the array of tools at your disposal, which I call "style".

Edited October 14, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Nicolas Courdouan]

NO ONE with any brains goes out to make a great movie.

 

-> I sure hope that this is not what you thought I meant, because you are absolutely right. But I believe one makes a film because this film is going to be important, to mean something for them. And once it's out there, they can only hope that audiences will find it as important and meaningful as they did.

[Nicolas Courdouan]

And you don't have to throw a stone very far to find people who will, quite strongly, assert that most of these films are terrible, or failures, or every negative description I've read hurled at Only God Forgives. Not saying I'm one of them (though there are a few), but I'm stating a truth here. And a lot of them can back that opinion up with something less indefensibly subjective than "it sucked."

Hi Sean.

 

I believe I have done exactly that. Only God Forgives did not work for me because I took it as an overlong attempt from Refn to say something it would have taken 5 minutes to say. I thought the film was empty, because its simple plot was not elevated in any way by its cinematography or editing. I could not care less about the protagonist nor the antagonist - the only remotely interesting character being the mother - and I had nothing else to hold onto as I watched.

 

At the end of the day, I was bored, and hoping for a quick death halfway through the film.

 

All these arguments you will find in my previous posts. I don't know what more I can say. The film's biggest flaw was that I did not even hate it. I was indifferent to it.

 

What you say is true though, and many people find my favourite movies (Blade Runner and The Mirror) extremely boring and a waste of screen space. Such is the nature of cinema. And I'm not here to try and convince you that you should find OGF to be a bad film. It is my opinion and nothing more. Somehow I even hope that you can convince me that I missed the point and that I should give it another try. You have failed so far.

Edited October 14, 2013 by Nicolas Courdouan

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

....I'm not saying that films should serve a higher existential purpose nor should they aspire to reveal the truth of existence. .......

Here, for me is an interesting, almost commentary on the discussion. You see, for me, it's not that they should do, but whether we will allow that they could do (reveal some truth about existence, life). Reading James, it's as though they should not do. I don't agree with that at all.

 

I also have a hiccup when modern folk reach naturally for existentialism with reference to existence, meaning, truth. For me, though I have barely glanced at Sartre, it feels like a kind anti-profound field of thinking, or an idea doomed to be misunderstood. (Oh the conceit of me).. Sort of like democracy voting for a totalitarian government. But we're just talking, hopefully unguardedly, without the requirement that anyone needs to be wrong.

 

I think a lot of films remind us of what we really are, what the universe is, without being pompous. Perhaps what we are doing as conceptors (thinkers), writers, film makers, artists, is more important that the degree to which we understand it (understand what we are doing)..

[Gregg MacPherson]

Sorry for my quite bad typing. I meant to say ...

 

Perhaps what we are doing as conceptors (thinkers), writers, film makers, artists, is more important than the degree to which we understand it (understand what we are doing)..

[James Steven Beverly]

Hello again James. Had a Guinness too. Feels great. I'm in the mood for a calm, relaxed discussion without too many all-caps words.

 

Story = plot for me too. Whenever I wrote "story" in this thread, I meant "plot".

 

Here is my problem with the supremacy of plot (note that I did not write "importance of plot", since I deem plot extremely important - as far as narrative cinema is concerned anyway - I wrote the "supremacy of plot"): plot has weakened filmmaking. Because plot is a series of actions and events that are exactly the same whether they are written on a piece of paper or shot and edited into a film. Plot is everywhere, and it is always the same thing. A plot is a story.

 

My problem as far as we are all concerned here is this: if plot is ultimately the one thing that really matters to make a film great, then the main point of reference to judge or appraise the quality of a film becomes the plot. Which means that watching a film is exactly the same as reading a book without paying attention to the choice of words: all we become interested in is "what happens next?" and "is that satisfying?".

 

Humans crave stories and I'm fine with that. I do love stories as much as the next guy and I'm not here trying to establish one form of cinema as superior over another. The only thing I'm trying to get you to admit is that there are other forms of cinema out there, that do not rely on plot or do not even need a plot, and are yet just as valid as a form of filmmaking as narrative cinema is.

 

Certainly, these other forms of cinema do not make as much money as commercial narrative films, and in return do not get as much exposure as them, but they are still cinema. Because ultimately the definition of what a film is has nothing to do with whether it has a story or not - it's all about moving pictures on a screen, and nothing more. Can we at least agree on that? That would make my day.

 

So my point is that a film does not need a story to be a film. It would appear that a film needs a story to make millions at the box office though, there's no denying that. But I am not here to diss narrative films or spit at commercial cinema. They are great and I need them as much as you do.

 

Our main disagreement is seeing cinema as an art vs. a craft. You see it as the latter, and that is only true of big blockbusters, Film has always been an art form, and is defined as such in every single dictionary I've ever read. Maybe you don't see it as an art, and well, fine. Whatever floats your boat.

 

I however believe in cinema as an art form. That doesn't mean that I believe a film can change the world, but it can definitely change a person's view on life and leave an indelible print on history - as many movies have in the past -

 

And to that end, movies do not need to rely on plot. To move someone, you don't need a plot. You can just show them a few images edited together with or without sound/music.

 

I'm in a bit of a hurry, but I'll catch up with the rest of your posts + Sean's and Gregg's and come back for more.

Dude, it's not. When it comes to your work, YOU don't decide what art is. You're AUDIENCE decides if you created art or not. As for script being akin to a book, you couldn't be more wrong. I write my own material. When I write for the screen, I write VISUALLY! Film is a visual medium. a book is an intellectual exorcise. A book can dedicate a chapter on describing the sewers of Paris, in a film, there is NO NEED to describe anything, It's there, on the screen right before your eyes. One example I LOVE is "Legend" particularly the Ultimate Edition director's cut. The imagery is BRILLIANT, it is stunning. yet EVERYTHING within the frame of every image was motivated by plot and story. See this is where you're screwing up, there is NO DIVISION between story and style. It is NEVER one or the other in a great movie. Style serves the story ALWAYS!! Take "Casablanca" . Without Michael Curtiz BRILLIANT casting and directing of Bogart, Bergman, Rains and Greenstreet, and the impeccable style of Carl Jules Weyl, the film would would have been a decent, forgettable feature. Had is the definition of style and plot melding into a work of genius. The movie's story is the structure that holds the style up. Without the story, the entire structure collapses and you are left with the remnants of a film that COULD have been great. Had Murray Burnett and his wife NOT visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 and were affected by the anti-Semitism they saw,. the original play would have never been written.Without this inspiration, there wouldn't even be that. During they trip, they went to a nightclub In the south of France that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and there found the prototype for Sam. ALL the elements of a film are a fusion of style and story. There really is a formula for great film, BUT, the recipe for creating it is unstable and requires an exterior, stabilizing element, audience acceptance, a rare and illusive component that limits the ability to manufacture great art. There are those who have prospected and found the mother-load, Spielberg, Hitchcock,Fellini, Lucas, Hawks, Cameron, Wilder, Scorsese, Allen, Lean, Huston, Capra, Scott, Ford, Lynch and s few rare others, but ultimately, TRUE art is in the purview of people you have never met, nor in most cases, WILL ever meet. You can not create art, you can only make a movie and when it comes right down to it, is any movie really "important"?! Life is important, love is important, science is important, politics are important, Environmental conservation is important, education is important, Freedom is important. We sell flickering light. We dispense ideology in 90 minute chunks. We lie at 24 frames per second and condense the illusion of reality into a tag line. I LOVE the movie industry but we're not curing brain cancer here. Stop taking yourself so seriously. IF you can make a movie that makes the audience forget about their daily grind and lets them live in a more interesting world even for just a little while, then you have done something, something of value and THAT is all one can ask of one's self because in the end, that's all you can give back to the world, a little piece of yourself. Let "ART" sort it's self out because NO MATTER what you do, YOU can't affect the nebulous decision that makes your work art so you might as well just try qne enjoy the work you do and hope someone gets it .

[Nicolas Courdouan]

Which makes me want to add this:

 

I believe that aside from the primal "did I like this film or not?" everybody asks themselves while/after watching a film, the only truly important aspect that makes or breaks a film is its director's intention(s).

 

OK... Maybe this is another step taken towards the deconstruction process.

 

There are numerous intentions a director can have when signing on a project. Their primary ambition might be to entertain. Make the audiences laugh, cry, or take them on an emotional roller coaster, from one extreme to the next. Maybe they want to scare them to death. Or their intentions might be to talk about the horrors of war, or praise war as a necessary evil. Talk about the life of a person they admire. The list is endless.

 

The point being that plot is only an instrument that serves these ambitions. It is not the primal element giving birth to the film, it is just another of its ingredients.

 

No matter how great the plot is, no matter how great the cinematography, etc. are, if the director's ambitions are irrelevant, abject, missing the point or missing their mark, the movie will be a failure. This will make or break the film.

 

If you're trying to entertain and your audience is bored, you've failed.

If you tried to make them laugh, and they walk out stern-faced, you've failed.

If you're trying to display the beauty of the natural world, and end up praising urban architecture, you've failed.

 

This is truly what makes or breaks a film. If the audience understands the point of your film, and if they see an earnest desire from you to give them something, they will praise it as a successful enterprise, regardless of whether there is a plot or not.

 

If they don't understand it, or if your point is lost on them, the movie fails.

 

Dude, it's not. When it comes to your work, YOU don't decide what art is.

This is not what I am saying though. All I'm saying is that the work you put out has to be meaningful to you. If it's meaningful to you, chances are it will be to somebody else, but you can only hope that it will.

 

We can then delve into what constitutes art or not.

 

Here's what the Oxford dictionary think art is:

 

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

 

How does cinema not apply?

 

Nick