How To Get Lost... In Life

Tarsem’s The Fall #2 - Immersion

In this series I’m exploring the reasons why Tarsem’s “The Fall” is my favorite movie.

Seeing a movie for the first time can be awfully important because as the viewer goes along with the story they build up their attitudes, which will hardly change later. Now this doesn’t apply in all cases, since many art films heavily rely on alienation, absurdity and obscurity, all these undermining the importance of the first time, as the case is often that the conception and solidification of attitudes and a deeper understanding of the experience come later. In fact we regularly process movies after the event, however this is usually more of an adjustment in the case of genre movies.

One feature that I find overarching The Fall is its generosity and it is present and foremost here, in the field of immersion, as well as in many other places. The Fall, being an independent film with an R rating, didn’t have very much to win by being as viewer-friendly as it ended up being. My argument is that this film is enjoyable and not at all puzzling at the first time viewing but it serves an artistic purpose and not popularity.

I found two interconnected parts of the film that helped it accomplish this feat.

#1: Placing us in Alexandria’s point of view. First off, a child seems a relatable protagonist, since everyone has been one. Her being in a hospital with a broken arm seems like nothing out of the ordinary; even if one has never had a broken bone, there’s nothing predominantly exotic about it.

#2: The narrative arc is gradual. To delay the exposure of the audience to the more powerful motifs of a film is a hard thing to do because it requires confidence in the script and performances and high payoff value expectation. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the story’s starting point is very familiar and seemingly simple. When we are shown the characters and their depths, the movie follows a classic formula: we start with more mundane details and progressively move toward the more dramatic. A juxtaposition: in today’s storytelling it’s more common to try to shock the viewer early on and thus induce an immediate and strong emotional response.

The Fall follows through with this approach of gradual expansion on every layer, e.g. Roy’s story starts out as an independent tale, which is very safe and light, then it becomes inseparable with their reality and concerns the darkest and hardest topics around the end. In this narrative mode the audience is granted safety from confusion, as there’s an obvious story on the top that is entertaining in itself. At the same time, however, the more profound layers of the film, through being concentrated in the later parts, can be encountered without the deception that sudden shocks and an ensuing emotional chaos would have caused. Thus I think the art in The Fall is exquisitely genuine and can be experienced as such, which is a very rare merit.

young Shakespeare has done it again. actually no, he's not young, he's thirty-something and that's technically dead. still, pretty powerful suff for an old man

Visiting Chyna’s family in Kentucky and I saw a gazebo and figured it needed to have a song about it.

The Great Gatsby and Iron Man

We've all heard the voices, which are wildly against adaptations and reboots but why can't we just appreciate cinema and enjoy it? And yes, it's often rubbish...

The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby  (via sunst0ne)

Zelda and F Scott Fitzgerald

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The Oscars & La La Land

Many passionate people were worried this year that Damian Chazelle’s La La Land would steal the award of Best Picture from the daring project, titled Moonlight. To their great avail, it did not happen but I was rather confused by the arguments they presented as ground for Moonlight to win. Surprisingly it never came up that it would be simply a quality film, worthy in its own right to win. The main reason was its theme. 

While I myself am decidedly left-leaning, for me the Academy Awards are about excellence in film. Yet, I see a multitude of people, sharing my convictions, being completely biased toward or against certain artistic creations based on said convictions. For example, a loud outlet of ideas and opinions, Vox, made a video, which highlighted that the current voting system of the Oscars favors the films that have the highest general esteem, as opposed to other ones, which may be polarizing but have the most individual votes. While either way would be legitimate and fine, the preferential voting system might be a bit more precisely geared toward rightly selecting victors. The basic concept is key: we are looking for the best film of the year. If we get a polarizing winner, there will be a powerful minority--even more, since we’re not having a choice of 2 pieces but of multiple, so probably a majority that opposes the winning movie. Thus this system of selection can prove completely erroneous, since the largest minority deems a movie good, while the majority may say it is actually a product of poor filmmaking.

Now I am happy for Moonlight to have won the award but it has to be absolutely clear what its victory means: it is the best picture of the year from an artistic-commercial standpoint. As trivial as it sounds, most advocates of this film called it worthy and important for political, or human rights reasons. It seems progressive to award movies with politically progressive themes but Moonlight’s excellence cannot lie in the skin color of its actors. It can win awards for that but not by the Academy but by organizations or political agents.

In fact I posit a film’s political merits are unimportant details, when it comes to the Oscars. And if for many more decades we wouldn’t see black crews getting the award for best picture, it wouldn’t matter from the perspective of the legitimacy of the Academy or the prestige of the prize. It would and should mean that there are no good enough films made about this subject matter. Moonlight was this year’s best picture, according to the Academy, for its cinematic merits. Even so, were the case different, had they won because of the theme of the lives of people of color, their achievement would be nullified--their Oscar would become meaningless. 

In my opinion La La Land was a rightful contender. The fact that it dealt with life in Hollywood was not a red flag of being Oscar bait. The truth of the matter is, most mainstream directors are actually passionate about the industry and the place, they wake up with it on their minds and go to bed with it--it permeates their everyday, they get their joy from it, even their bread from it.

Damian Chazelle is well-known for his love of films akin to his own creation, so its his genuine love-child. It, in a way, goes against Hollywood shallowness by depleting the idea of easy living presented by classic musicals and generic rom-coms in a witty, satirical way. It is an achievement. But that is just one facet of the movie, designed for people who breathe that in daily. On a deeper level there is a very unique, yet old idea explained to us in great fashion: the dreams and passions define people’s personalities. 

Its truth can be argued but it hit a chord with many a viewers. The general expectation toward any musical is that it should be light and alleviating from the pains of the real world. In La La Land we get just the opposite: we have to face our internal conflicts and routine compromises that corrupt us and make our lives mediocre. Of course, there is a great narrative balance: we get something to learn and we get a little escapade. The profound idea and conflict is our lesson and the shimmering sets, combined with the ghastly beauty of the music is our break from reality.

La La Land reverberates the old American way of grand gestures and grandiose ambitions. It slowly died out from the everydays in the ‘60s but they are surfacing again in the works of this writer-director. 

Finally, I cannot end without praising La La Land’s ending. There are almost as many interpretations as there were audience members. One can easily find convincing and intelligent opinions, which certainly seem to coincide with the creator’s vision. However, returning to the underlying concept of the film I think the strongest side of it is how it shows the characters’ humanity, idealized but torn down to the ruins. 

The most obvious thought about the final sequence is that “it should have been” their story. At the end of the movie we have a lot of sympathy toward the protagonists and we are greatly saddened by the failure of their relationship. However, we should try to step outside from our perspectives, after all, that is what immersion is all about... From the characters’ point of view we find the same summary of “it should have been”, but it means more than from the mouth of someone sitting in a movie theater. It means “I have erred, I should have done it differently.” I think this is a great addition to the already intriguing basic concept. 

The main characters have cultivated their dreams and passions and thus their personalities have become the amazing thing they always wanted--it is inspirational, yet not unrealistic. It is actually a viable route in life to develop ourselves in fields we are passionate about, people do not lose their fortunes because of their dreams or passions but because of external hardships or internal flaws. But this inspiring journey is contrasted with a personal failure. Love is undeniably an important part of life--it is argued against only by the cynics. On the forefront of human happiness we find both personal growth and love. These both determine our happiness and it is not a zero sum game, where we must choose one of the two. But it is true that we can be successful at one and lose tragically on the other.

The best thing :)

Wish I had what I needed To be on my own ‘Cause I feel so defeated And I’m feeling alone  And it all seems so helpless And I have no plans I’m a plane in the sunset  With no where to land 

And all I see It could never make me happy  And all my sandcastles  Spend their time collapsing

Let me know that you hear me Let me know your touch  Let me know that you love me  Let that be enough 

It’s my birthday tomorrow  No one here could know I was born this Thursday Twenty-two years ago  And I feel stuck watching history repeating Yeah, who am I? Just a kid who knows he’s needy.

Let me know that you hear me Let me know your touch  Let me know that you love me  Let that be enough

Let me know that you hear me Let me know your touch  Let me know that you love me  Let that be enough

Procrastinating and ending it

Yes, so I've been indulging myself with a lot of things lately just because everything was looking so very up. But this 'era of peace' is over. Not that something is spoiling my life's apparent balance, simply I am lusting for more concentrated self-induced chaos. By that I mean of course work. Unlike most modern artists, I wouldn't want to be given that free space for creativity, but I really wish to be active and not in only one field but in as many as I can possibly manage. Getting work done! starting TOMORROW! (for a fact)

Remember this: randomness rules ;)