The Natural

I used to think--and perhaps still do, that films ought to strive for realism. They call this naturalism, where films attempt to imitate the world. And yet, many films clearly do not do this. In fact, most of us want films to take us to worlds we've never been. Films often introduce us to people that, were they real, live on the edges of society. They're more violent, more passionate, more quirky than anyone we know.

When people run out of ideas, they often lean to incongruous behavior. Let's look at a few examples. In Million Dollar Baby, Clint Eastwood is studying Gaelic. Did he need to study Gaelic? But he does so to add a little something different to his personality, so he isn't just like any other trainer. Or in Me, You, and Everyone We Know, one of the sons is obsessively neat, and he meets a girl who's similarly obsessive. In Chungking Express, a woman cleans the apartment of a cop that she longs for from afar. In Three Iron, the main character breaks into houses, and also cleans up and repairs the house, and takes pictures of himself as he's there.

At least, the screenwriters are thinking of different ways to make characters unique. Ask a person if they want to make a film what it would be. I suspect many of the answers would be genre films, like horror films, science fiction, action/adventure. I doubt many could even begin to fathom a film like Happy Endings or Me, You, and Everyone We Know or Crash, where just the complexities of the storyline makes it difficult for the average person to summarize. Nor would they make the stylish offerings of Wong Kar Wai, nor the indie pix of Jim Jarmusch. Everyone would rather make the next Matrix, only they have no idea how to imagine the next Matrix.

Creativity is a tricky thing. It requires a keen perception of what's out there, how people behave, how you can exaggerate their behavior, what people think is cool, or fun, or horrifying, or sad. Actors, it seems, are used to living on this edge of emotion that is much stronger, much more intense than the average person deals with. These days, there are numerous gay films, often played by straight actors. They must invest a part of themselves to thinking and feeling that most straight people are afraid to explore. Even when they play straight roles, an actor must cry, or yell, or brood, much more intensely than you or I.

And I suspect it extends beyond actors. Even if screenwriters and directors couldn't express the same emotions that actors do, they are surrounded by it all the time. They recognize it, know how to elicit emotions, know how people can be manipulated, at least, if they're good, and so many, many people aren't good.

So, at times, I think I want to create this complete naturalistic film, if I had the talent to do so, and yet, the topics that interest me most are those that deal with emotions, repressed or otherwise, with topics that aren't about the average person, trying to make an honest living, but more about the lies people tell themselves and others to get on with life.

Writing a blog is a form of creativity, but in many ways, it's very easy to do. I use the blog as a way to express thoughts, extend my vocabulary, let me express thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style. A film, on the other hand, needs to explore something approximating a truth, and be sufficiently interesting, and sufficiently complex that someone wonders, how did you think of that, how did you entertain me so well. As a watcher of films, it's tough to latch onto why some people are so good at it.

In the business, as with many other endeavors, you learn by doing. You learn to pay attention. You try to understand why people react the way they do. For example, there's one early scene in Grizzly Man. A pilot is explaining the life of Timothy Treadwell, and where he found the body, and so forth. The whole time, there are tiny bugs flying throughout, making buzzing noises. The instinct is to want to swat these things, with the noises making one's skin crawl, and yet, the pilot, apparently long since used to these bugs doesn't even notice them, and yet, we the audience are distracted, trying to pay attention, and yet, ick, those insects! How does Herzog know to do this? More than likely, he's just lucky, but he may have also notice that the pilot didn't react, and it gave him an idea about how to conduct the interview.

A friend recently asked me if I wanted to make films, since I know a fair bit about films, I thought it would be interesting. I know, of course, it's quite different. For example, I saw a docuemtary called Cinemania. It was about four fanatic filmgoers in New York City. Most of them can barely keep a job, because they spend all their time and money watching movies. They aren't even good enough as writers to be film critics. They have no aspirations to make films, or be in the film industry in any other way. They simply want to watch.

It's analagous to wanting to play video games but having little to no interest in writing video games. In fact, most game players probably fit that description. I know if I really wanted to do film, I'd have to do a fair bit of reading, and experimenting, but I think it would be the kind of thing I'd like to do. Still, there's some investment to make that happen. I'd need a DV cam of some sort and begin to shoot short five minute scenes.

In that case, having something that's not so genre like horror or science fiction might make sense because it would require no makeup, no special effects, etc.

Anyway, that's what I've been thinking about.