Horror/Dream

Two mornings ago I had a dream between snooze alarms that conformed perfectly to the narrative rhythm of a horror film:

1. The Illogical & Unnecessary Exposition 
2. The Fake Scare 
3. The Real Scare

First, for some reason there was a bear blocking a hallway that some friends and I needed access to. (Lately I have dreams in which tigers are chasing me -- no wonder Life of Pi (Lee, 2012) got to me -- my other fear is sinking on a ship), so anyways, we decided to wake up the bear -- a person I was with shot a slingshot to wake it up and then we (are these people really my friends?) and I ran screaming out of the hallway.

Horror Film Step 1 Complete: The Illogical & Unnecessary Exposition -- there is no need to wake up a bear in a hallway, just like all of the horror films that would never be scary if the actants did not: enter into that dark house alone, decide to make a film about a cult, stay in a remote cabin for the weekend, etc.

Next, we ran into a parked van with a sunroof -- as we scrambled into the van the door handles did not work properly and actually broke off after we got into the van. We laid down quietly in the hopes that the bear would not know where we were. THEN ALL OF THE SUDDEN a stranger jumped on top of the van and looked down at us through the open sunroof -- he asked us if he could come in the van too because he and some other hikers were being chased by a bear. We all let our guards down to have a brief conversation with this friendly, frantic man.

Horror Film Step 2 Complete: The Fake Scare -- out of nowhere, this hiker comes by to scare the heck out of us because we thought it was going to be the bear. But it wasn't the bear, just some nice hiker who happened to be hanging around a building with a hallway with a bear sleeping in it.

Finally, the bear grabbed the friendly hiker -- the nice hiker SCREAMED as he was dragged off of the roof of the van, and the entire van was rattled violently by the roaring bear.

Horror Film Step 3 Complete: The Real Scare -- after being placated, calmed, and relieved to see a nice hiker on top of our van, the bear suddenly showed up and scared the socks off of us.

... then the alarm rang and it was time to get ready for work. That's not a deus ex machina, that's real life.

Marcuse on Oppositional Art, Quotation by Douglas Kellner

"Marcuse writes that truly oppositional art must be shaped in such a manner that it reveals the negative system in its totality and, at the same time, the absolute necessity of liberation. The work of art must, at its breaking point, expose the ultimate nakedness of humanity’s (and nature’s) existence, stripped of all the paraphernalia of monopolistic mass culture, completely and utterly alone, in the abyss of destruction, despair and freedom. The most revolutionary work of art will be, at the same time, the most esoteric, the most anti-collectivist one, for the goal ... is the free individual." 
-- Douglas Kellner

The 30 Year Rule in Cinema

I've thought about this before, yet it was after recently watching Milk (Van Sant, 2008) and the Bones Brigade: An Autobiography (Peralta, 2012) skateboarding documentary that an idea seemed be be confirmed:

there is a 30 rule in cinema; namely, after 30 years a given historical topic is optimal for cinematic treatment in terms of audience receptivity and, likely, profits at the box office.

Both of the films mentioned above deal with the "living history" of the late 70's/early 80s -- moments prevalent in the minds of one generation and still accessible to a new generation interested in its past. After 30 years, filmmakers might enjoy both the advantage of historical hindsight and the ability to gauge the current reverberations of the event/s depicted.

Has this been written about previously? Perhaps there are correlates with fashion cycles? It's probably not an earth-shattering observation, and likely been written about before although I have not yet encountered it -- while I am aware of the 30 year rule in technology -- and I'm certainly not offering this 30 year rule as an absolute, for certainly any given era might be a subject for the camera.

But there remains a possibility that the 30 year rule exists. I know that personally, watching Mississippi Burning (Parker, 1988), a late 1980s film that represents the early 1960s, was quite formative for me in terms of developing a social consciousness as a teenager when I saw it in the early 1990s, and it roughly follows this 30 year rule pattern.

Yi Yi (Yang, 2000): Film Review

Edward Yang 楊德昌 (1947-2007) is the master par excellence of presenting infinite complexity within the commonplace: hidden, yet present if one will ask a question or look a little closer (in urban reflections, by way of new perspectives & backward glances, reflected in a mirror, through a window across a balcony... in spite of verbal miscommunications), like the rhythms of nature.

It is not difficult to describe Yang's film Yi Yi as one of the best films of all time. The film, which begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral, presents multiple moments of contemplation...

 

NJ contemplates life with and without his high school sweetheart.

... within settings equally, if not more complex, than those of contemporary Taiwan director Hou Hsiao-hsien... like this image in which Nancy is floating, alienated in space within her office -- hovering psychologically and seemingly suspended physically above the cityscape of Taipei:

Yang's use of perspective reminds one of Velázquez's "Las Meninas."

The film's seamless parallel editing of Wu Nianzhen's character NJ and his high school sweetheart Sherry with his daughter Ting-Ting as she goes on her first date effortlessly displays how the repetitions of life -- the inability to start over, the weight of time, and the presence of memory -- all serve as a corollary, by extension, of Taipei's history without ever forcing such associations in a heavy-handed manner.

Yi Yi's films best scenes involve NJ and the Japanese businessman Mr. Oto. At one point Mr. Oto  states: "You are like me.. We can't tell a lie... Risk is high when you do anything for the first time... Why are we afraid of the first time?... Everything in life is a first time... [yet] we are never afraid of getting up in the morning... Why?" ... the delivery is perfect in this, perhaps one of the most moving portrayals of genuine souls caught at the intersections of transnational capital.

And of course, young Yang-Yang (a representation of director Yang himself?) takes pictures of the backs of everyone's heads to help us see what we don't see: that we only grasp half of reality at best, even with all of our images in a visual culture.

Creative Minimal Cinema

Recently re-watching Star Trek (Abrams, 2009), and thinking about the use of silence during moments when explosions are going off, led to this brief thought on the use of minimalism to convey narrative content. There was no need for the sound of explosions during those Star Trek scenes (that would sound like: Ka-boomkrrrrkrrrr!!! etc.) because the audience already knows that information and thus recreates it in his or her mind.

Like traditional paratactic Chinese poetry, or Ernest Hemingway and the absence of adverbs in his writing... the audience just needs the minimum detail to understand -- and perhaps ultimately enjoy -- the piece.

Like the absence of a soundtrack in Yang Li's 2003 film Blind Shaft.

Like Aeschylus's play Agamemnon in which the murder is off-stage, or sex scenes in 1950s film noir films that are off-camera, the equation seems to follow that the less detail conveyed, the more the rhetorical/emotional impact, and maybe even at times the following is true: when only the minimum is conveyed, film is at its best.

If too little information is presented, then a specific idea might not be conveyed, and the result could be pure abstraction.

If too much information is conveyed ... the English language has much to say about this: over-embellishment, heavy-handed, unauthentic, perhaps the baroque. The result can be impatience, boredom, eye-rolling.

Certainly, over time the definition of minimum -- "only the minimum is necessary" -- changes; that's what I think appeals to me the most.

Sundance and the San Diego Surf Film Festival: A Comparison

In some ways, both Sundance 2013 and SDSFF 2013 were life changing events, definitely unforgettable, and I plan to be a return attendee to both.

But they are far from being the same thing ... I imagine that when Sundance started it had a similar vibe to SDSFF -- on opening night for the SDSFF this year we were sitting on the floor of an art gallery to watch a film ... perhaps in the future the SDSFF will be a red carpet event like Sundance with its long lines, star sightings, and national headlines. For now ...

======================================== … here are some of these film festival’s differences:
Sundance	SDSFF
-- festival pass at Sundance: a lanyard and barcode	-- festival pass at SDSFF: an old Padres baseball card on a string of hemp
-- snow, wearing multiple layers of clothing	-- pleasant, short-sleeves
-- theaters with 1000 person capacity	-- sitting on the floor or on folding chairs
-- all kinds of films	-- all kinds of surf films
======================================== ... and similarities: -- cheering crowds when the credits roll -- stoked directors glad you loved their films
Sundance, 2013	SDSFF, 2013

San Diego Surf Film Festival 2013, Post 4 (Sun. 5/12)

SDSFF 2013 wrapped up successfully during the 7-10pm set last night (5/12) with music by Leanna May and The Matadors, an informal awards ceremony, well-deserved thanks to all organizers, and a collection of films that didn't need to take themselves too seriously: a comic short entitled: "The Shaper" by Jeremy Joyce, Rich Pearn and Rob Lockyear, even a horror-film called "SHVDE" by Derek Dunfee, and a thoughtful film (another way to not be too serious when done right) from Brazil, Intentio by Loic Wirth:

Intentio - Trailer from Loïc Wirth on Vimeo.

Thanks SDSFF, looking forward to next year ... some images from the event:

Director George Trimm discusses "Bootleg" (full length link here), SDSFF 2013

Filmmakers after the screening of Isolated at Bird's Surf Shed, SDSFF 2013

Big wave surfer Greg Long takes questions from the audience, SDSFF 2013y