Re: film & reality
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Fri, 17 Dec 1999 08:40:13 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 12/17/1999 8:05:40 AM Eastern Standard Time,
wh14@is9.nyu.edu writes:
<< I think it's interesting that Scottie thinks writing portrays reality and
not film...I think I understand how truths about reality happen in prose
and poetry in ways that touch us but I also think that whether we are
talking about celuloid or paper and ink, the illusions of reality are the
function of imagination, not genre. Will >>
I'd have to agree, Will. I think whenever anyone speaks of "reality" in
film, it's always spoken with the qualification, "As real as film can get,
anyways." The best a film can do is mimic what would you'd have if, for
example, one of the soldiers landing at Normandy had a camera planted on his
helment.
But even then...you know something? You wouldn't have the real thing. You
wouldn't be in the soldier's head. A book would be a better medium than even
"original footage" in this regard, but that much more the product of
imagination and more distanced from the real event -- so more contrived.
So what do you do? You accept the limitations of the medium in which you're
working and go from there. On the level on which it worked, SPR did seem
successful because, well, a lot of people that were there Did say, "Yep, it
was just like that," and its effect on viewers was to communicate to them the
fear of actually being in a WW2 battle (to the extent that a film can
communicate this). This is where the gratitude for sacrifice comes in.
So, yeah, it was banal, trite, and trivial compared to reality. But hey,
it's just a film :)
I'll never look at a WW2 vet the same way again, though...and neither will my
kids if they ever see the movie.
Jim