Today's Art World is Omnipresent.

Afterall Article: Continuing Journal Reading

Broken Americas: The Cool World and The Exiles
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer
19th November 2008

Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer is analyzing two 1960's American independent films The Cold World by Shirley Clarke, and made on location in Harlem, New York, and The Exiles by Kent Mackenzie 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles, California, respectively. To use her words for a comparative summary, "...they are products of a past era's youthful energy, which found new traction almost a half-century later in the highly politicized climate of the 2008 presidential election season...attests to a thirst for social action among the members of a new generation looking to pick up where the 1960s agenda of reform left off."

Graiwer makes her points by describing the two films as both possessing the characteristics of social and cultural rebellions, and that they rejected the conventional cinematic styles of Hollywood at the time.  They both achieved this by shooting on location with non-professional actors. In doing so, she has also outlined the two different perspectives on opposite sides of the USA.

The Cool World (1964) is a film that shadows a novel created in 1959 with the same title, and it basically follows a troubled 15-year-old African American in Harlem who is in pursuit of a gun who fantasizes about becoming the leader of his gang.

The Exiles (1961) is a film that follows the lives of a Native American community in a demolished downtown neighborhood, Bunker Hill, in Los Angeles.  It centers on the life of Homer Nish, and his posse journeying into their lives for 12 hours as they discuss frustrations, drink at bars, and drive aimlessly around; encapsulizing a typical night that is the loop that occurs in their life.

Graiwer feels that through this non-Hollywood approach, on a low budget, and on location they "navigate the continuum between documentary and drama" achieving a definition for these social spaces.  What's interesting is the development that Sarah feels towards the end.  She questions, "Who is imitating life? Is it the actors as characters, or the characters who act 'cool' while trapped in desperate existences?...if the artifice is too convincing we take it for nature, and if one is 'acting natural', is it even acting any more?"  She goes on to emphasize how this reveals our ability to discern representation from reality, as a spectator.  Which I agree is a very valid point.

I feel that they were able to use Hollywood conventions to their advantage from what I understand in Graiwer's article.  Through Clarke and Mackenzie's comprehension of Hollywood's conventions, that place ourselves within the film through identifying with characters, they found a way to dictate our perceptive trends into the lives of real people.  This is what strikes me the most, is their interrogation of the representational conventions of narrative Hollywood filmmaking, while simultaneously reaching a new level that redefines these social spaces.

Whenever I watch contemporary Hollywood movies, you can see its evolution of acquiring these different techniques, such as realist-dramatic-documentary , and diluting its original resonance.  I feel like that sounds radical, but to throw out a tinge of evidence, turn on the television.  Reality shows have become our modern sitcoms.  I remember growing up watching Nick at Nite, where I watched shows from the 70's (approximately created 15-20 years before I watched them) like The Bob Newhart Show, The Wonder Years, Happy Days, The Jeffersons, All In The Family back-to-back-to-back.  I feel that the sitcoms that were made in the 90's can be considered the end of an era of sitcoms.  These were our idealized portrayals of lives within America that have dissipated since the dawning of reality television.  People like to feel that they are witnessing reality.  It feels more informative, and more comparable to themselves.  What's ironic is that these reality shows are as choreographed and staged as their predecessors the situational comedy, but the majority of their viewers are caught unaware of this.  

To stray back onto what I was trying to emphasize, regarding Graiwer's questions near the end of her article.  Who is imitating life?  It seems to be almost a question of who came first, the chicken or the egg.  I feel that I can safely say that one can argue actors are the imitators of life.  They tend to emphasize a certain characteristic to create a definable persona, where the person that is captured acting naturally in their lives may be able to be seen as more multi-dimensional.  What perpetuates this cycle of an undetermined answer is the ways in which we perceive real people through the ways in which we define them on-screen.  Typically, one critiques another by breaking them down into a 2-dimensional character within their life, thus carrying over from our on-screen perceptions to life.  

This leaves the question, is someone acting naturally, or is the artifice too convincing we take it for being natural?  I would say that within our modern popular media, of reality shows and post-sitcom dramas, the latter of the two would be true, but it seems that Clarke and Mackenzie were both able to capture the natural lives of these more romanticized societal roles into a more realistic portrayal by straying away from Hollywood conventions, and grasping the conventions of movements such as Italian Neorealism, cinema verite, film noir, and French New Wave.  Creating, as Graiwer puts it, "a reflexive questioning that parallels a progressive political posture of doubt and vocal critique...in different ways, urge us to consider the possibility of an ideal community forming, momentarily and against odds, in the midst of marginality".  

Art Encounter: A Missing Link

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any of the other screenings that were required for the last blog of the art encounters.  The one that I wish I could have seen the most was At Sea by Peter Hutton.  After viewing his piece in lecture on November 3rd, I became very intrigued by his imagery.  I wanted to see At Sea because I noticed that both pieces were silent, and I assumed that his imagery would probably be just as stunning as the first.  The description on the flyer said that it would display the birth, life, and death of a ship.  I assumed that his style of making a very moving piece without needing a soundtrack would be exemplified further.  What is interesting is that although I have typically preferred non-silent films to silent ones, I find my self levitating more towards these silent works.  I am in Basic Filmmaking right now as well, working on a silent film, so maybe that is the case.  What I found while viewing his work in lecture was that it seemed to be the exact same approach that I would like to take in my filmmaking.  I enjoy the long shots with natural imagery.  For me, it leaves no need for an audio track because you become totally engrossed in the image.  I found Dorsky's work to be much the same, in that his shot selections are all astounding, and some are so unique they even force you to dissect to try and understand what you are looking at, and when realize what it is, it is something that you witness everyday.  Such as when he was capturing a streetlights reflection on the windshield of a car covered in what appeared to be raindrops.  This breathtaking image that played with the positioning of the light, gave new life to these everyday objects.  What detracted from Dorsky's work I discussed in the previous blog.  The other aspect that I enjoyed less about Dorsky's work than I did Hutton's was Dorsky's the cinematography.  As I said, I really enjoyed the simplicity of Hutton's work, and I found Dorsky's works more overwhelming and harder to grasp.  The editing techniques were more of a barrage of images, which made me more distracted and detached from the work.  This blog is more of a formality since I was unable to make it to a second event before the due date of this final Art Encounter blog entry.