Graduate Decency?
Graduate Decency?
Engaging in a conversation on how each shot of a movie means something and the meaning behind it means something else, I raised my right hand, and reported what my brain was circulating. I said that the shot we are seeing, the push in, means nothing. Wrinkles appeared on her forehead as I spoke, eyes were not on me but on the ceiling as if it was moving and changing colors. I spoke that not each scene has a purpose. By analyzing it, we are losing out on the feeling it gives us.
I used an analogy I heard in a podcast. If the man's eyes have blue eyes, it must represent the sadness in his life or mind. And the same host said, no, tt may just be that the painter ran out of green, and they like blue eyes.
We do not know anything about what the camera positions mean unless we hear it from the director themselves. We can put our own critique on it and expose our point of view, but we are only speculating.
I said to her, I know this is a film analysis class, so we have to do it to fill up our time.
The graduate student took this to be offensive since she is getting her masters in film studies. For me, I am just undergraduate student who is older than her dismantling her beliefs.
She went on a “shpeal”.
I was thinking through how the behind-the-scenes shot of The Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick, the great almighty, deliberate, 100 takes before moving on to the next scene, Stanley Kubrick. Lighting struck. He directed a scene just like this. This can be found online how he wanted to do a medium shot of Jack talking to Wendy to get out of the pantry. Kubrick looks at it, walks over behind the right off Jack, looks around, goes under him, the rehearsal starts, he then asks him to do it while looking down, not at the door, and it works.
I remember also David Lynch’s behind the scenes of Twin Peaks The Return thinking about Sheriff Truman's office. “We are going to have 15 people standing around, and I don’t have a f****** clue what I’m going to do.”
Someone says, you have the weekend to think about it. Lynch replies, “I've been thinking about it a lot longer than the weekend.”
David Lynch said in an interview about Inland Empire, “A film is sort of like a book. And books get written and the author may pass, so you can't go talk to them and say what did you mean…People have a right to analyze the thing and say what it is for them and to criticize it one way or another. Its beautiful. But I really believe the film should stand on its own and there should be nothing added, nothing subtracted, and you work a long time to make it just so.”
These are just the ones off the top of my head I can think of. I wonder how many more there are. Bryan Fuller as the show runner for Hannibal, if it looks pretty then do it.
It could mean absolute nothing, it just might be what the director and writer is feeling.
Why am I the only one to say these types of things in class? All of our opinions are different, so why scrunch your face in complete disbelief that the way you perceive it may not be the case for everyone?