Levels of Reality in Genre Fiction

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It sometimes jarring to watch a work of fiction and find that the laws of physics have flown out the window, or that rules of psychology/folk-psychology have been suspended ("Hey, people don't work like that!). On the other hand, it is sometimes jarring when the rules do apply ("Hey, I thought this was a comedy?").

High Level of Realism - Drama
You're good-old-fashioned boring drama. You know, people, relationships, feelings, loss, are the most realistic works of fiction that we have.

Low Level of Realism - Surrealism You're good-old-fashioned, "What the hell am I watching, what is happening, and why should I care?" art flick that dares you to hold in contempt and dares you to reveal yourself to be an intellectual lightweight who doesn't "get it" by complaining.

In the Middle - Comedy Comedies exaggerate folk-psychology. People react too strongly, reason too poorly, and forgive too quickly and so on. The point is not to hold up a perfect mirror to reality, but to laugh at our imperfections by magnifying them. Physics is also exaggerated (big falls break bones, but rarely maim or kill) -- a fun house obedience to known laws of nature (no one flies like Superman, but no one dies when they slide off a roof either--injuries are comical and generally fixable).

Sub-genres, of course, have their own rules. Dark Comedies, for example, may be quite serious with the laws of physics and biology.

Genre offers an initial frame for our expectations and then the filmmakers creates their own rules (something we usually use words like "tone" to describe). The contract of fiction is "make me believe in your lie, get me to invest in your falsehood," but the terms and conditions of that contract vary wildly in terms of genre. This is probably a large part of why some genres and sub-genres don't work for some people (i.e., they cannot accept the proposed bargain).



The laws of physics make me think of The Three Amigos - the movie's premise is actually feasible based on the time period (actors during the dawning age of film are mistaken for actual gun fighters by an undeveloped country via film interpreted as newsreels). Silliness with the comedy aside, the whole thing is still feasible until... the invisible swordsman and the singing bush. These things don't exist.

And this is where the movie lost me since, up till that point, it was enjoyable and funny BECAUSE it was possible - it was a situational predicament based on a misunderstanding due to the level of communications at the time and a language barrier. But it suddenly broke beyond the "level" at which I was willing to suspend my disbelief.

(I did make an exception for the musical number with the singing animals, because throwing reality out the window during musical interludes has long been a Hollywood trope - we kind of interpret it as this is how the music makes us feel inside as opposed to picking the scene apart analytically. How many times have we seen Elvis on a beach with an acoustic guitar break into a song, when suddenly he's accompanied by electric guitars, an entire orchestra and background singers who aren't there?)



The laws of physics make me think of The Three Amigos - the movie's premise is actually feasible based on the time period (actors during the dawning age of film are mistaken for actual gun fighters by an undeveloped country via film interpreted as newsreels). Silliness with the comedy aside, the whole thing is still feasible until... the invisible swordsman and the singing bush. These things don't exist.

And this is where the movie lost me since, up till that point, it was enjoyable and funny BECAUSE it was possible - it was a situational predicament based on a misunderstanding due to the level of communications at the time and a language barrier. But it suddenly broke beyond the "level" at which I was willing to suspend my disbelief.

(I did make an exception for the musical number with the singing animals, because throwing reality out the window during musical interludes has long been a Hollywood trope - we kind of interpret it as this is how the music makes us feel inside as opposed to picking the scene apart analytically. How many times have we seen Elvis on a beach with an acoustic guitar break into a song, when suddenly he's accompanied by electric guitars, an entire orchestra and background singers who aren't there?)

Musicals are interesting in that they shift in and out of reality. Normal, everyday stuff, and then BOOM! everyone is singing and then the song ends and we're back in the real world.



I don't remember the 3 Amigos too well now. But yeah, this sort of thing happens to me too. The movie sets a tone, reveals the rules, hangs it's hat on a genre and then some random-ass turn comes which does not fit and all the sudden the lie (which I knew was a lie) seems like a lie to me and that upsets me. Strange.



I recall watching The Usual Suspects and heard many viewers complaining on the way out of the theater. And they continued to complain weeks later. The basic complaint was that the film was pointless, because the whole thing turned out to be a lie. But every film is a lie(!). For them, however, it broke an implicit rule--you have to stand by most of the lies you tell the audience, or they feel cheated. The twist must both be a surprise, but it cannot be a cheat, it has to somehow have been there in plain sight the whole time. As audiences become more sophisticated, Whodunits are trapped between the Scylla of obviousness and Charybdis of "Cheating." For them, this turned out to be a cheat. The bought into the lie and invested and felt that the rug was pulled out from them when the conman narrator turned out to be a conman.



I recall watching The Usual Suspects and heard many viewers complaining on the way out of the theater. And they continued to complain weeks later. The basic complaint was that the film was pointless, because the whole thing turned out to be a lie. But every film is a lie(!). For them, however, it broke an implicit rule--you have to stand by most of the lies you tell the audience, or they feel cheated. The twist must both be a surprise, but it cannot be a cheat, it has to somehow have been there in plain sight the whole time.
I never understood the “audiences feeling cheated” aspect of it unless it’s something blindingly obvious like Haute Tension. Definitely don’t see how that applies to Usual Suspects, I’d argue it is a case of the answer being there the whole time, as one could have noticed the clues from
WARNING: spoilers below
around the room of what KS/protagonist uses to construct his story (e.g. the Kobayashi mug)
, if one had known what to look for. (I do know someone who’d never heard anything about the film and isn’t a film buff, but worked out the resolution quite easily).

I’m now genuinely intrigued by this perspective on Usual Suspects; it just seems so alien to me (and I’m in no way a fan of “twist” endings). Sounds like someone unfamiliar with the concept of unreliable narration.

I have some thoughts on the topic of the thread itself, but can’t seem to quite get them organised yet.



I never understood the “audiences feeling cheated” aspect of it unless it’s something blindingly obvious like Haute Tension. Definitely don’t see how that applies to Usual Suspects, I’d argue it is a case of the answer being there the whole time, as one could have noticed the clues from
WARNING: spoilers below
around the room of what KS/protagonist uses to construct his story (e.g. the Kobayashi mug)
, if one had known what to look for. (I do know someone who’d never heard anything about the film and isn’t a film buff, but worked out the resolution quite easily).

I’m now genuinely intrigued by this perspective on Usual Suspects; it just seems so alien to me (and I’m in no way a fan of “twist” endings). Sounds like someone unfamiliar with the concept of unreliable narration.

I have some thoughts on the topic of the thread itself, but can’t seem to quite get them organised yet.

I never understood this criticism of The Usual Suspect either. By my lights, this is precisely what makes the film great.



People do, however, want to invest in fiction as a sort of reality. We develop bizarre parasocial relationships with characters. They feel like friends. We feel like we know them. We mourn them when they "die." And we vote for celebrities for political office, because they feel familiar. People go to conventions dressed as their favorite characters and debate canonical facts of their favorite fictions with the same intensity of the great apologists of old.



At bottom, we want our fictional worlds to be real. We want to live there figuratively (or literally, such as the response was to Avatar when people painted themselves blue and fell into depression because they slowly realized they would never be able to live in Pandora). When the apparent rules of the world are violated, then it no longer seems like a play we could live.



At least two paradoxes are relevant here,

  1. People have emotional responses to characters, objects, events etc. which they know to be fictitious.
  2. In order for us to be emotionally moved, we must believe that these characters, objects, or events, truly exist.
  3. No person who takes characters or events to be fictional at the same time believes that they are real.
The spectators of a well-written tragedy get from it sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other emotions that are in themselves disagreeable and uncomfortable; and they get pleasure from this! It’s hard to understand. The more the spectators are touched and affected, the more delighted they are with the spectacle; and as soon as the uncomfortable emotions stop operating, the play is at an end. - David Hume "Of Tragedy"




Musicals are interesting in that they shift in and out of reality. Normal, everyday stuff, and then BOOM! everyone is singing and then the song ends and we're back in the real world.



I don't remember the 3 Amigos too well now. But yeah, this sort of thing happens to me too. The movie sets a tone, reveals the rules, hangs it's hat on a genre and then some random-ass turn comes which does not fit and all the sudden the lie (which I knew was a lie) seems like a lie to me and that upsets me. Strange.
Perfect description for what they did with The Three Amigos!

Strange thing is, I know some people for whom the random-fantasy elements are their favorite parts and they explain it by saying the randomness adds to the comedy as you don't see it coming. (Well, of course you don't see things coming that don't exist in reality that suddenly pop up in an otherwise plausible story.)

Don't get me wrong, I still like the movie, but would have liked it more if their "rules" had remained consistent. (My other big criticism was, in the third act, Martin Short spends the majority of it hanging from a banner - with the camera checking in on him once in a while - maybe it's a gag that's funny for a minute, but it almost feels like they cut his character from the final part of the movie.)

P.S. The Three Amigos, Galaxy Quest, and Tropic Thunder are all comedies that use the same basic premise - actors are mistaken for the people they portray on film and then get caught up in "real" situations that echo those they act out in movies or TV shows. The question is: can actors rise to the level of the heroics they portray on film?



People do, however, want to invest in fiction as a sort of reality. We develop bizarre parasocial relationships with characters. They feel like friends. We feel like we know them. We mourn them when they "die." And we vote for celebrities for political office, because they feel familiar. People go to conventions dressed as their favorite characters and debate canonical facts of their favorite fictions with the same intensity of the great apologists of old.
I don’t dispute that that’s probably what’s going on, but I also think there’s a degree of painting everything with the same brush to it. You could arguably have parasocial relationships with the characters of your favourite book without ascribing an underlying reality to them. (E.g. in cases where a limited physical description of a character exists, picturing one’s crush/ex; surely one controlling the ‘reality’ alerts one to lack thereof). It’s interesting that you mention apologists; there’s definitely an element of ‘belief’ to all this which as a diehard materialist I was never comfortable with. I guess I don’t fully get why one can’t be invested in something without ascribing a degree of reality to it. But maybe that’s true and one can’t.

Take fanfiction (a phenomenon I personally abhor). Of course people invest in the original work and become attached to the characters (hardcore fans even more so), but at the same time, how could one possibly claim an underlying reality to them while changing their behaviour at one’s whim in fanfiction (no matter how canonical that is, it’s the ‘writer’ making all of the decisions on behalf of the characters, adding backstories and hence having non-diegetic control, etc)?

It’s this formulation that I personally struggle with:

In order for us to be emotionally moved, we must believe that these characters, objects, or events, truly exist.
I don’t know where the certainty that that’s the case comes from. To use a slightly extreme example, plenty of people worldwide find meaning and draw references from religious scriptures, even when it comes to the creative process (narratives inspired by all manner of religious writings). When it comes to The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the argument that anyone actually believes there’s an underlying historical reality to it (other than that a King Gilgamesh (probably) existed)? The typical response to that is that it’s a kind of psychological reality, but even so, there are plenty of influential mythological narratives that imo have limited psychological verisimilitude, yet humans are still emotionally moved by them.

The spectators of a well-written tragedy get from it sorrow, terror, anxiety, and other emotions that are in themselves disagreeable and uncomfortable; and they get pleasure from this! It’s hard to understand. The more the spectators are touched and affected, the more delighted they are with the spectacle; and as soon as the uncomfortable emotions stop operating, the play is at an end. - David Hume "Of Tragedy"
I have a family friend who explicitly acknowledges that he watches/reads horror/speculative genres to ‘get away from [his] terrible reality’, because surely the happenings in genre fiction are ‘worse’ and his real life feels bearable by comparison. It’s been decades since I first heard this, but it blew my mind as I cannot relate at all, so that does make me wonder if it’s as much of a universal take on the speculative as he seemed to think.

(I actually think Hume somewhat addresses this in his analysis of Dubos:

DUBOS, in his reflections on poetry and painting, asserts, that nothing is in general so disagreeable to the mind as the languid, listless state of indolence, into which it falls upon the removal of all passion and occupation. To get rid of this painful situation, it seeks every amusement and pursuit; business, gaming, shews, executions; whatever will rouze the passions, and take its attention from itself. No matter what the passion is: Let it be disagreeable, afflicting, melancholy, disordered; it is still better than that insipid languor, which arises from perfect tranquillity and repose.
It’s amusing that ‘real life’ was at the time perceived as ‘perfect tranquility and repose’ or a ‘languid… state of indolence’, but, yeah.)

Anyway, I feel like one mostly gets adrenalin from tragedies/emotionally taxing genres, and is a rush of adrenalin that disagreeable? I think it can be fun. I don’t know. On the other hand, surely some of us know someone to get upset by horror and get no ‘pleasure’ whatsoever from experiencing ‘disagreeable’ emotions vicariously?

That level of analysis feels a bit rudimentary, but maybe we just can’t get to the bottom of our response to narratives as a species yet. I will fight Hume’s corner when it comes to most things, but would really love to read something where someone tackles it in appropriate detail, taking into account the contemporary understanding of neuroscience.



It’s interesting that you mention apologists; there’s definitely an element of ‘belief’ to all this which as a diehard materialist I was never comfortable with.
Being a "die hard" anything hints at deep belief.

Materialism is an ontological monism (the universe IS material, wholly material, and nothing but material), which requires a firm commitment to the proposition that what cannot be proven empirically need not be proven--this is a commitment to the cognitive fallacy "What you see is all there is." More charitably, it is a leap of faith.

I accept aspects of utilitarianism, but not as a monism (i.e., happiness in various formulations is good, but does not exhaust the good). I also accept materialism, but not as a monism. Strictly speaking, this means I am not a materialist, because materialism is a monism by definition. As the ancient monotheistic Gods have demanded of people, the new God of materialism demands that we shall have no other Gods before It (Checkmate Idealists!).

As far all-in-one Gods go, however, I must admit that Materialism is quite formidable as explanation device of the material world. Of course, I must also admit that Mathematics and Logic are quite formidable as an explanation device for abstractions (and let's not forget that we can't do science--the Holy Church of Materialism--without foundations in mathematics and philosophical commitments).

I would wager that it is not your materialism that holds you back here, but merely your understanding that fiction is a game and that we should not get too carried away with it. Or perhaps, you are one of those people who gets enough of a "fix" in fiction (a complete experience) experienced directly that you don't need fan fics, and conventions, and Silmarillions, and schematics of the Starship Enterprise to enjoy fiction. Now, I personally, will admit to having an occasional fascination with the expanded world or a deep world, but I also recognize that it is a fools errand when pushed too far (like lifting up the frame of the painting in the expectation of exposing a hidden part of reality).

Long story short, I think your aversion may just be a sign of sanity, or at least just a understanding of the contract of fiction.
I guess I don’t fully get why one can’t be invested in something without ascribing a degree of reality to it. But maybe that’s true and one can’t.
Well, we do talk about suspension of disbelief, right? We do get upset when a drama becomes too unrealistic, yes? You do have emotions when watching movies, right? You have cried? You have laughed? You have screamed? You have felt anger, even rage? If so, the question is why we would be so moved by what we know is a lie--moreover, why would we hold fiction's capacity to move us to be a primary metric of quality (e.g., a comedy that makes no one laugh is not much of a comedy).
Take fanfiction (a phenomenon I personally abhor). Of course people invest in the original work and become attached to the characters (hardcore fans even more so), but at the same time, how could one possibly claim an underlying reality to them while changing their behaviour at one’s whim in fanfiction (no matter how canonical that is, it’s the ‘writer’ making all of the decisions on behalf of the characters, adding backstories and hence having non-diegetic control, etc)?
When kids play with action figures from their favorite cartoons and movies, I suppose that they're doing the same thing. When adults do the same thing, I think it similarly suggests that they want another helping, that they want to playful explore an enjoyable place.

My main complaint with fan fiction is simply that so much of it is bad (cringey AF). If you are not an accomplished writer who can write as well and in the style of the person who made the original, you will only produce drivel. It's... ...embarrassing.

And I suspect, in some cases, that some of this stuff hints at mental illness (e.g., those fans who painted themselves blue and reported massive depression after having seen the first Avatar film, a film which wasn't even that good). If your need for escapism requires an experience machine, a constant connection with another world, then something seems to be going wrong in the world you're in).
It’s this formulation that I personally struggle with:

I don’t know where the certainty that that’s the case comes from.
Well, that's a bit of a rhetorical flourish. I love hyperbole. I do not commit to the proposition that we believe wholly, but that, in some sense (I do not know precisely what), we must believe. If we cannot, in some way, go through the looking glass, then we will only experience fiction from the outside. But we don't. Our minds have a talent for simulation very little stimulation and we can invest in these stories.

Perhaps this has something to do with our capacity to dream? Or perhaps this is connected to consciousness itself (which is a continuous story told to us in our minds as our brains reduce millions of bits per second down to the narrow bandwidth of consciousness).
To use a slightly extreme example, plenty of people worldwide find meaning and draw references from religious scriptures, even when it comes to the creative process (narratives inspired by all manner of religious writings). When it comes to The Epic of Gilgamesh, is the argument that anyone actually believes there’s an underlying historical reality to it (other than that a King Gilgamesh (probably) existed)?
Sure. Again, rhetorical flourish. However, if you felt moved with by Gilgamesh's loss of his friend Enkidu--it must have seemed real in some way to you. And if you have ever cried during a movie, it must have seemed real enough to move you to tears. There's a paradoxical alchemy in fiction.
The typical response to that is that it’s a kind of psychological reality, but even so, there are plenty of influential mythological narratives that imo have limited psychological verisimilitude, yet humans are still emotionally moved by them.
This is where genre comes in. Genre is a kind of contract. It tells us what to treat as signal and what to treat as noise.

At some level, fiction must drill down to something "real" so as to make us respond. The mirror must reflect something we recognize as "true" in order for us to travel through it.
I have a family friend who explicitly acknowledges that he watches/reads horror/speculative genres to ‘get away from [his] terrible reality’, because surely the happenings in genre fiction are ‘worse’ and his real life feels bearable by comparison. It’s been decades since I first heard this, but it blew my mind as I cannot relate at all, so that does make me wonder if it’s as much of a universal take on the speculative as he seemed to think.
That is one of the traditional answers to the paradox of tragedy. There may be some truth in it.

I have, for example, been an adherent to the roller-coaster theory of horror (a safe simulation of terror which allows us to experience and in some way master our fears). Fiction gives us "safe danger" as does the amusement park ride.

However, I have also known people who have reveled in their own tragedy and horror. Listen to two old people compete verbally in listing their various ailments. Listen to a parent boast of how much harder it was for them, when they were kids. In short, I think that the appeal of tragedy, is that we all like to feel like martyrs and suffering saints--that is, our suffering is proof that we're right and that life is meaningful in some way. It allows us to take the world seriously. Comedy is the enemy of tragedy. It deflates deep meanings and those who tilt at them. It reduces the world to serious accidents (which is quite nice when the world feels too overwhelming and we do not wish to take it so seriously). I think people like the pain, because it is an ennobling pain (without the actual consequence--in the case of fictive tragedy--having had to do anything to earn that ennobling aspect). Like horror, tragedy allows us to have our cake and eat it too. I don't think it is necessarily or predominantly a case of schadenfreude, but "Sainthood on the Cheap."
It’s amusing that ‘real life’ was at the time perceived as ‘perfect tranquility and repose’ or a ‘languid… state of indolence’, but, yeah.)
To the extent that we do not live epic lives, I suppose this is true. Our heroes go on adventures which few of us ever approach (and those who do come back with PTSD and fewer limbs).
Anyway, I feel like one mostly gets adrenalin from tragedies/emotionally taxing genres, and is a rush of adrenalin that disagreeable? I think it can be fun. I don’t know. On the other hand, surely some of us know someone to get upset by horror and get no ‘pleasure’ whatsoever from experiencing ‘disagreeable’ emotions vicariously?
That's true. However, I can imagine a roller-coaster rise that I would NOT ever get on (one that has a substantive threat of death) and games I would never play (Russian Roulette). I think the people who cannot abide horror are more sensitive souls who feel as if they are in the scene more deeply than horror lovers. Horror fans are more like lucid dreamers. As a child, for example, I remember horror movies being quite traumatizing. As an adult, I made an adjustment and learned to enjoy them. As an old man, I am typically disappointed because very few films scare me know (I just see tropes, stock characters, bad plotting, character beats, etc.). I would not wish to revisit the terror of my childhood (the prepubescent child watching slasher movies), however, I do miss the roller coasters of my early adulthood. Now the park appears to me to be filled with kiddie rides.
That level of analysts feels a bit rudimentary, but maybe we just can’t get to the bottom of our response to narratives as a species yet.
Perhaps it's not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed? In good fiction we believe what we don't believe.
I will fight Hume’s corner when it comes to most things, but would really love to read something where someone tackles it in appropriate detail, taking into account the contemporary understanding of neuroscience.
Ah, you are a dedicated materialist. Dig deeper into biology and you may only find more correlates. You won't necessarily find meaning there, just descriptions of how various bits are associated with other bits. I am sure that there are truths of psychology to be learned in neuroscience, but it is of no help, for example, in solving the "free will" problem. Everything we needed to know about the brain to recognize the problem philosophers recognized hundreds of years ago. More trivia about how the brain works doesn't bring us any closer to untying the knot of determinism. At most, it is overkill, beating a dead horse named "libertarianism." Beware greedy reductionism, the impulse to explain everything from one level of observation. Someone had to engage in deductive abstraction a priori, before we could get to the a posteriori accounts of the neuroscientist. A world may be nothing more than what the materialist promises, but it must be lived and understood as if it were not (as if our abstractions are substantive, as if there is a realm of ideas, as if our choices are free, as if we have self-understanding).



I don't actually think very many films aim for true realism. Maybe some movies that came out of the Italian neo-realism strain. And there are some out there which blend documentary footage with scripted narrative in such a way that we are presented with enough realism to start questioning what is real and what is not. But pure realism, it's not really what movies do. Not even Jeanne Dielman which, as much as its general thesis is about documenting the day to day minutia of a life that feels very real, is really realism. It is much too cinematic for that, taking great pains to control literally every element of that house so it responds to being watched by a camera. Even it's famously long scenes which pass by with no cutting at all from the drudgery of life, in fact call our attention Towards the camera. It forces us to wonder 'is the camera ever going to cut away from this'. We can't really pretend any of this is an attempt at true realism. It is real life on by proxy of cinema.


Just because we have some suspension of disbelief, to the point we might cry if something sad happens to a character, are we really truly crying about that? Or are we crying what the sad event represents to our own lives. Are the dyinf characters simply just avatars of all the people who have already died or we worry will eventually die in our true reality


Cinema is, above and beyond anything, artifice. And sometimes a film isn't even meant to be playing with any kind of reality at all. It is meant to be reckoned with purely as film. Experimental films are pure this way. Sometimes surrealism. And camp. Or the sort of films which exists mostly to reflect back what we already know of films history (De Palma, Tarantino)


Usually though a film is a blend of these two things. It might offer enough believability for us to understand it as a reflection of the real world we are really living in (but it's only ever a reflection). But also enough of the pure cinema so that we simultaneously understand that is mostly just a reflection of itself. And more often than not, the dance between these two illusions is the sweet spot.


So, while some people may not be able to help but feel cheated by a film that breaks the supposed contract of realism they believe the movie made with them, it's mostly a contract that exists in their mind. One of little more than expectations the film never owed them in the first place. So while they are entitled to get their knickers in a twist over Usual Suspects or whatever movie cheating them of some imaginary thing, they are also exposing themselves as filmgoers who are pretty ignorant to the long history of film and just art in general.


Films are not only here to manipulate our emotions and assumptions about the world around us. But they are also meant to manipulate our assumptions about what film is even supposed to be. If anyone is breaking a contract, it is the people sulking that they didnt get what they thought was their divine right when they started shoving popcorn in their maw. But movies don't owe anything beyond being movies.


Now of course everyone commits this particular sin from time to time. Yes, even me. But people who make a business of consistently not understanding this are ultimately a strain on the evolution of art. While we definitely need some pushback against expectations being defied, there is just such an overwhelming amount of this stupid ass shit, that too many studios and producers and even artists themselves can't help but cater to such whining. And it becomes a problem


So, basically, **** those people. They are speed bumps and I encourage art to just drive over them at top speed



I agree with basically all that, but I think there's a weird tension that inevitably follows: transgressive art, while running over the pushback, also kind of needs it.

Transgressive expression needs standards to transgress against. Without conventions, without audience expectations, there is nothing to subvert, nothing to play with. It's nearly identical to the linguistic debate between subjectivism and prescriptivism. Creative, counterintuitive turns of phrase or irony or whatever are only possible once there's some kind of informally agreed-upon standard, even if that agreement is unstated and imperfect.

It's true that no given movie owes us anything. But we don't owe it anything, either. And I'm not entirely sure the relationship between art and viewer, in that context, is actually adversarial even when it seems that way. Sometimes it's symbiotic.

I realize that someone can note those transgressions without saying "this isn't a movie" or whatever provocatively reductive thing you tend to see in Internet arguments. But it's interesting to think about the push-pull of creating boundaries and then crossing them, over and over.

I'd say more but I'm like 75% sure we've had more or less this exact discussion before.



I agree with basically all that, but I think there's a weird tension that inevitably follows: transgressive art, while running over the pushback, also kind of needs it.

Transgressive expression needs standards to transgress against. Without conventions, without audience expectations, there is nothing to subvert, nothing to play with. It's nearly identical to the linguistic debate between subjectivism and prescriptivism. Creative, counterintuitive turns of phrase or irony or whatever are only possible once there's some kind of informally agreed-upon standard, even if that agreement is unstated and imperfect.

It's true that no given movie owes us anything. But we don't owe it anything, either. And I'm not entirely sure the relationship between art and viewer, in that context, is actually adversarial even when it seems that way. Sometimes it's symbiotic.

I realize that someone can note those transgressions without saying "this isn't a movie" or whatever provocatively reductive thing you tend to see in Internet arguments. But it's interesting to think about the push-pull of creating boundaries and then crossing them, over and over.

I'd say more but I'm like 75% sure we've had more or less this exact discussion before.

I mention how some amount of pushback is necessary, otherwise the boundary crossing may not even be noticed at all. And that wouldnt be terribly interesting since we need to consider the reasons for those original boundaries for the transgression to have any real weight to it.

But at a certain point the pushback can become stifling and legitimate impede to many artists. Or norms can simply be much too established and their isn't enough people out their willing to acknowledge the value of whatever particular rules are being broken.

Basically both of these things can be extremely frustrating. And obviously not even for artists. In the case of movie forums, it can even be exhausting just talking critically about these things when the conversation can never move past the reflexive offence so many people have. We end up having to have the same ground zero arguments over and over again like they never happened. And this almost makes it not worth trying after decades of the same thing over and over and over and over



I don't actually think very many films aim for true realism.
What is "true realism"? I can't think of any films which aim for true (dead on balls accurate) realism, apart from austere documentaries or perhaps super-serious historical dramas--but here it is almost inevitable that some history license is taken (e.g., consolidating events and characters, excluding some details, actors who are more charismatic or exaggerated than their historical counterparts).

Dramas, nevertheless, are still more realistic than actions movies (e.g., which feature Hollywood Ballistics™, lengthy car chases, bad guys who politely wait their turn to fight the hero, convenience stores which are just about to be held up until the arrival of the protagonist, absurdly high stakes, implausible betrayals, and conspiracies).

Are there exceptions? Sure. Are there transgressive movies? Sure. Are dramas still more realistic than action movies? Yes.
Just because we have some suspension of disbelief, to the point we might cry if something sad happens to a character, are we really truly crying about that?
The amazing thing is that we can actually suspend disbelief with regard to what we know is a lie. It is amazing that we can invest in the lie enough to be moved by it.
Or are we crying what the sad event represents to our own lives. Are the dyinf characters simply just avatars of all the people who have already died or we worry will eventually die in our true reality
And do we only recoil when we see a bad accident because we know it could happen to us? Or is our flinch at witnessing agony just those darned mirror-neurons kicking like our knees when the doc taps them with a tiny hammer? And does it matter?

Mitigation by explanation is a cheapest trick reductionists pull. "Well, consciousness is not all that interesting or awe-inspiring, it's just information and self-referential feedback processing in the brain." No, consciousness is pretty darned amazing and so is the fact that we sometimes cry in response to what we know is false. The fact that we have any suspension of disbelief is amazing, as it allows us to pass through the looking glass. Waving this off with some theory of "egoistic avatars" does not make the result any less amazing. The achievement still remains. Somehow, someway, we go through the looking glass. You seem obsessed with sterile formalities without a care for the life-world of narrative (you get strangely exercised by the idea that cinema is about storytelling).
Cinema is, above and beyond anything, artifice.
Well, that's my point. We are, nevetheless, moved by artifice. There is vital essence, life, in literary artifice. It is a reality or quasi-reality that we inhabit. And genres do, in the main, offer us different default expectations of reality as a tacit contract. You're big on transgression, but you can only transgress a line of realism in a given case if you implicitly acknowledge that the line is already there, waiting to be challenged. Yes, there are transgressive films, but... ...so what?
And sometimes a film isn't even meant to be playing with any kind of reality at all.
Perhaps, but this is the exception and not the rule. If we don't go through the looking glass and suspend disbelief at any point, if we don't go in, if we're forced to observe from the outside, then this is very sterile, like reading literary criticism or reading pedantic posts (such as the one I am writing).
It is meant to be reckoned with purely as film. Experimental films are pure this way.
You remind me of Ash from ALIEN. "I admire its purity. An artifact... unclouded by narrative, rules, or delusions of reality."
Sometimes surrealism. And camp. Or the sort of films which exists mostly to reflect back what we already know of films history (De Palma, Tarantino)
These are not "pure" (entirely devoid of any realism), but rather examples that operate with different and less stringent standards of realism. Surrealism is a kind of realism. Indeed, surrealism can cut through the rational mind like butter and take us into primal aspects of our conscious experience (e.g., irrational fears of our reptilian brains). A surrealism which is merely formally kaleidoscope is not really that interesting. Camp is an exaggeration, a fun house mirror, but it is still a mirror and there are still rules in effect, even if it is negotiating rules along the way. Ditto for Tarantino's pastiches--they touch on the collective unconsciousness, the great alter-land of cinema which sustains a sense of reality via internal rules and references.
Usually though a film is a blend of these two things. It might offer enough believability for us to understand it as a reflection of the real world we are really living in (but it's only ever a reflection).
Hence the title of the thread which inquires into the different levels of reality. Just as no or few films are "totally real," so too is it that no or few films are "totally unreal." It's a dreamland, a limbo.
But also enough of the pure cinema so that we simultaneously understand that is mostly just a reflection of itself. And more often than not, the dance between these two illusions is the sweet spot.
Sure, but some genres have a different tacit contract establishing different default expectations of how and in what way the film will seem real. Some genres are more verisimilar than others. My point here is to entertain an exploration of these levels, and not to simply worry about straw asymptotes which we never reach.
So, while some people may not be able to help but feel cheated by a film that breaks the supposed contract of realism they believe the movie made with them, it's mostly a contract that exists in their mind. One of little more than expectations the film never owed them in the first place. So while they are entitled to get their knickers in a twist over Usual Suspects or whatever movie cheating them of some imaginary thing, they are also exposing themselves as filmgoers who are pretty ignorant to the long history of film and just art in general.
No. Not every twist is earned. It may not be the case that "the customer is always right," but neither is it the case that "the viewer is always wrong" or "not owed anything" (as if films are not commercial products for which we pay and which we expect to be entertaining!). A film that cleverly subverts the audience's expectation to be entertained, probably isn't that clever.

If you don't think that films have any sort of contract with the audience, that the audience is not owed anything at all, then take it to the courts. They disagree with you. To be clear, I am not endorsing the idea of taking legal action over movie trailers, however, if the courts see the possibility of taking legal action over implicit contractuality in a commercial product, then we can damned well speak of aesthetic contractuality between text and audience in an artistic product. If you hold the audience in perfect contempt, you're doing it wrong.
Films are not only here to manipulate our emotions and assumptions about the world around us. But they are also meant to manipulate our assumptions about what film is even supposed to be.
And yet we still observe stable expectations about genre. You can only change so much, so fast. I didn't say that the varying expectations or realism relative to genre are unchanging Platonic Ideals. I am only committed to the notion that they are stable enough to use as touchstones in our present discussion (e.g., "drama" is consistently more realistic than "action").
If anyone is breaking a contract, it is the people sulking that they didnt get what they thought was their divine right when they started shoving popcorn in their maw. But movies don't owe anything beyond being movies.
LOL, you seem to see cinema as a strict schoolmaster with the unquestioned privilege of Clockwork Orange-ing audiences regardless of consent and investment. "Come and see! It is pure. Unreal. It is... ...cinemaahhhhhhh!"

Sorry, no. It's a dance. A film, of course, may not be made for me (personally), however, it is made some audience. And even if the film the film wants to violently transgress da' rules, there still has to be initial observation of conventions (foreplay), or the audience will have no idea what's happening to them as the rules are being "ravaged."

Films owe us a minimal amount, and if we want to play the game, we owe films a minimal amount. It is in this mutual owing that we come to artistic conventions, the very conventions which you seem to hold in contempt, as if film could (or should) be some unmediated experience of unreality, as if any rules as fundamentally bad and cluttering our view of the object, hamstringing the artist. Without conventions, however, reaching for that otherness will be unintelligible. For example, language requires certain conventions to work. Conventions change, sure. But a language with no rules is not a language and the people who spoke it would be mere babblers understood by no one, save for that which is conveyed by the deeper biological rules of nonverbal communication.
Now of course everyone commits this particular sin from time to time. Yes, even me.
Sin? Are we going to the movies or Sunday School? For someone who holds "the rules" in contempt, you have rather severe rules yourself. Films are free to transgress, but audiences who refuse are moral transgressors? Hmm....
But people who make a business of consistently not understanding this are ultimately a strain on the evolution of art.
Meh. The audience is the audience. Art is made for the audience. It is indeed an "artifice" (made by humans) with a purpose (it is for humans!), which is why the audience matters. You can't hold them in total disregard under some bizarre ontology of the perfect autonomy of art--like it is some space whale that isn't meant to give a care about the people for which it is made.
While we definitely need some pushback against expectations being defied, there is just such an overwhelming amount of this stupid ass shit, that too many studios and producers and even artists themselves can't help but cater to such whining. And it becomes a problem
It depends. Sometimes the audience is a little behind. Sometimes the film is a little too far ahead. It's a coordination problem. However, your admission that "we definitely need some pushback" is a damning one--the audience is, in fact, owed something, aren't they?
So, basically, **** those people. They are speed bumps and I encourage art to just drive over them at top speed
What a violent figuration. What a strict schoolmaster. How can we ever push back if we're being run over as "speed bumps" -- also, aren't speed bumps occasionally necessary?



Meh. The audience is the audience. Art is made for the audience.
Probably mostly true, but it seems clear he's saying that you (meaning, whoever's upset with the movie for upsetting their expectations) are not necessarily that audience. What seems to set him off is the idea that any particular movie (or that all movies) need to abide by these strictures/tendencies/whatever.



Probably mostly true, but it seems clear he's saying that you (meaning, whoever's upset with the movie for upsetting their expectations) are not necessarily that audience. What seems to set him off is the idea that any particular movie (or that all movies) need to abide by these strictures/tendencies/whatever.

Yes



As for the idea that art is 'mostly' made for an audience, I think most of the time it explicitly is (most artists do want positive feedback and so many either completely or at least somewhat cater to what they believe is expected of them....which is their business and not mine or yours or anybody else's)


But then there are artists who only sort of cater to an audience. Maybe even barely, considering ones definition of audience. I often think of a quote of Jim Jarmusch that goes along the lines of 'I have no idea if anyone is ever going to be interested in the kind of movies I make....but I want to see them, so I have to assume there must be others out there that do as well'


Some artists cater to this 'audience' of one. They live with the hope that maybe it is more than just them, but they can't let they discourage the from the path they are on. Art for many who deal in more experimental or abstracted or unconventional forms are frequently a leap of faith for the one creating them. And for some out there, ie me, we find a beauty in the defiance of pursuing this vision even if no one ultimately cares.


So this notion of 'who cares about transgression', it is an absolutely essential element of what art is and how it moves forward. Even transgression that ultimately fails Even transgression that is only for transgression sake. Transgression is what allows the hope that there are other ways of doing things outside of the box the rest of the standard audience (ie Corax) would prefer it to stay inside of. Even when it doesn't work, it offers a route for future attempts that might. That might be transformative. Thst might even be what ultimately creates a new box for people to try and keep art inside of.


As for the whole idea of artifice in cinema, and how it is used to evoke empathy, I don't really see how much of what I said is in opposition to Yarns posts. It was mostly just an addition to it. But arguers got to argue I guess. Got to eventually get ones money's worth from those lucrative philosophy courses



I imagine part of the tension here is what kind of art we have in mind when we talk about this.

For example, if one person is thinking of art in its totality, obviously "I made this for myself" is a perfectly valid reason to create something. Art can be therapeutic, and many people paint to relax and then put it in an attic, or whatever. But (almost) by definition, we never hear of it.

Contrast this person with another, who's thinking specifically of film. Maybe a specific film that cost millions of dollars, where the director's on some rudimentary press tour insisting they don't care who sees it because it's not there to cater to audiences. Even if that could be true, it doesn't seem likely to be true. It's more likely that they're creating or reinforcing their brand as an uncompromising, challenging artist, with correspondingly uncompromising hyperbole.

I think the number of filmmakers we've heard of who literally don't have an audience in mind is vanishingly small, and I think the ones who say or imply this are mostly just signaling a heavily diluted version of that. And while this is a little harsh, I think sometimes it's probably a defense mechanism against a lack of commercial success they'd probably greatly prefer.

I find myself taking this kind of stance on a lot of things: believing a thing exists but doubting nearly all purported examples of it in practice.



I imagine part of the tension here is what kind of art we have in mind when we talk about this.

For example, if one person is thinking of art in its totality, obviously "I made this for myself" is a perfectly valid reason to create something. Art can be therapeutic, and many people paint to relax and then put it in an attic, or whatever. But (almost) by definition, we never hear of it.

Contrast this person with another, who's thinking specifically of film. Maybe a specific film that cost millions of dollars, where the director's on some rudimentary press tour insisting they don't care who sees it because it's not there to cater to audiences. Even if that could be true, it doesn't seem likely to be true. It's more likely that they're creating or reinforcing their brand as an uncompromising, challenging artist, with correspondingly uncompromising hyperbole.

I think the number of filmmakers we've heard of who literally don't have an audience in mind is vanishingly small, and I think the ones who say or imply this are mostly just signaling a heavily diluted version of that. And while this is a little harsh, I think sometimes it's probably a defense mechanism against a lack of commercial success they'd probably greatly prefer.

I find myself taking this kind of stance on a lot of things: believing a thing exists but doubting nearly all purported examples of it in practice.

I imagine there are some out there who do do this as a defense mechanism. But I don't think that an artist who does do things predominantly for themselves is a terribly rare thing.


We can argue the semantics of what exactly does 'do it for themselves mean' (cue Yarns bat signal), and I'll agree I dont think it is often Purely this. But I think the notion of creation has become completely polluted by the simple spectre of commercial prospect to the point we become skeptical anyone would do it for any otherreason. That creation becomes impossible to be seen when divorced from it. As if that consumption and profit (of either money or reputation ) is the predominant reason people create. And....it isn't. Not when it comes to the basic process of what art kind of is. It's a struggle to find oneself. It is the hope that when found it might communicate something to someone else. And, if we put any faith in this sort of thing (which I do, and it is very much faith based), then these things lessen in their value when they aren't done with as little care to audience expectstions as possible. There are artists to me whose primary value is how divorced they are from everything else that is happening around them. They offer a window into their minds that can only happen when they put blinders on to the rest of the world and what it expects of them. It doesn't work when it caters to any particular audience.


And, I'm not ignoring that hope for communication part. But that finding a receptive audience to these things only matters if they are born from these very self obsessed artistic motivations. When the audience is what is being catered to it becomes something completely different (with different kinds of value)


Now because so many artists can't help but want adulation, want monetary gain, I agree this kind of thing gets corrupted way more often than I would like. And sometimes it is just a pose by the artist. But I dont think we should be waving our hands away at this particular struggle to communicate the personal and maybe unknowable parts of ourselves through art. It's a real thing that many artists clearly do. And it does a great disservice to those who do by doubting in it even existing



Also, lots of examples of art hidden away, done as a personal project, that eventually leaks out into the world.


In the Realm of the Unreal being one of the most famous examples. And while I imagine Henry Darger had some imaginary audience all of his own while he was in the process of creating, it's hard to imagine his flights of imagination had any belief that such an audience for his work even existed in the real world. His work, which is absolutely a work of serious art, was very much made for himself, and was likely used at as reckoning with whatever traumas hr suffered as a child, and with the complete alienation he felt from society in general



I was writing that response very quickly during my break at work on phone, so a lot of that probably got mutilated by spell check and getting distracted by people and all their stupid lunches.