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C'est Cinéma
NOTE: The following is not a review or an argument, but merely a person reflection. Please keep that in mind as you read it. It's nothing but a page from a student filmmaker's diary and should be pretty much treated accordingly.
Why is it that we, as an audience, are much more willing to accept the unmotivated actions of society's upper-crust than we are those of its lower-depths? Why is it that when an aristocrat acts irresponsibly, it's just "something that happens," but when we commoners misbehave, we automatically go hunting for reasons why? Can it really be that in the decadence of wealth, the rich misbehave because they're bored and simply able to?
This is not the central idea or theme of either Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960) or Luis Buñuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), but it's still a valid question that both films happen to raise. It's also something that I find rather intriguing personally. For a long while now, I've had a project developing inside my head in which a group of mature, sensible adults begin a string of affairs with one another's partners, which was always sort of hindered by the fact that there seemed to be no real reasoning behind any of the character's actions. But the thing is, my story was based on factual events that were taking place in my own life until just recently – and there was no logic or reason to support the actions there either. Ironically, I had an "unrealistic" story to tell and it was based entirely on reality. But that's okay. Films like these, I now realise, have their valid place in the world – they exist and they're out there.
The greatest lessons I've learnt this semester have been taught by the masters of post-war European cinema – particularly Godard and Fellini, but also Antonioni, Buñuel, Truffaut, Bergman, De Sica and Tarkovsky. Their films are speaking to me on a level that no other films have before – not only in terms of style, but in terms of content, philosophy and theory as well. The impact of Godard's Bande à part (1964) upon me, for example, is not merely tantamount to the impact that, say, Magnolia (1999) had upon me eighteen months ago, but it far, far, far exceeds it. My second viewing of Fellini's 8 ½ (1963) effectively changed my life.
In her acceptance speech at this year's Oscars, Sofia Coppola actually went as far as to thank all "the filmmakers whose movies inspired me when I was writing this script," before citing a list of names that included both Antonioni and Godard. Our tastes, it seems, are strikingly similar. As I told Austin yesterday, I really want Film No. 2 to have "a sort of Lance Accord feel," which translates, for me, into a style that's borderline documentary and decidedly "in the moment". It's a style that I think has been mastered in recent years by Steven Soderbergh, but which can be traced back, as far as I'm concerned, to Raoul Coutard. The style I'm talking about is at its most strikingly effective – subtly suggestive as opposed to blatantly obvious – in Godard's The Little Soldier (1960).
Anyway, now I'm just getting obscure because I like to think it makes me sound smart [and I know it does anything but]. The fact of the matter is that for the first time in my life, I'm experiencing a sort of cinema that's generally more cerebral than it is visceral – simplistically put [and perhaps overly so], that's more European than it is American.
It's having a real impact on who I am, what I want to do and, most importantly, a profound impact – perhaps even its most profound – on just how I want to do it.
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