But to say these films remind me of each other is not to deny their intense uniqueness. Charlie Kaufman, David Lynch, and Baz Luhrmann are each Auteurs worthy of the label, their works always recognizably original and creative.
Showing posts with label auteur theory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label auteur theory. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2009
Synecdoche, New York
Synecdoche, New York reminded me of things. In its casual acceptance of the absurd, it reminds me of Mulholland Dr. In its story of the confused conflation between the artist's life and his work, it reminds me of Moulin Rouge!. In its willful and playful abandonment of realism, it reminds me of both those films.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Acting and the Creative Act
A contrapuntal essay
In "The Existential Clown" in The Atlantic, James Parker writes about actor Jim Carrey as an artist, whose films show a consistency of vision:
"Jim Carrey will loom large in our shattered posterity, I believe, because his filmography amounts to a uniquely sustained engagement with the problem of the self."
I might take this in a few different directions. In emails with my friend Rob (a writer and proponent of Auteur Theory) we have discussed whether an actor can really be an auteur, who really controls the vision of a film or films, who should, differences in stage and film, that sort of thing. But there are other directions, including artistic intent. If Carrey did not play roles in these films as part of a larger artistic vision, if indeed his primary goal is to make people laugh and he doesn't bother with anything remotely approaching "a uniquely sustained engagement with the problem of the self," then can his filmography really amount to this? Can we the viewers (or just Parker) examine the ouevre for its results, without bothering with the intentions of the comic actor? Or maybe we could look about and find other actors who, in their acting alone separate from writing or directing, show a consistency of character, theme, explorative subject (John Wayne comes to mind). Or we could be more subjective: are there certain actors you follow in the same way you might follow a writer, a director, a musician? Does having a "favorite actor" mean quite the same thing as having a "favorite writer"? And how is it different?
I like all these lines of inquiry, but I'm interested in reflecting on acting as a creative act. When I speak of a Shakespearean production, I would tend to refer to "Actor A's Character" rather than "Director B's Play" (for example, to me this is "Gibson's Hamlet," not "Zeffirelli's Hamlet"). It is the actor who interprets and creates the character. If I see a film or stage version, it is not the choices of the director I will relish, but the choices of the actor. Of course the actor is not independent: he/she relies on the initial creation of character and words by Shakespeare, as well as the vision and support of a director. But what artist can work in isolation with total freedom from interference or influence? A writer does not invent the language he/she works in, even if he/she invents his/her own version of it.
But let's move to television. David Chase created The Sopranos, but I think it was really Tony Gandolfini who created Tony Soprano. Certainly Chase invented him, but it was Gandolfini who gave him life, who gave him shape, who thrusts Tony Soprano into my consciousness. Gandolfini is a creative agent. Gandolfini is the artist who passed a character from the realm of imagination into...well, my imagination (when I started watching the DVDs I did have dreams about him). Could another actor have done so? Maybe. Maybe not. But I want to credit the actor for making the character what he is, and I do believe it is the actor as creative agent that reached me.
That's not to say that's always the case. Larry David is probably more responsible than Jason Alexander for the genius of George Costanza, but Michael Richards is largely the creator of Kramer.
And maybe we get back to the old problem of Jack Nicholson's Randle Patrick McMurphy against Ken Kesey's Randle Patrick McMurphy. They're not quite the same McMurphy, are they? I don't think Milos Forman made a different McMurphy. And while I can have serious discussion about the differences between the film and novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I cannot really articulate why Nicholson's portrayal of McMurphy is not quite the McMurphy of the book. I can only say that Nicholson is a great actor, an artist, a dominant presence that makes a character his own. Simply by having Nicholas play McMurphy, McMurphy becomes something other than what he was in the text (of course, right? He's an aesthetic creation, and so that aesthetic in words on a page is different than an actor on a screen. That's not what I want to address here; I'm still asserting that Nicholson created a character).
So maybe I'm only thinking of the brilliant actors here (but, in the same way proponents of Auteur Theory mainly think of the brilliant directors). What of the average actors? What of the lousy actors?
But let me raise a problem (and suggest this whole line of inquiry is either pointless or impossible). I love the film The Aviator for its portrayal of character; I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was brilliant (I'm rather interested in OCD). One scene in particular lingers with me: Hughes is in a restroom, and he doesn't want to touch the door to get out, so he quietly waits until somebody else enters the restroom so that he can leave without touching the door.
The scene is wonderful: I recall the quiet and the focus. But whom do I really credit for the scene? Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, director Martin Scorcese, or writer John Logan? And this may also get at why I can't quite accept Auteur Theory. I think it likely the scene worked so well because actor, director, writer, and even a host of others contributing to the creation of the scene made it work. A singular, controlling vision? That doesn't matter; what matters is the resulting scene, a scene with many contributors to its brilliance (though perhaps Auteur Theory is a way to understand an ouevre, not a particular film or a particular scene).
I'm interested in the ways that an actor creates. I'm interested in the way an actor can be an artist. I'm interested in why different people watch things and what they're looking for when they watch. And I'm interested in how we talk about these things.
Let me finish by noting that in some ways, the subject of acting and the theater haunts my dreams. I have recurring dreams (nightmares, I suppose) about somehow making a mistake and ruining a stage show. In particular, I sometimes dream that I'm in a play, and perhaps I don't know my lines, perhaps I don't know the blocking, or often it's more serious: I don't know what character I'm playing, or I don't even know what play I'm in. In my dreams, I often find myself on stage in front of people with other performers, not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing and aware that I'm ruining everything. Please, try that on Freud.
(These contrapuntal essays are taking a distinct shape toward a) rambling directionlessly and b) asking a bunch of questions I'm not bothering to answer (I really hate the latter trend in my writing and will work toward toning it down). What I'm finding in these essays, however, is that it is not the result that makes it contrapuntal, but my mindset whiile writing. I'm willing to ramble and raise questions and lose focus. It's a method, a way of thinking, and thus the writing and thinking goes where I don't expect when I begin)
In "The Existential Clown" in The Atlantic, James Parker writes about actor Jim Carrey as an artist, whose films show a consistency of vision:
"Jim Carrey will loom large in our shattered posterity, I believe, because his filmography amounts to a uniquely sustained engagement with the problem of the self."
I might take this in a few different directions. In emails with my friend Rob (a writer and proponent of Auteur Theory) we have discussed whether an actor can really be an auteur, who really controls the vision of a film or films, who should, differences in stage and film, that sort of thing. But there are other directions, including artistic intent. If Carrey did not play roles in these films as part of a larger artistic vision, if indeed his primary goal is to make people laugh and he doesn't bother with anything remotely approaching "a uniquely sustained engagement with the problem of the self," then can his filmography really amount to this? Can we the viewers (or just Parker) examine the ouevre for its results, without bothering with the intentions of the comic actor? Or maybe we could look about and find other actors who, in their acting alone separate from writing or directing, show a consistency of character, theme, explorative subject (John Wayne comes to mind). Or we could be more subjective: are there certain actors you follow in the same way you might follow a writer, a director, a musician? Does having a "favorite actor" mean quite the same thing as having a "favorite writer"? And how is it different?
I like all these lines of inquiry, but I'm interested in reflecting on acting as a creative act. When I speak of a Shakespearean production, I would tend to refer to "Actor A's Character" rather than "Director B's Play" (for example, to me this is "Gibson's Hamlet," not "Zeffirelli's Hamlet"). It is the actor who interprets and creates the character. If I see a film or stage version, it is not the choices of the director I will relish, but the choices of the actor. Of course the actor is not independent: he/she relies on the initial creation of character and words by Shakespeare, as well as the vision and support of a director. But what artist can work in isolation with total freedom from interference or influence? A writer does not invent the language he/she works in, even if he/she invents his/her own version of it.
But let's move to television. David Chase created The Sopranos, but I think it was really Tony Gandolfini who created Tony Soprano. Certainly Chase invented him, but it was Gandolfini who gave him life, who gave him shape, who thrusts Tony Soprano into my consciousness. Gandolfini is a creative agent. Gandolfini is the artist who passed a character from the realm of imagination into...well, my imagination (when I started watching the DVDs I did have dreams about him). Could another actor have done so? Maybe. Maybe not. But I want to credit the actor for making the character what he is, and I do believe it is the actor as creative agent that reached me.
That's not to say that's always the case. Larry David is probably more responsible than Jason Alexander for the genius of George Costanza, but Michael Richards is largely the creator of Kramer.
And maybe we get back to the old problem of Jack Nicholson's Randle Patrick McMurphy against Ken Kesey's Randle Patrick McMurphy. They're not quite the same McMurphy, are they? I don't think Milos Forman made a different McMurphy. And while I can have serious discussion about the differences between the film and novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I cannot really articulate why Nicholson's portrayal of McMurphy is not quite the McMurphy of the book. I can only say that Nicholson is a great actor, an artist, a dominant presence that makes a character his own. Simply by having Nicholas play McMurphy, McMurphy becomes something other than what he was in the text (of course, right? He's an aesthetic creation, and so that aesthetic in words on a page is different than an actor on a screen. That's not what I want to address here; I'm still asserting that Nicholson created a character).
So maybe I'm only thinking of the brilliant actors here (but, in the same way proponents of Auteur Theory mainly think of the brilliant directors). What of the average actors? What of the lousy actors?
But let me raise a problem (and suggest this whole line of inquiry is either pointless or impossible). I love the film The Aviator for its portrayal of character; I thought Leonardo DiCaprio was brilliant (I'm rather interested in OCD). One scene in particular lingers with me: Hughes is in a restroom, and he doesn't want to touch the door to get out, so he quietly waits until somebody else enters the restroom so that he can leave without touching the door.
The scene is wonderful: I recall the quiet and the focus. But whom do I really credit for the scene? Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, director Martin Scorcese, or writer John Logan? And this may also get at why I can't quite accept Auteur Theory. I think it likely the scene worked so well because actor, director, writer, and even a host of others contributing to the creation of the scene made it work. A singular, controlling vision? That doesn't matter; what matters is the resulting scene, a scene with many contributors to its brilliance (though perhaps Auteur Theory is a way to understand an ouevre, not a particular film or a particular scene).
I'm interested in the ways that an actor creates. I'm interested in the way an actor can be an artist. I'm interested in why different people watch things and what they're looking for when they watch. And I'm interested in how we talk about these things.
Let me finish by noting that in some ways, the subject of acting and the theater haunts my dreams. I have recurring dreams (nightmares, I suppose) about somehow making a mistake and ruining a stage show. In particular, I sometimes dream that I'm in a play, and perhaps I don't know my lines, perhaps I don't know the blocking, or often it's more serious: I don't know what character I'm playing, or I don't even know what play I'm in. In my dreams, I often find myself on stage in front of people with other performers, not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing and aware that I'm ruining everything. Please, try that on Freud.
(These contrapuntal essays are taking a distinct shape toward a) rambling directionlessly and b) asking a bunch of questions I'm not bothering to answer (I really hate the latter trend in my writing and will work toward toning it down). What I'm finding in these essays, however, is that it is not the result that makes it contrapuntal, but my mindset whiile writing. I'm willing to ramble and raise questions and lose focus. It's a method, a way of thinking, and thus the writing and thinking goes where I don't expect when I begin)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Torrential Downpour: back after finals week
End of the semester grading is pretty demanding. But I'm back, baby!
The Sopranos
I think The Sopranos offers a test to viewers. How long does it take you to recognize Tony Soprano as a nearly irredeemably evil human being? The show gets you to sympathize with him, to side with him, to find him appealing. At the beginning it's easy: you see a bad man, but you see a struggling complex man, with a difficult environment, with a horrifying mother, a man with issues that is going to therapy to try and make some sort of change. But as time goes on, we see that there really is no desire for moral change, and that this man is selfish, violent, evil. Whether you realize that early in the series or at the end does not say something directly about your morality; however, it may say something about the way you watch television.
Violent--compared to whom?
In an interview between Peter Bogdanovich and David Chase on season one of The Sopranos, Bogdanovich asserts that American society is more violent than other societies. While I won't deny that violence is deep in the soul of American history, I can't quite view American society as more violent than other societies. I look through history of societies on every continent, and I see wars, genocides, executions, and brutality. It's worth exploring whether and how American violence and history of violence differs from other societies, but to claim that American society is more violent than other societies without explanation? I can't accept that, as an historical or contemporary assertion.
Why I stopped reading Les Miserables
If I'm going to read a 1,400 page novel, I should get something out of it. But after a few hundred pages of Les Miserables, I really hadn't gotten anything that I didn't already have from listening to the musical. At least, I wasn't getting enough more to make it worth the while to continue reading the novel. So I've moved on, and I've read several things since I put down Les Miserables.
College teaching
Life as an adjunct is very seasonal. I get long stretches when I do little to no work for my job, but there are also stretches when it dominates much of my time and intellectual energy. As it happens, one of those busy stretches comes in the middle of December, and it really is only today after finishing all my grading that I'm recognizing Christmas.
Winter break
I continue to study the master: I'm reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
TV > Film
Film is limited by time. Television allows you to get drawn into stories and into characters. A television series stretches over hours, and episodically gives you a chance to delve into character psychology and engage in complex plots. Film just doesn't quite have that depth.
Horror films
Sometimes it takes until the end of a horror movie to know whether it is good of bad; while you are watching it, you may not be able to evaluate it. Horror endings are often unconventional, and so you really must wait for the climax before you know whether what you watched was derivative uncreative pulp or something vital. The Reaping is a bad movie. It's a very bad movie. But I really didn't feel comfortable making that assertion until immediately after it was over--during the movie, it could have gone in many different and unexpected directions, and so it might have turned out good. But when the film is in the past and not the present, it is quite clearly not good.
Some horror movies, of course, reveal their awfulness as you go along.
Lit class goals
By the end of a semester teaching a gen ed lit class, I want my students to be able to compare themes across different works of literature. It may not be one of the official objectives of the course; however, if students can make insightful and useful comparisons between and across different works we've read, I think they are achieving the official objectives. By the end of the course, I want students to independently make thematic connections between different works.
In my lit classes, I also barely even mention the author. Biography of the author is often irrelevant and at best tangential to the goals of the course. I suppose my literature pedagogy is a mix of Reader-response theory (in which, of course, the reader's experience with the text receives attention) and New Criticism (which focuses on close examination of the text itself rather than attention to the author of the text).
We also focus on ideas. Form gets attention--it must. But usually we discuss form as a means of conveying and exploring an idea. By focusing on ideas, students can take the literature into their own lives. As I tell my students when giving my interpretation of "The Archaic Torso of Apollo," the literature we read demands that we examine our lives. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest requires each reader to examine his or her relationship to the Combine (victim? collaborator? resister? or simply free of it?). It's the ideas from the works that we can use to examine our lives and our world--and that, I suppose, is the goal of any lit class.
The Sopranos
I think The Sopranos offers a test to viewers. How long does it take you to recognize Tony Soprano as a nearly irredeemably evil human being? The show gets you to sympathize with him, to side with him, to find him appealing. At the beginning it's easy: you see a bad man, but you see a struggling complex man, with a difficult environment, with a horrifying mother, a man with issues that is going to therapy to try and make some sort of change. But as time goes on, we see that there really is no desire for moral change, and that this man is selfish, violent, evil. Whether you realize that early in the series or at the end does not say something directly about your morality; however, it may say something about the way you watch television.
Violent--compared to whom?
In an interview between Peter Bogdanovich and David Chase on season one of The Sopranos, Bogdanovich asserts that American society is more violent than other societies. While I won't deny that violence is deep in the soul of American history, I can't quite view American society as more violent than other societies. I look through history of societies on every continent, and I see wars, genocides, executions, and brutality. It's worth exploring whether and how American violence and history of violence differs from other societies, but to claim that American society is more violent than other societies without explanation? I can't accept that, as an historical or contemporary assertion.
Why I stopped reading Les Miserables
If I'm going to read a 1,400 page novel, I should get something out of it. But after a few hundred pages of Les Miserables, I really hadn't gotten anything that I didn't already have from listening to the musical. At least, I wasn't getting enough more to make it worth the while to continue reading the novel. So I've moved on, and I've read several things since I put down Les Miserables.
College teaching
Life as an adjunct is very seasonal. I get long stretches when I do little to no work for my job, but there are also stretches when it dominates much of my time and intellectual energy. As it happens, one of those busy stretches comes in the middle of December, and it really is only today after finishing all my grading that I'm recognizing Christmas.
Winter break
I continue to study the master: I'm reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot.
TV > Film
Film is limited by time. Television allows you to get drawn into stories and into characters. A television series stretches over hours, and episodically gives you a chance to delve into character psychology and engage in complex plots. Film just doesn't quite have that depth.
Horror films
Sometimes it takes until the end of a horror movie to know whether it is good of bad; while you are watching it, you may not be able to evaluate it. Horror endings are often unconventional, and so you really must wait for the climax before you know whether what you watched was derivative uncreative pulp or something vital. The Reaping is a bad movie. It's a very bad movie. But I really didn't feel comfortable making that assertion until immediately after it was over--during the movie, it could have gone in many different and unexpected directions, and so it might have turned out good. But when the film is in the past and not the present, it is quite clearly not good.
Some horror movies, of course, reveal their awfulness as you go along.
Lit class goals
By the end of a semester teaching a gen ed lit class, I want my students to be able to compare themes across different works of literature. It may not be one of the official objectives of the course; however, if students can make insightful and useful comparisons between and across different works we've read, I think they are achieving the official objectives. By the end of the course, I want students to independently make thematic connections between different works.
In my lit classes, I also barely even mention the author. Biography of the author is often irrelevant and at best tangential to the goals of the course. I suppose my literature pedagogy is a mix of Reader-response theory (in which, of course, the reader's experience with the text receives attention) and New Criticism (which focuses on close examination of the text itself rather than attention to the author of the text).
We also focus on ideas. Form gets attention--it must. But usually we discuss form as a means of conveying and exploring an idea. By focusing on ideas, students can take the literature into their own lives. As I tell my students when giving my interpretation of "The Archaic Torso of Apollo," the literature we read demands that we examine our lives. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest requires each reader to examine his or her relationship to the Combine (victim? collaborator? resister? or simply free of it?). It's the ideas from the works that we can use to examine our lives and our world--and that, I suppose, is the goal of any lit class.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Comments and Links
The MLA rejects Auteur theory.
Using the Modern Language Association rules for a works cited page, citations for written material identify the author first, then the title. Citations for visual material such as film and television programs identify the title first, then people involved in the creation of the work.
Changing Scope
I’m continuing to add links to sites that are literary, academic, or philosophical in nature. I’m also adding links to some science magazines (it’s important—people devoted to ideas can’t go on ignorant of scientific discoveries and their meaning) and some liberal political sites (not because I want political discussion at this site, but because I increasingly use my blogs as a launching point to see everything I care about on the internet, and so I don’t check very much that I don’t link to).
The King’s Bed
By MEGAN MARSHALL
You may know of my complete contempt for all royalty and nobility (but lest we live in a world without contradictions, The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite books).
Freedom and belief
Theo Hobson
THE NUTTY PROFESSORS: The history of academic charisma.
by ANTHONY GRAFTON
How Gandhi Got His Mojo Back
by Swati Gauri Sharma
Using the Modern Language Association rules for a works cited page, citations for written material identify the author first, then the title. Citations for visual material such as film and television programs identify the title first, then people involved in the creation of the work.
Changing Scope
I’m continuing to add links to sites that are literary, academic, or philosophical in nature. I’m also adding links to some science magazines (it’s important—people devoted to ideas can’t go on ignorant of scientific discoveries and their meaning) and some liberal political sites (not because I want political discussion at this site, but because I increasingly use my blogs as a launching point to see everything I care about on the internet, and so I don’t check very much that I don’t link to).
The King’s Bed
By MEGAN MARSHALL
You may know of my complete contempt for all royalty and nobility (but lest we live in a world without contradictions, The Three Musketeers is one of my favorite books).
Freedom and belief
Theo Hobson
THE NUTTY PROFESSORS: The history of academic charisma.
by ANTHONY GRAFTON
How Gandhi Got His Mojo Back
by Swati Gauri Sharma
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