Dekalog

Having rented the Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog a few years ago I decided to pick up a copy and revisit them. If you don't know the series, Kieslowski and his writing partner Krzysztof Piesiewicz created a ten part television mini-series inspired by each of the ten commandments. What is astounding about the series is how it subtly explores the difficulties and complexities of human behaviour and morality. As simple as the commandments seem on paper, Kieslowski and Piesiewicz manage to delve into the grey areas and challenge our ideology of absolute morality. Life is difficult and the answers aren't always clear cut in simple rules.

Stanley Kubrick is said to have stated that the "Dekalog" was the only film masterpiece that he'd seen in his lifetime. After showing "Red", "White" and "Blue", one of my astute students suggested that Kubrick was heavily influenced by Kieslowski for his final film "Eyes Wide Shut" (an interesting proposition that I would love to see explored).

I highly recommend this series to all but particularly to film writers. Kieslowski's work is firmly planted in strong themes and ideas. I'll leave you with Stanley Kubrick's forward to the published screenplays of 'The Dekalog':

I am always reluctant to single out some particular feature of the work of a major filmmaker because it tends inevitably to simplify and reduce the work. But in this book of screenplays by Krzysztof Kieslowski and his co-author, Krzysztof Piesiewicz, it should not be out of place to observe that they have the very rare ability to dramatize their ideas rather than just talking about them. By making their points through the dramatic action of the story they gain the added power of allowing the audience to discover what's really going on rather than being told. They do this with such dazzling skill, you never see the ideas coming and don't realize until much later how profoundly they have reached your heart.

Stanley Kubrick
January 1991

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Art of Time

'Time' is a major part of the art of filmmaking. When I'm editing and directing I am always experimenting with the length of shots. Sometimes you want to cut quickly, sometimes you want to hold on a shot. You learn very quickly that time is elastic and you manipulate the audience and tone of the film with the cadence of the film.

Compare the rhythms of Sergio Leone and, let's say, Michael Bay. Each filmmaker is using the pace of the film to achieve their goals. With Leone, long shots are used to draw out the tension. For Bay, it is trying to speed up the hearts of the audience for a more visceral effect. Look at Ridley Scott's 'Alien' and James Cameron's 'Aliens'. Both are exceptional films but both use time in a very different way. Scott employs longer shots and a slower pace to increase the tension and suspense where Cameron's film, although equally intense, employs a much faster pace. Both films work on the audience but in different ways. I always loved Ebert's review of 'Aliens':

The movie is so intense that it creates a problem for me as a reviewer: Do I praise its craftsmanship, or do I tell you it left me feeling wrung out and unhappy? It has been a week since I saw it, so the emotions have faded a little, leaving with me an appreciation of the movie's technical qualities. But when I walked out of the theater, there were knots in my stomach from the film's roller-coaster ride of violence. This is not the kind of movie where it means anything to say you "enjoyed" it.

Here is an excerpt from his review of Aliens:

One of the great strengths of "Alien" is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").

I showed my students a Kieslowski masterclass found on the DVD extras of Blue. My students laughed while Kieslowski described having his assistant spending the day finding a sugar cube that would absorb coffee in five seconds. Juliette Binoche's character is running from her past and Kieslowski wanted to show that she has absorbed herself in unimportant details in order to move on without dealing with the death of her husband and daughter as well as her own talent as the composer of her husbands music (for which he is heralded). The sugar cube represents her attempt to forget and repress. For Kielsowski, three seconds wouldn't allow for enough time to create significance to the representation and eight seconds would be too long and would bore the audience. For him, a five second shot made it important enough for the audience to 'read' it but not significant enough to take the audience out of the film if it were longer. Although my students initially found this extreme level of detail entertaining, they soon found out how important time was when they made their first films.



The aspect of time in the art of filmmaking is not only fun to experiment with but it seems that it does have a scientific base. Here is an excerpt from an article from Discover magazine:

Even in a healthy brain, time is elastic. Staring at an angry face for five seconds feels longer than staring at a neutral one. It may be no coincidence that the pulse-generating neurons are directly wired into regions of the brain that handle emotionally charged sights and sounds. And recent experiments by Amelia Hunt at Harvard University hint that we may actually backdate our mental time line every time we move our eyes.

This information is golden for filmmakers as it is one of the few arts that works in the realm of time. You can read the rest of the article here.

You can read the rest of Roger Ebert's reviews at www.rogerebert.com

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Kubrick on Channel 4

This is a fun Kurbrick promo linked from my good friend Peter Pelisek:

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That'll learn ya...

And there's plenty to learn in this big wide world.

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A musical mood...

Must be the cool air and warm sunshine.

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The Constantines

Gritty and refined, the Constantines released their fourth album "Kensington Heights". If you haven't heard them, the band is one of the finest in Canada.



You should also visit the great indy music store zunior.com. Zunior sells albums as digital downloads for only $8.88 and are drm free. I get most of my music from them.

(I am not affiliated with either of these but wanted to share the news)

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The Digital Void

"I wanted the audience to be able to trust their eyes again."
Werner Herzog

After waiting a few weeks, I finally made the trek to my local AMC to check out the latest Indiana Jones sequel. I, like most of you, have a personal history with Indiana Jones films. Having turned seven years old with the release of Star Wars, I was the perfect age to grow up on the imaginative adventures that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were cooking up. Arriving at the falling of the boulder, my brother Andrew and I were late for Raiders of the Lost Ark and missed most of the opening sequence. It became the perfect reason to return for another viewing although we had to lie to our Mother to cough up additional movie funds as she wouldn't give us the money to see the same film twice. My entire childhood, as sad as it might seem, was devoted to buying George Lucas his beloved Skywalker Ranch and whatever wonderful mansion he must live in today.

Despite this nostalgic and sentimental opening, I am going to digress from 'reviewing' the Crystal Skull. I can say that I did enjoy the film but did not love it. What the film did do was get me thinking about synthesizers. What about them, you ask? I have already confessed my age here so it is easy to deduce that my formative years took place during the 1980's. I might be biased but I don't hold much love or nostalgia for this period in time and it is synthesizers that seem to be the icon for how I feel about it. The synthesizer, particularly in the 80's, was used excessively despite the fact that the technology felt artificial and empty. The voice of the synthesizer is without depth or feeling. Not only did this abomination ruin popular music, it ruined film music as it replaced the power of the full orchestra and the emotive playing of it's talented members. Look at how the synthesizer scores damaged films like Wall Street and Witness. With proper film scores, these films would feel less dated and have a greater impact today (yes this just my opinion but I believe it to be true). Both are fine films but they suffer under the robotic scores.

Now, in 2008, I'm starting to feel like our excessive use of 3d animation in film is having a damaging impact. I might also back track to the synthesizer and it's place in the 1990's. Musicians had played enough with the machine, explored it's potential, then picked up some traditional instruments and began making music again. Music that came from real life instruments - the non perfect kind. The kind that bent the notes, played it slightly flat or sharp and had an organic feel where no two notes were played the same. The synthesizer was not thrown out and I don't suggest it needed to be. It became a texture and highlight in the music, finding it's place in colouring the songs.

While I sat in the new Indiana Jones and watched Shia LaBeouf straddle two cars while driving through the jungle or as Indy et al go over the massive water fall, I felt like I was listening to the synthesizer again. This moment of total physics defying action pulled me out of the film and reminded me that I was watching a movie. It got me thinking about that original Raiders film and what really made it work. Partly it's the plausibility of the action. Don't misunderstand my words here, I said plausibility, not possibility. There is a difference. The fact that Spielberg used stunt men on actual sets to accomplish his action, the audience is drawn further into the action and, more importantly, the plight of the hero. Since what we are seeing feels real, the audience is much more likely to sit on the edge of their seat and empathize with the hero. Spielberg learned this famous lesson in Jaws, to create fear and tension is to make the audience believe in the shark and to let their imaginations take them the rest of the way. Show the shark and people see that it isn't real and the gig is up.

We are at that point in films right now. We can all see the shark and it doesn't look real. We see the hero fall off the water falls and we are bored. Mind you, if Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid jump off the cliff, we feel it. We feel it because two stunt men jumped off a cliff.

This little rant does not suggest that we take the clock back. I am not nostalgic for old fashioned methods. I do think that us writers and filmmakers have to cut back on our synthesizers and make sure that we don't break the illusions we are creating. It damages our stories. Take a look at Peter Weir's Master and Commander as a superior example of using the technology as texture and a tool to achieve the unachievable. It's a wonderful picture, full of all sorts of visual effects but integrated with real ships, real waves and real people. Look at Ridley Scott's re release of Blade Runner to see how you can create a world of illusion with models and light. It looks better than most hundred million dollar films today. I do have to admit, however, that I've never been much of a fan of Vangelis' score in that picture. Synthesizers. I've learned to live with it over the years and rationalize it away as being futuristic... I'm only fooling myself.

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For an excessive review of the Indy film, go to read the Mysteryman's Fifty Flaws of Indy IV!

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