Pete July 2, 2017

How modern cinema reflects upon itself

 

Modern cinema is a highly complex entity, drawing upon a culture that is simultaneously embedded in and underpins film and how it relates to its contemporaneous audience. This has been exacerbated by the rise of digital technologies and communicative channels like the Internet. Nelmes (2012) asserts that access to films via the Internet has opened up a new world to audiences, providing a rapid means of exploring movies by popular and independent filmmakers alike, thus allowing viewers to choose “…surrendering oneself to the pleasures of the big screen.” In effect, the Internet provides a means of film becoming pervasive and challenging the parameters of how, why and what we watch on a daily basis, along with social media as a form of communicative interaction. This all contributes to a climate in which cinema looks directly at itself and mythologises the process of filmmaking in that it records and interprets reality (Ward, 2012). This post will examine this, identifying examples of ways in which cinema looks at itself and the extent to which the filmmaking process may be mythologised or distorted. Starting with :: kogonada’s Eyes of Hitchcock, this will be done in order to examine the thesis that narcissism is a key element of the process, allowing cinema to look inwards and reflect on itself in a wide range of ways.

Eyes of Hitchcock from Criterion Collection on Vimeo.

 

:: kogonada’s Eyes of Hitchcock was posted online in the Criterion Collection 2014 and literally features a series of images from Hitchcock movies that focus on close up reaction shots. It is under two minutes in duration but it is extremely powerful as a result of the way in which it has been edited together, with each split second moment capture being repeated to give a pulsing effect. Indeed, :: kogonada’s work is visually stimulating and seems to embark upon an adventure that facilitates discovery, presenting an alternative modernity that is achieved via the juxtaposition of images to find meaning and communicative points of interest (Filmmaker, 2014). Furthermore, here cinema is clearly reflecting back upon itself via the editing of multiple iconic shots together in a single short, catapulting its narcissism into the fourth dimension whilst disrupting conventional meaning making and linear storytelling. It is, however, appropriate that the filmmaker uses Hitchcock to do so and is perhaps a very deliberate decision when the notion that it is inevitable that film reflects upon itself via its own philosophical leanings is taken into account (Rothman, 2006). Indeed, Hitchcock held the conviction that film was art and displayed a modernist self-consciousness, presenting the individual looking out at the world from behind the self whilst also automatically displacing the audience in terms of what is projected on screen (Rothman, 2006). This emphasises the complexity of the medium in the modern era and the way in which the self is situated at the very heart of cinema but also questions the authenticity of film and also of the self.

There are other means of examining the culture of filmmaking, with Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973) and Robert Altman’s The Player (1992) providing opportunities to do so. Both movies focus on the process of filmmaking from an insider’s perspective, framing the relationships between those in front of and behind the camera in a satirical and wholly fictional way. However, in doing so, cinema clearly reflects upon itself because it “…bridges a gap between the self and the limitless whole… In an oscillation between innovation and industrial co-optation, between invention and repetition, cinema makes itself part of us, literally imprinting itself upon out retinas and lingering there” (Villarejo, 2013). Taking The Player specifically, Altman’s movie clearly satirises the movie industry, looking inward and examining the stresses and pressure of the industry as well as the way in which it has a tendency to dramatise events, which is certainly evidenced by the pitch made by Mill by Levy for a movie that perfectly imitated life. The implication here is that art imitates life, reflecting narcissistically upon real life and commenting on the somewhat indulgent facade of the movie industry. This is completely different to the approach taken by :: kogonada but emphasises the multitude of angles via which modern cinema may reflect upon itself.

Cinema may also reflect upon itself indirectly by embracing its role as a mediator of societal angst. For example, in relation to the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, director Danny Boyle stated that “[w]e have a very distorted impression of what’s going on now and our fundamental values are being challenged” (quoted on Kermode & May, 2017, 01:29-01:45). He notes that the media have a tendency to home in on pessimistic perspectives of events, that stories focus on the negatives, which translates into the extent to which movies and other media products are able to faithfully and honestly represent what is going on in the world at any given time. This only leads to modern cinema reflecting upon itself when important figures like Boyle utilise digital media to form complex structures that amplify, alternate and repeat visual representations under digital technologies (Elsaesser, 2013). In this sense, the reflection of modern cinema upon itself is delimited by digital media and the communication channels that are facilitated by it. In this sense, cinema is certainly mythologised to an extent but there is certainly a sense of narcissism here as it achieves that status via the contributions of filmmakers.

In conclusion, the analysis here examines how modern cinema reflects upon itself, noting that it does so in a variety of ways as a result of the dynamic nature of the industry and its willingness to reflect upon the process of filmmaking as much as those who provide cinematic products for the ever-expanding audiences that consume the products. There are certainly elements of narcissism present as a result of the self-conscious reflections of filmmakers on the world as they see it, thus presenting a given perspective. The cultural filmmaking process is extended by the direct reflection on the production of films and how they are designed to convey messages and ideas to the audience. As such, narcissism is a key element of the process, allowing cinema to look inwards and reflect on itself in a wide range of ways

 

Bibliography

Day for Night, (1973). [Film] Dir. by F. Truffaut. France: Columbia Pictures.

Elsaesser, T., (2013). Digital Cinema: Convergence or Contradiction? In C. Vernallis & A. Herzog eds. Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Eyes of Hitchcock, (2014). [Short Film] Dir. by :: kogonada. Vimeo. [Online] Available at: https://vimeo.com/107270525# [Accessed 2 July 2017].

Filmmaker, (2014). :: kogonada. Filmmaker Magazine. [Online] Available at: http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/kogonada/#.WVR9JBOGPMV [Accessed 2 July 2017].

Kermode, M. & Mayo, S., (2017). Danny Boyle Interview. Radio 5. [Online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowkdqVr0lA [Accessed 2 July 2017].

Nelmes, J., (2012). Introduction. In J. Nelmes ed. Introduction to Film Studies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. xxi-xxx.

Rothman, W., (2006). Film, Modernity, Cavell. In M. Pomerance ed. Cinema & Modernity. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, pp. 316-332.

The Player, (1992). [Film] Dir. by R. Altman. USA: Fine Line Features.

Villarejo, A., (2013). Film Studies: The Basics. Abingdon: Routledge.

Ward, P., (2012). The Documentary Form. In J. Nelmes ed. Introduction to Film Studies. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 209-228.