Have our filmmakers forgotten how to tap into the subconscious?
When three of the films this past year that do it best are documentaries (The Stories We Tell, The Act Of Killing, & The Missing Picture) what does it say about our creative process and cultural production? Shouldn’t the unlocking of the irrational come from our fiction makers and not the truth tellers? Where was the Hollywood film that last did this? This past year, Indiedom was graced by Upstream Color, but where are all the others?
Okay, I love that rules are there to be broken, and the struggle to obey encourages all sorts of intriguing neurosis but how come they aren’t appearing more on the screen? I don’t know about you, but I deeply yearn for the return of the “What the fuck!” genre. You know those films that you could never have even dreamed of, the ones that make your jaw drop below the floor. Films that are orchestrated by a logic that is sometimes beyond your perception. Sure, we have had a dose of those every once in a while but 2013 felt like a year when logic and formula dictated the fiction stories that were told, where there once something missing, and the infrastructure that gave birth to stories practiced the act of killing the subconscious.
Perhaps the dearth is a function of the overabundance of films. We know it is harder now to attract attention than it is to actually make something. Film generally remains a capital intensive enterprise whether it is made by Hollywood or in a micro-budgeted manner, and that financial risk often leads us to play it safe too. Audiences seem to have long ago voted for a clarity of intent over ambiguity. Sob…
In reading an excerpt of Good Stories Well Told Volume I: Principles of Film Analysis by Alex Nibley, I was struck by this passage:
“When your script isn’t coming out how you envisioned it in your mind, when your dailies don’t look like what you imagined, when your funny scenes aren’t funny and your dramatic moments are dull, it will always be because of this dual nature you carry: the inherent and inescapable polarity of the creative part of your personality in conflict with the practical part of you.
With Logos, questions demand answers.
With Eros, answers melt into questions.
Rational versus irrational: it’s not a battle, it’s a dance.
The good story emerges from irrational dreaming; telling it well requires rational discipline.”
The tapping of the subconscious is definitely one of my 37 Qualities Of Better Film.
“27. ACCESS TO THE SUBCONSCIOUS: As film combines so many diverse elements, it has a profound ability to access what lies beneath. We experience emotions and sensations in a way we do nowhere else. David Lynch is certainly the leader among contemporary filmmakers whom attempts to tell a different sort of story. Some filmmakers may chose to dwell on the surface or in other levels of meaning, but since the attempt to explore the subconscious is on everyone’s palate, it is surprising how rare a trait this actually is. You have to wonder why with such a powerful tool at their disposal more filmmakers to stake out this ground. Yet, when such access is achieved, I am always impressed, even when it preys upon that which I wish went undisturbed. Bunuel was such a master at this, for even in his straight narrative features, he would frequently hit below the depths of our daily existence and thus question the order of our world. How many films do that nowadays?”
Yup. I am troubled by the lack of such a pleasing dish on the menu. My plea to all of you in the new year: Take me back to The Land Of “WhatTheFuck!” and make my jaw drop below the floor. It does not need to be loud. It may come long after the lights have come on. Trigger what I have never known. Free me from this land of order and good manners.
“Refuse any image that could have a rational meaning or any memory or culture” – Luis Bunuel’s advice to Salvador Dali.
