Buffista Movies 3: Panned and Scanned
A place to talk about movies--Old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Can't you do it to reflect that the thing is fetishised by the POV you're trying to convey?
I don't know -- can you think of a (different) example? I certainly never saw any other point at which the film looked critically at the characters; rather, it seemed to endorse them, and by extension, their viewpoint, wholeheartedly. If the film had really meant to separate itself from the characters' viewpoint, I think there would have been more instances of critical distance.
It's not my experience that visuals can easily do that, portray something without endorsing it, without specific delineations of "now this is his POV" and "now this isn't". Like, B&W, or different film stock, or flashbacks. I think it's something that's harder to do in visuals than in, say, words, because people tend to assume that they are seeing "the truth", unless they are powerfully cued otherwise.
I haven't seen the movie, so I can't comment on its attempt or failure there. And I will have to spend today searching for examples more concrete than "Bill is the one that thinks Superman is the identity and Clark the costume, not QT."
However, it seems like a very simple premise to me, which is probably why I'm having a hard idea finding an example. My basic reaction to the idea of making a POV movie is "well, sure."
I don't actually need to see a contrast to believe it's a limited POV, and I don't believe that mere presentation is endorsement.
I never saw BHD, unfortunately.
Hurray for Hayden's hate-on.
(Zoidberg) Hurray! (/Z)
Consider something like HBO's Deadwood in contrast to Stone. Both are attempting to convey the same sort of Hobbesian "people are shitty to each other" message, both are interested in presenting their stories as a form of revisionist history, and both are focused on macho, powerful men. But Deadwood manages to do all this with a sense of subtlety and nuanced presentation (not to mention a healthy appreciation for women) that should leave Stone cowering under his bed. There's plenty of other tough-guy directors who've managed to balance out their macho issues with some real emotion (I used Deadwood because its creator is a right-wing, law-and-order tough guy like Stone). It just kills me that Stone, who is completely in thrall to his own macho self-image, can a) make movies in the first place and b) receive acclaim for his hackery. But I'll shut up now, because I'm ranting.
To use another war example, it's the way the French ship was treated in "Master & Commander." We barely see it, or we see it from far away, which is how our sailors see it. There are no scenes to show us the humanity or the indiviuality of the French--they get less screen time than Somali civilians. I don't think the film is saying the French sailors are less human than Aubrey's crew, just that they are the Enemy and the Unknown...to them.
(I used Deadwood because its creator is a right-wing, law-and-order tough guy like Stone)
Didn't Stone make the movie Salvador? I always thought he was a militant lefty.
I don't actually need to see a contrast to believe it's a limited POV, and I don't believe that mere presentation is endorsement.
Ah, see, you and I are opposites on these two principles. Presentation without conflict is the very definition of endorsement, in my mind; and unless the director wants me to call him "limited", I need clear markers of when the limited POV is in use and when it is not.
Didn't Stone make the movie Salvador? I always thought he was a militant lefty.
Yeah, it occured to me that he may vote left -- I really don't know -- but his view of the world, as reflected through his movies, seems reactionary. Maybe he's a Stalinist.
I need clear markers of when the limited POV is in use and when it is not.
So you can't deal with an entire film in a limited POV? Or, let me not say limited -- a POV that's not shared by the creators?
I noticed people having this difficulty with songs (and I kinda got it -- I did tend to assume that a singer actually
means
their lyrics, unless it's "Cold Ethyl" and hideously obvious), but it's never struck me that way with either movies or books. TV, yes, I need to see, if we're dealing with a series. There's only so much alter-POV I can take.
Speaking in general, I think movies can be based on a limited POV, just like any other narrative artwork, but the director needs to be clear that this is what's taking place if he or she wants to differentiate from an omniscient POV. Not that it has to be Rashomon, but the clues have to be there. I haven't seen Black Hawk Down, so I can't comment in the specific, but the director's cut of Blade Runner had a lovely claustrophobic (yet blank) focus on Harrison Ford's character that seemed an even more limited POV when contrasted with the version with the voice-over. Gladiator, on the other hand, had those jumpy sections that might have been intended to put the audience into Russell Crowe's POV, but it failed miserably if that was the aim.