What Hitchcock Teaches Us About Filmmaking.

Recently, I have begun to study the intricacies of how to make a film. Every tiny, (seemingly) insignificant detail takes an extraordinary amount of time and energy on the part of the entire crew to make a seamless final product.

From becoming fluent in screen language, to accurately describe and discuss the process; to production management, and all of its paper work; to deciding exactly how to cover a scene be it with mid shots, closeups, long shots etc; to pre, during and post-production sound mixing; not to mention the incredible importance of, and unbelievable nightmare that is lighting each and every scene. But one of the most intricate aspects, that can have the greatest effect, is that of the shot framing and composition that makes up the mise-en-scene – that being everything that appears before the camera, or everything that one sees within a particular shot/scene as a viewer.

Termite Art in the 21st Century.

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Manny Farber is not easy to read. Knowing what I do of Farber, I feel that he would be disappointed in me for this. Farber favourers have highlighted the fact that Farber’s writing, penned long before the disciplinary rise of film studies, is aimed at general readerships, and far less academic than a lot of the contemporary readings any typical film student might be exposed to today. While this makes me momentarily question my intelligence, I simultaneously comfort myself with the knowledge that, while Farber’s writing is considered to be somewhat anti-academic, the sheer density and attention to seemingly insignificant cinematic details that makes up Farber’s voice is yet to be matched by any that follow in his footsteps. Therefore, surely I am not the only one who struggles.

What's Not to Love About 'Wild Things'?

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My strongest memory of John McNaughton's erotic thriller Wild Things (1998) goes back to the first real house party I ever went to, at fourteen years old. I was with a group of fourteen year old friends and we thought we were impossibly cool. Despite this being the strongest memory I have of the film, I do know that this was not the time of my first viewing. It was I who, expertly, suggested that we rent this naughty film, but the memory of experiencing it before this instance escapes me. We all settled down to watch in the circular lounge room, blankets covering our cold, bare legs, popcorn at the ready. Everyone was excited that we were watching such an adult film, with such adult themes. We pressed play with bated breath. I was the only one who made it through more than half of the film, and even then I didn't make it to the end before nodding off with the rest of the group. The film finished and looped through its menu for some time. Every now and then someone would wake for just enough time to demand someone else turn off the DVD before falling back asleep. Eventually the film started again. It played all one hundred and eight minutes again before anyone had the energy to hit the off button. Over greasy food the next day, as we were debriefing about the craziness of the previous night, I asked everyone what they thought (from what they were awake for, at least). The consensus was overwhelmingly negative. This is an opinion that I will never understand.

The Problem With a 'Bro Show'.

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'Calderone's Return Part II' (originally known as 'Calderone's Demise') is certainly a crowd pleaser, providing everything you love about the eighties in a neat 50 minute slice of nostalgia. Bold colour shirt and jeans combination (on the beach, no less)? Check. Fake tan and chest hair? Got it. Tacky opening credits sequence? Of course. One of the most endearing TV bromances with just a hint of innocent homoeroticism? You better believe it.

Miami Vice represents all that those who lived through it want to forget about the decade, and those of us who have nothing but film, television and old family photos to go on would kill to have been in their place to experience. Detectives Crockett (Don Johnson) and Tubbs (Philip Michael Thomas) fight crime, score chicks, restore peace to the social order and look good doing it (supposedly). This is just how it was back then, right? Who wouldn't want to be in their place?

'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes', Mad Men Pilot.

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After a tongue-in-cheek explanation of its title (perhaps to set the highly tongue-in-cheek tone of the series), 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' begins in a crowded bar. Crowded not only with bodies, but with smoke, creating a feeling of suffocation that we as modern-day viewers, with our ubiquitous smoke-free zones, are not accustomed to. A sharply dressed man is questioning a bus-boy about his smoking habits. He is charismatic, despite the distinct air of someone looking to make a sale. He is smooth-talking and manipulative. We are immediately taken in by his charms.

What is screen criticism?

A boy sits in his cultural studies class. It is the last period for the day and it is dragging. He discreetly looks at the clock above his teacher's head: fifteen minutes to go. He struggles to contain a groan of boredom. He wonders if he may be too smart for high school; surely he must be a level ahead if he is this bored by the subject matter. He looks at the teacher and manages to fix a flawless interested face as he begins to mentally plan his weekend activities. Big mistake. The teacher has now called on him. 'Is there really such a thing as a correct answer, miss? Isn't it more appropriate at this point in our society to continually question that which we are told is correct?' he bluffs. The teacher, sitting cross-legged on top of her desk, applauds his supposedly sophisticated answer and continues on this path of cultural analysis. Phew.

The boy nervously looks around to see if anyone else paid attention to this shining moment. Several seats away from him he notices a girl he has never seen before. He wonders why there was no announcement at the beginning of class that a new student would be joining them today. Soon he realises that he has, in fact, seen her before. He has seen her everyday for his entire high school career, bar the last month. He remembers that she has spent the winter holidaying in sunny Europe with her family. She must have returned without telling anybody, not wanting to make a big deal. She is painfully shy. Her hair has lightened significantly and her skin is golden brown, quite a change from the fair-skinned brunette girl she once was. He notices that she has a slight air of confidence about her, and every now and then she smiles to herself as if lost in memories of her trip. The boy has not really spoken to her much over the years, but suddenly feels compelled to get to know her.

The bell rings to end the day; he takes his time getting together his things until he sees the girl heading towards the door. He purposefully collides with her, spilling her bottle of Coke all over his shirt. Smooth. She stifles a laugh and offers to help him clean himself up. The boy tries to hide his embarrassment at his failed plan, but the girl is sweet and chatty as they do what they can to remove the Coke stains. The boy brings up todays class topic on the decline in popularity of films over television shows, and works up the courage to ask the girl to the movies the next night. She smiles and says only if they can go the Godard retrospective at the local art-house cinema. It's a date.

The next evening the boy is getting ready in his bedroom. He is nervous. He doesn't really like Godard as a filmmaker, and has in fact written many essays on his views for his film blog, but is willing to feign interest to get to know the girl better. He meets her out the front of the cinema and expresses excitement at the event they're about to attend. She agrees and they smile widely at each other. They get a box of popcorn, walk into the auditorium and take their seats up the back.

The girl looks at the boy and smiles again as the lights go down. In his experience, the boy feels it is customary to wait until an appropriate time in the film, usually romantic or scary, to hold the girl's hand; a gesture of closeness. Throughout the film, he waits and waits for this time to come. An hour and a half passes by and Brigitte Bardot has perished in a car crash, and that time has not come.

The two look around and stretch awkwardly as the lights go up. The boy feels angry that Godard has robbed him of his opportunity for closeness. The girl asks him what he thought. In his anger he lets loose, calling Godard a pretentious hack, whose films are nothing more than cinematic masturbation. He claims that the only thing worse than spending two hours watching a bunch of white, self-absorbed, upper middle class jerks soul search to the detriment of those around them, is spending years listening to cinephile after cinephile praise Godard's techniques because they don't realise that it is okay to think that the French New Wave is actually really dull and outdated.

The girl is stunned. She laughs and thanks him. The boy is confused. The girl says that the only reason she suggested the Godard retrospective is because she has just realised that she is one of the cinephiles that he just described. She suggests that they stay for the next film, so that this time they can hate it together. The girl takes the teenager's hand in hers, and they both smile.

Screen criticism: bringing people together for over a century.

ROMANY

I Want Change.

I remember the first time I encountered Meek's moving Begging for Change (2004) piece. I was 19 years old and had recently moved out of home for the first time. On one of my frequent aimless wanders around my culturally vibrant new hood of Collingwood I passed a gallery on a street corner. I saw a dark, sitting figure against a white background out of the corner of my eye. It made me pause and look, but only for a second. I thought to myself, 'how extraordinary' and then kept walking, to nowhere in particular. I thought about it a lot after that moment but at no point did I think to look it up or do some research. The concept had affected me immensely but I was, for some reason, not compelled to learn more about this poignant work. Perhaps because it said all it needed to. Since this moment, I had come to think of the piece as just something I had dreamt up. That is, of course, until I came face to face once more that with that familiar dark sitting figure asking for 'change'. And this was my introduction to the current LUMA exhibition, 'I Want Change: Two Decades of Artistic Defiance, Disapproval and Dissent'. 

 Meek's Begging For Change

Having only just come into a state of political awareness at the end of the 2000s (my family, while political, was always more concerned with musical and artistic pursuits), I missed being present for a lot of the actions that the exhibition comments on, and somehow I feel that makes it less personally meaningful. However, having lived in Australia my whole life I can certainly appreciate that as a nation it has not been as kind to all as it has been, fortunately, to me.