Turkish Star Wars. There's a bizzare tradition that spans the globe of countries remaking Hollywood movies by literally stealing their footage and music and cutting it into their own production. Turkish Star Wars is probably the best example. It violates every rule of film grammar and sense. It starts off with a man filmed in front of what appears to be a tv playing shots from Star Wars and archival NASA footage running backwards and forwards with music from Superman. The guy wears a motorcycle helmet with walkman headphones. And from there it continues to get weirder as Turkish Luke and Han have nipple holes cut out of their outfits. Check out this awesome training montage.
Well here's a decent article from the Guardian with links to clips from Turkish E.T. and my new favorite, Nigerian Titanic.
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"All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot." --Don DeLillo, White Noise
What's the story? I have written before on this blog about narrative and who shapes narrative; usually when I write about some poltical belief of mine. Nick and I had a long discussion about the Sopranos finale; he's much more invested in the show than I am and he thought it was a copout, along with most general reactions I've come across. For me the question is: why are we so obsessed with narrative closure?
Why have endings become so important? The ends of television shows, the last few pages of a book, the shocking twist ending, and so on. I'm old enough now to recognize that life doesn't offer such neat, tidy resolutions. Nor do years of taking in too many fictions dilute the fact that most story constructions as outlined by gurus in Hollywood have become so completely transparent to me. The one that always makes me groan is the romantic comedy's forced breakup in the third act that leads to the reconcilation and dramatic hookup.
If memory doesn't get you the tendency of life to swing between extremes of the good, the bad, and the banal means that a sense of permanent happiness is elusive. And yet that is what a happy ending is, some state of attained grace after conflict and change. What then of the dramatist who dares so say that people may not even grow and become better; they might become worse? It does happen. Or I think of something I once read, I believe, in a Primo Levi book: "All love stories are tragedies. Either one lover dies before the other, or they die apart." That to me does not devalue love or our need for it. Maybe by facing up to such a brutal fact it makes it all the more precious.
I believe that there is a tyranny of plotting and shaping of narrative, especially in regards to the formulaic notions and industries that lead to their construction, which has affected our sense of mythologies such that they have led us down some dishonest paths. Most cinema has become enslaved to logical narrative when it has more capability than that. I want mythic structures which are honest but still inspiring.
But why is any of this ultimately important? Because I think the same forces that drive culture at large and audience expectations to partake in so much narrative (without doubt we are with our devices and networked connections the most story saturated people who have ever lived) and expectations of what that narrative is, a framework to make sense of the chaos that is living, leads us to accept narratives about who is in control and why. And hence you have the situation in Iraq.
I don't believe these are dissimilar notions.
I'll write more if anyone's interested in such rambling...
Well here's a decent article from the Guardian with links to clips from Turkish E.T. and my new favorite, Nigerian Titanic.
-
"All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot." --Don DeLillo, White Noise
What's the story? I have written before on this blog about narrative and who shapes narrative; usually when I write about some poltical belief of mine. Nick and I had a long discussion about the Sopranos finale; he's much more invested in the show than I am and he thought it was a copout, along with most general reactions I've come across. For me the question is: why are we so obsessed with narrative closure?
Why have endings become so important? The ends of television shows, the last few pages of a book, the shocking twist ending, and so on. I'm old enough now to recognize that life doesn't offer such neat, tidy resolutions. Nor do years of taking in too many fictions dilute the fact that most story constructions as outlined by gurus in Hollywood have become so completely transparent to me. The one that always makes me groan is the romantic comedy's forced breakup in the third act that leads to the reconcilation and dramatic hookup.
If memory doesn't get you the tendency of life to swing between extremes of the good, the bad, and the banal means that a sense of permanent happiness is elusive. And yet that is what a happy ending is, some state of attained grace after conflict and change. What then of the dramatist who dares so say that people may not even grow and become better; they might become worse? It does happen. Or I think of something I once read, I believe, in a Primo Levi book: "All love stories are tragedies. Either one lover dies before the other, or they die apart." That to me does not devalue love or our need for it. Maybe by facing up to such a brutal fact it makes it all the more precious.
I believe that there is a tyranny of plotting and shaping of narrative, especially in regards to the formulaic notions and industries that lead to their construction, which has affected our sense of mythologies such that they have led us down some dishonest paths. Most cinema has become enslaved to logical narrative when it has more capability than that. I want mythic structures which are honest but still inspiring.
But why is any of this ultimately important? Because I think the same forces that drive culture at large and audience expectations to partake in so much narrative (without doubt we are with our devices and networked connections the most story saturated people who have ever lived) and expectations of what that narrative is, a framework to make sense of the chaos that is living, leads us to accept narratives about who is in control and why. And hence you have the situation in Iraq.
I don't believe these are dissimilar notions.
I'll write more if anyone's interested in such rambling...
3 Comments:
i haven't been compelled to comment before. so here it is -- fuckin a.
but i think these tropes exist (or are accepted) because they are desired. and i don't think that trying to make sense of something by creating a beginning, middle, and end (or causality) is necessarily a bad thing.
but i agree that the expectation for the always meaningful ending is misplaced, though it seems (not having seen it) that perhaps the sopranos non-ending was not done as skillfully as it could've been? not that i fault david chase for doing whatever the f- he wants.
i love the spike jonze video for "wax" for what i consider its perfect non-story non-ending. am i on the right track here?
i think that training montage is called Parcour now.
If you write more, I will gladly read more. A year of film theory classes has clearly left its mark & it fascinates me. From plot narratives to semiotics to genre conventions & everything and anything encompassing in between.
I blame Disney for planting the seeds of the handsome prince waiting for me underneath a rainbow. Life doesn't work out like that. It is greatly messier and strained.
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