Split personalities, Criticism of the literary variety, and other assorted ramblings

Sorry for the late post. I had two papers due this week, a test, and a Spanish oral interview, and I guess the blog just got lost in the shuffle.

Last week in class we watched Blow Out, directed by Brian de Palma. In case anyone's reading this who hasn't seen the movie, here's a brief summary: John Travolta plays a sound man for a sleazy movie studio. One night while he's out recording samples for a film, he records a car crash that kills the governor and rescues a girl from the car. Travolta's character believes that his recording, when combined with a film of the crash taken by a would-be blackmailer, proves that this was no accident. As he sets out to convince the police, John Lithgow tries to kill him and the girl he rescued.

I actually started writing this blog post last Thursday when I got home after class. I didn't publish it then because as I wrote about the movie, my feelings began to change about it. Before I go any farther, I'd like to share my first reactions to the film, recorded that night. They aren't my feelings any more, but they serve to illustrate a point I want to make. here they are:
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Quite a few things bothered me about the film. For one thing, the plot seemed far too contrived for me too accept. One coincidence is fine. I can accept that Travolta just happened to be at the bridge when the accident happened. But when you ask me to accept that not only was someone recording the sound, but someone else was at the same bridge, on the same night, photographing the accident, and that those photographs were taken at a rate that allowed them to be turned into a film that perfectly syncs with the sound, that's a few too many coincidences.

But, on a note that's more closely related to this class, the technical aspects of the film felt overdone. De Palma never let's you forget that you're watching a film. There are cheesy slow-mo shots, one (admittedly technically impressive) rotating shot, split-screens, and several extremely-high angle interior shots that break not only the forth wall, but also the ceiling. All these things would not be a problem, assuming there was some clear overall artistic vision for them. The problem is, I didn't see any clear artistic vision. The film seemed like it was just showing off. "Look at me! I know all these film techniques, and I'm going to show you I know them."

We discussed in clas the idea that de Palma might be trying to convey with this film the message that American film consumers will watch any old garbage, as seen in the sleazy studio that manages to stay in business. If that's the case, this film is a great example of the phenomenon. Cheap flash and glitter aren't a replacement for a good, solid film, and, as much as I like some of de Palma's movies, this just doesn't seem like a solid film, though I'd probably enjoy it more if I were just watching for diversion.
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That's the first draft. Obviously the film left me with a bad taste in my mouth. As I started to write all this though, I began to wonder if that was the point. Maybe when we said in class that de Palma didn't respect the audience he was making the film for we were wrong. Maybe he was making the film for an audience he respected enough to expect them to get a deeper meaning out of the film. This would not neccessarily be the movie-going audience as a whole. Let me explain.

I mentioned that de Palma never lets you forget that you're watching a film. Suppose that was done in order to get the viewer thinking about the art of film. It wasn't showing off, it was setting the stage. Since the viewer doesn't get sucked into the film in the same way they might otherwise, they are in a position to reflect on the nature of film, a subject that is at the root of the movie. The movie opens with a scene from an extremely sleazy horror film, but there is no indication for the first few minutes that this is actually a film within a film. By not framing the sleazy, cheesy film, de Palma lulls the audience into thinking that this just might be the actual film. By showing the audience that something this bad might actually be accepted as a real film, he makes the audience admit that it is more than just comic relief in the plot. This is key. Later, de Palma makes use of the same long first-person PoV shot that was used in the sleazy film, further blurring the lines between good and bad film.

Now that the stage is set, we get the message. Having thought some more, I don't neccessarily agree with what we said in class- that de Palma was criticizing audiences. I believe he was instead criticizing the media. I think a prime example of this in in a line that we used as evidence in class. Travolta's character says at one point in the film "No one wants to know about conspiracy any more." one has only to think briefly about this statement to realize how ridiculous it is. This film came out only half a decade after Watergate, a conspiracy that the American public certainly didn't try to ignore, and conspiracy theories about the Kennedys remained popular,a fact that de Palma was obviously aware of, since he references both the Jack Kennedy assasination and the Chappequidick incident in the movie. Also note that later in the movie, the newscaster (the real one, not the killer impersonating one) is interested in showing evidence of the conspiracy on the air. He would only do this if he believed there was a market for such a program. So we can see that the earlier quote is not actually a statement by the film-maker, but simply an in-character moment that is proven false both within and without the world of the film.

Another moment we discussed in class that I believe can be interpreted differently is the ending, when the news program is spreading false information about the events seen in the film. In class, we decided that this was intended to show that audiences didn't care if they got the truth, as long as they heard something comforting, such as that the killer was dead. However, the public had no way of knowing that what they were hearing was not the truth. Furthermore, Travolta's character, the character the audience is supposed to identify with, repeatedly attempts to get the truth out, even risking his own life to do so. I don't think de Palma would have made the audience identification character that dedicated to the truth if he intended to indict the audience for not caring about the truth.

I hope that made just a little sense.