Saturday 4 November 2017

Cinema of the Abstract: A Möbius Strip Back to the Beginning Again

Abstract (ab+stract) adj.
1. having no reference to material objects or specific examples; not concrete
2. not applied or practical; theoretical
3. hard to understand; recondite; abstruse

Abstruse (ad+struse) adj.
not easy to understand; recondite; esoteric
Taken from the Collins English Dictionary, 1979 Edition

In the middle of October 2017, in the midst of the Halloween 31 for 31 season of film reviews I completed annually, a sudden emotional shock was felt. I had become unemployed at the start of October but it only sunk in two or so weeks after was quite a horrible effect. A depression which took advantage of sadly my worst tendencies, imagined cataclysms and pessimism, and grew deeper. It fed on aspects which were idiotic to worry about, fearing my mortality despite only being twenty eight. But it also fed on aspects which were a small existential crisis. A spiritual one but also of greater important trying to reconnect back to simple pleasures that actual meant something to me. Before this becomes a morose, oh-woe-is-me scenario from someone far more well off than many, there was instead a realisation that I hadn't lived up to my own personal expectations of what I should accomplish. Placing myself into my community and helping those around me is one such factor. The other to get back to cinema is that for a blog called Cinema of the Abstract, it's drifted from the original plan to be both entertaining and actually cover abstract films too much. I had already realised this and planned to take this blog back not only to its roots but improve on it, to take the blog's point of existence more seriously. The emotional shock and depression, now October's past and I'm dusting myself off, have pushed this plan forward. To tidy up and focus this blog. To spend more time on it and on the quality of what I write. With this in mind, I am going to go through some drastic changes...

1) Of greatest importance is to improve my writing. I had rushed some reviews and need to work on them. To stop writing in a generic style of review fed from Total Film magazine articles I read as a kid and actually create my own voice. Which means spoilers will no longer be a concern for reviews, as that actually regressed and undercut some reviews in the past. Taking the time to write these reviews, but to not take too long, is of importance. To take the time to cover films whether they are high art or unintentional surrealism and, rather than use clichéd phrases, to prod why say a Doris Wishman film causes a reaction in a viewer as much as a David Lynch film.

2) To do so I need to drastic improve the Abstract Spectrum aspect of the reviews. The entire page on the subject, The Colour Spectrum of Abstract Films, has been an embarrassment for a couple of years, never looking at the section again when I completed it and never daring take it down. Likely from an emotional fondness for how absurd the process was, which involved even drawing around a plate in a cafe and using Microsoft Paint to create a diagram. When this post is put up, it will be deleted, the "Abstract Section" in the reviews now to be terms to describe the experiences felt from the films using existing artistic movements or terminology you can look up as a reader easily. Eventually a new page will be built up once I relearn a college worth of Films Studies and significantly more to the point I can rewrite it with some greater knowledge.

3) The Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None) will stay as it is untouched, only with the Abstract List page updated more.

4) As of now, this will be the last of the Halloween 31 for 31 series I'll do unless anything changes for next year. The issue is that, whilst I've loved doing them over five years over two blogs, even a month's worth of preparation eventually led to rushed reviews.

4b) In general the A Night of a Thousand (Horror) --- reviews will be curtailed down to a small number being published at a time, having ended up writing more of them than about reviews about the actual subject of the blog. Thankfully horror in many places is inherently surreal or weird, so the number (currently at #148) will increase still. It will mean that films I have no interest in writing about will just be ignored1.

5) TV Series will still be covered. The longer amount of time needed for them however does bring up an important question in terms of covering them or not, whether it's worth investing the time if they are important to cover or not. I was meant to cover Gantz, the 2004 adaptation by Studio Gonzo and Ichiro Itano but I couldn't finish it off after two months going through it, at episode twenty with only six episodes left abandoning it. A realisation, after having had patience with the series with its tonal shifts and decision to stretch plot points over multiple episodes, that my investment was broken by a terrible storytelling decision2 which lost me completely.

6) This blog is still meant to be fun. Thankfully in the time that's passed as this has been typed together has allowed me to cheer up. I wish though to be better in terms of emotional state than before, to completely avoid depression in the slightest unless unavoidable, and the only way forward with that is to bring my spirits up.  The blog is meant to tackle the "Abstract" in cinema, that which is less than easy to define. That separates this from a website like 366 Weird Movies in that the pool I draw from is significantly more larger in what "abstract" could mean. It also means that the type of films covered will not just be cerebral serious art films. In fact a significant factor to this type of cinema (and why I prefer so much to Hollywood and narrative led mainstream filmmaking) is that even that stereotype is undermined continually. The serious dramas with minimalist realism can suddenly burst into music numbers with people dressed up as giant penises, as Tsai Ming-liang fans can attest to, amongst such other unpredictable examples. I got into cinema after 2008, with the 2000s became an era of unconventional films made by the likes of Ming-liang, Claire Denis, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Carlos Reygadas etc., fed upon by predessors from the classic era of art cinema of the fifties and sixties, and pushing what a film was in terms of genre, in terms of content, in terms of style to extremes. Not just extremes in content but structure. That type of cinema is the one I embrace the most and everything that deviates outside of it does however link even by accident to them in content. Weird exploitation films from the dustbin of genre filmmaking which are regional productions, showing their environments, or deviate from what it expected from cinema. Ephemeral films and home movies preserved by archives. Material which deviates from expectations and depicts human life and beyond in its vastness. This is why, barring horror, I find that genres like high fantasy bore me completely and even then I prefer horror which isn't conventional. You have to tackle these sub basements of moving pictures,  the art films to the strange smelling residue of ephemeral filmmaking and grotty exploitation dustbins, with humour because intentional or unintentional it's impossible to avoid humour within talking about them.

7) Finally, I have ambitions for this blog as things pick up. To cover non-Abstract films as well, those that don't qualify for the main point of the blog but are worth covering as they are on a subject that interests me in lieu of point 7. To  span a map of Abstract cinema. At least have a Hall of Fame. To cover films which generate countless emotions - shock, confusion, melancholy, bafflement, lack of comprehension, the sensation of time compacted or expanded, disgust, distress, gibbering incoherently at illogic - and so forth.

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1) For anyone curious why the reviews of the Phantasm series have stopped at part 3 abruptly, I felt it was impossible to write anything really rewarding and to the point of the blog. I really liked Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998) as an example of low budget film making, overcoming its severe restrictions to be as introspective and fascinating as the original 1979 film, but Phantasm V: Oblivion (2016) was such a flat climax, likely the last of the franchise due to Angus Scrimm's passing, that it was not only a bad choice to end those Halloween reviews on but not worth posting reviews about Phantasm further.

2) Major spoiler warning for Gantz - how badly episode twenty, alongside its tonal rollercoaster throughout it, depicts killing off the major female character in presentation. Imagine a human shield scenario which, due to how the scene is depicted, could've been prevented with both people surviving if she actually pushed the other person out of the way. The series does, reading spoilers out of curiosity after a few weeks away from the show, have an actual ending unlike what I previously thought but, as much as it temps me to finish the series, especially as someone fascinated by this type of Japanese genre storytelling which blends genres, there's as much to push me away from investing in those final six episodes to complete everything. 

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