LANGUAGE OF FILM
Film is an international language, since its words are made
up of pictures all people can understand. It can be said that it
resembles a form of ancient pictographic language or hieroglyphics;
except that unlike the picture writing of the ancients, who's visual
conventions were stylized and differed from culture to culture, the
language of film depicts pictures that are generally understood by all
cultures.
When you visit the ancient Mesopotamia collections at the
Louvre Museum (Paris), the British Museum (London) or the Chicago
University Oriental Institute Museum, you'll see reliefs of Ashurai
sculptures that tell stories of military campaigns, agricultural
projects, fishing or logging industries and just about any other common
subject of those pioneering civilizations, all told in a series of
carvings and sculptured tabloids that are incorporated into twenty or
thirty feet long reliefs which are like several screens or giant
frames, if you will, very roughly evocative of the edited pictures and
frames of a modern movie. If they had celluloid and the knowledge of
how to produce images on it, it's conceivable that they would've used
it for telling stories in some way that would parallel our way of
creating and viewing movies.
Take for example the magnificent Ashurai "Lion Hunt" reliefs
excavated from Nineveh exhibited at the British Museum. You'll see in
one of them the Ashurai king Ashurnassirpal hunting with bow and arrow
from a chariot, and all around him in tabloids or "frames" you'll see
different stages of the hunt, the king shooting the arrow, the arrow in
flight (frozen in the air), the lions hit and being hunted in different
stages. The wounded lions are magnificent works of sculpture and their
depiction at different stages in flight is like time-lapse photography
-- which is how movies started in the late 19th century!
Therefore, the conception of stories in pictures is really
very ancient; however, modern cinema grew out of a technological
breakthrough, as a side show of the industrial age, and continues in
this day and age as the most dynamic medium of communicating,
influencing and even controlling people!
Movies are a powerful tool! Look how many politicians and preachers
have put their foot in their mouth recently by claiming that some sort
of censorship should be practiced to limit the controlling power of the
movies!
Why are movies so powerful? A picture is worth a thousand
words, a moving picture one million words!
I'm not going to bore you with any more of this discussion about the
power of the movies, because you accept that already, otherwise you
wouldn't have put up with me telling you all this stuff so far and
reading this book.
Suffice it to say that the image and image making are the oldest, most
mysterious and effective form of story telling!
And yet, after all the achievements of pioneering film
makers such as D. W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein and Federico Fellini,
we find the pure art of cinema floundering today! You might say, "Come
on, movies are bigger than ever and look at all the spectacular effects
of computer-generated images, why, the sky's the limit!" But, I've
heard some European directors complain about the American movie, "Don't
give us any more exploding helicopters!" They want to know where are
all those great stories that came out of Hollywood in the "Golden
Days," stories about real people and realistic situations, stories told
with masterful craftsmanship?
Most of the blockbuster movies recently are trying to outdo
each other with the level of violence and dangerous stunts. It seems
that the only reason left for having theatrical cinema is to draw an
audience to see expensive spectacles which TV programming can't afford
to finance given the logistics of commercial "air time" rates.
The great artistry of the masters of cinema is a dying art. Fewer and
fewer capable film makers are getting financing, because they're
somehow lost in the shuffle of phony producers who get into the film
business through some screwball deal. You know who I'm referring to. To
hell with them if they get pissed off, they're not film makers, just
businessmen who want to make millions exploiting a great
artform.
The need for film entertainment is ironically expanding
while the quality and magic of movies are fading. Why is that so?
It seems to me that with all the developments in video technology and
ease with which people can put a movie together (this morning, 27th of
October, 1995, I watched on TV a news item on the introduction of a new
palm-sized digital Hi-8 camera from Canon that captures incredibly high
quality images,) even amateurs, everyone now, given a knowledge of how
to shoot a camera, can proceed to create top cinematic entertainment.
So why aren't we seeing millions of great stories in theaters and on
TV?
Because, the new technologies have created illiterates in the language
of film!
Look at the movies that are made today, especially for
television, but I'm not excluding most of theatrical films either, just
look at the ones that are real sloppy in story telling. Notice that the
editing is without rhyme or reason. Take the TV show that opens in long
shot and zooms in on a close up. Then it cuts to another camera angle,
in long shot and zooms in on a close up. Again and again and again and
again, ad infinitum, until mercifully the program time slot comes to an
end.
Then notice how many shows dissolve between every scene or use some
other form of "trick" transition, what with the help of video effects
generators! It's like the stream of conscious technique of writing
developed by James Joyce. Except Joyce was a writing genius; not every
moron who picks up a camera can create stream of consciousness movies!
And what happened to the visual punctuation invented by the
editors of Hollywood and world cinema? Do the engineers who create the
video gizmos care about what they're putting in the hands of these
morons?
Okay, "morons" is too strong, why am I being so antisocial, why the
hostility? Forgive me, but I've had it up to here with unqualified
people picking up a video camera and pretending to be "producers".
Solieri isn't around to give them absolution! The "Patron Saint of
Mediocrity" title has to be given to someone new. Please find someone
quick, or we'll all drown in a sea of mediocrity!
Everybody and his uncle wants to make a movie. Okay, I'm
happy about one thing, there will be more opportunities for young film
makers to work -- and God knows how many thousands are being churned
out every year by film schools; but, I like to see them find some
fulfillment in this industry, otherwise there will be so much
unhappiness, as you can see!
All right, I've railed enough about incompetence. What I like you to
gather from all this is that you need to discipline yourself in the
language of film, so that it becomes second nature to you. I'm about to
expound on that now; otherwise, all I've been saying is hogwash!