This equally could be: how music makes you feel as that is a major factor in mood inducing in film and television. And not only does that tell you how to feel, but what to think. Thus movies are potential mood inducers, with loud white noise or astringent strings, calming music, or exaggerated sounds that are part of the film (known as diagetic) – the clumping clock or foot steps of Foley artists. There can be repeated gunshots, screams, flashes and fast cuts; constant adrenaline or ennui, constant stress in shouting as well as chasing. It can be found in nature programmes as well as horror.
I realised that the mood making is deliberate and perhaps not just as part of story telling.
I have often resisted that mood – reducing sound, turning away or even off, certainly internally.
Last week, I resisted what is thought of as a modern classic love film, which I didn’t consider very romantic. When I first saw cinema, I thought that films were telling you how life is, or should be. Then, as I came to study and write films, I felt that was not so: writing advice says not to give yours in the film. However, I do see that media has messages alongside story arcs.
As I wrote in my first Lenten post this year, there’s: what the story’s about,
what the story’s really about,
and then the third layer of the underlying but perhaps more coded messages.
I will say that romantic comedies, like many mainstream films, have a good end. Whether we’ve cried, laughed, shrieked, tapped or thrilled, we leave the cinema in a good mood. That was a good experience; and it’s been a cathartic piece of escapism. We may have felt helped by the film, which brought us hope when some was lacking. We do still believe in love. We can be in a loving family; our dreams and ambitions can be realised. The last children’s film I saw – Slumberland, featuring Jason Momoa – ended with the message that we can be whatever we want. I sadly heard a parent try to deny that – although their own kids had already become high achievers. Why not believe and encourage that it’s possible? Or did they mean that there are barriers yet to remove for that to be true? We see many films about removing those barriers, and I applaud that.
I’ve long been a supporter of arthouse cinema, but sometimes, I get fed up with them as the denier of hope and joy in favour of ‘reality’, which is another word for dreamstealing.
Reality is a choice we can influence. Why choose the miserable path and call that highbrow?!
I recall seeing Garage when I was unemployed about an unemployed person. Instead of leaving with hope, I watched a slow film about a lonely man who ultimately took his life, and the only hint of freedom and resolution was the horse walking out of the field. No, films don’t directly tell you what to do, and I’m a little cautious of the nanny state around that subject in fiction, but it felt a harsh hit, when a Hollywood version would have seen that man find some meaningful work, or perhaps peace in his nonworking. (I’ll be mentioning this subject in our last Lenten piece).
Arthouse cinema can eschew dialogue and make the viewer guess what is happening – but one can guess wrongly. I question that as a mark of a more intelligent film. An example of ‘watch my face and work it out’ is The Golden Door: a very different take on immigration to America. Instead of Italians finding the Land of the Free that they were promised, they are subjected to physical humiliating intrusions, and one older woman chooses to go home and be truly free rather than enter this Canaan at that price.
I noted that despite my joy at the older woman’s rebellion, that I felt oppressed watching it, as I have so many arty films. I felt it in Remains of the Day, which is such a contrast to a romantic comedy. I got frustrated with the lack of communication and emotion, and wondered what a Japanese author was saying of English culture. I also noted the political background and that an American buys up a long held family home that he has assisted in, shall we say, making available, and in his speech about ‘real’ politicians – like himself – running someone else’s country. The fact it was repeated and called right made me think that this could be the filmmaker’s message or at least belief, rather than a character’s. I was annoyed at waiting for the end of this long film, when the only journey taken is by a bus – nothing emotional or personal is resolved.
In Slumberland, the protagonist faces her deepest nightmares and losses, and comes through. Using the interesting trope of another persona (which I’ve seen in Fightclub) she and her new family are able to live as they wish…. although it didn’t follow through the statement that schools are unhealthy stifling places, as is mainstream work.
I know which sort of story I prefer, and which I think is ultimately healthier to partake in.
We vicariously take on the feelings of the characters, and I urge some caution as we pick up on the energy and it’s not all good for us, all of the time. I like to wind down with something pleasant, especially if a film has been challenging.
As I say of my own, I’m OK with being taken to the depths, but I won’t leave you there, and I don’t want to be left by other writers. Rather than a waste of time, TV and film watching, along with all the arts, can be such balm and catharsis, even therapeutic.
Hence I spend my life engaging, creating, and see them as intrinsic – not something to cut funds of.
But as much as I never want our funders – especially governments – to tell us what kind of films we can make and how they should end, I can choose where I put my focus and in what I fund by buying a film (or to watch it). I don’t want a world where we’re told that it’s grown-up and literary to have films with negative ultimate messages and which make us take on negativity. Unless the message is: don’t let us live in this world, then I don’t want to live in the world of those films.
I love the heart swell of a life-buoying film that has lifted me and been a timely reminder, when I’ve literally felt divinely guided to view. And those are the ones I’ll seek out more often, including during this year.
Elspeth R - A skewed world view 