Yesterday (Sunday) was one of the most important days of Filmlab, yet also one of the slowest.
Each group had to make a presentation of their work so far to an esteemed panel of guest industry people. There was a lot of pre-presentation nerves around but personally I was not so affected by it. While I knew of all those we were presenting to, and held what they had done in the film industry in high esteem, the bottom line is, I still don’t think of myself as a film person. A bird person yes, a TV person- certainly in the past, ditto for comedy, but film and I have been more like acquaintances that nod to each other across a crowded room at a party. So I think I approached our presentation with a certain insouciance that only dumb-arsed naivety can bring. If the shoe was on the other foot and Shane was accompanying me to make a presentation to Birds Australia’s Rarities Committee (kind of like a Star Chamber for bird nerds) then I would be a nervous wreck and he would be shrugging his shoulders asking “what’s the big deal?”
I think our presentation went pretty well. We managed I believe to convey a sense of what the project was and how it had evolved through the Filmlab process. The response we got from Bridget, Rolf and Wayne was very encouraging, and it was thrilling to gain recognition from them that they saw merit in our idea.
But much of the day was spent either waiting to present or cooling one’s heels after making the presentation. After two and a half weeks of frenetic activity and creativity, sustained by the lashings of mind-blowing good food we are served daily and pure adrenaline, once we stopped, everybody started to crash big time.
In the afternoon, some of the Lab Rats showed some snippets of films that had inspired or affected them in some way. It was fascinating and instructive to see the influences of other teams, but for some, it was hard to keep awake as the energy drained from our bodies.
Then Paddy slipped in one of the most fascinating and thought-provoking sessions of the entire Lab.
He played us a piece of music from Estonian composer Arvo Part. Entitled “Speigel im Speigel” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtFPdBUl7XQ) I think it has been used in about two hundred films, but with good cause because it is an incredibly effective and affecting, yet simple piece of music. Paddy then asked us to write down what the music evoked in us- emotionally and imaginatively. He managed to fill a whiteboard full of responses. And could have filled several more, so evocative was the music. (Dave was so inspired he managed to write a seven page essay on an old man walking through a snow storm and finding a button that he had lost back in 1943 while farewelling his fiance before heading off to the battle of Stalingrad. Or something like that.)
But then he got us to listen again and concentrate purely on the structure of the music. It soon became apparent that Part’s composition was based on a very precise mathematical formula. It was this calculated structure, Paddy insisted, not any airy-fairy emotionality that we were responding to. Without the structure you wouldn’t have the emotional impact.
I challenged this idea saying perhaps Part had merely chanced upon this sequence simply by tinkling at the piano randomly and finding a sound he liked. Paddy’s response was that yes, that could be the case, but an infinite number of monkeys sitting at an infinite number of typewriters could also eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. (That quote always reminds me of the monkey smoking a cigarette in Mr Burn’s mansion who comes up with “It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.” )
But I would still argue that it wasn’t the mathematics that was making us respond to the music, but the art that Part had applied to his structure that touches us. Paddy kind of conceded this admitting that yes, over this formula Arvo Part had chosen particularly evocative instruments such as violin and piano, and he had added in flourishes on top of the basic pattern to keep us interested.
He made a telling point though. I would like to take it one step further and add that for me this is the essence of what I consider great art; be it, music, cinema, writing, or comedy. The trouble with being a creative practitioner is that it entails taking on board structure when you approach your work and you soon become aware of the artifice that goes into constructing a work of art, and can no longer enjoy it for its own sake. This happened to me a long time ago with comedy, and is why I rarely ever enjoy stand up as I can see how even the best of them are working at the craft. So much of enjoying comedy is about surprise and when you know how the house of cards is being constructed, it doesn’t take much for it to it to be torn down. Occasionally I still get surprised by comedians who, even if I can see how they are going about constructing their jokes, transcend it by a new approach or simply brilliant performance. The Office and Flight of the Conchords are two comedies in the last few years that have achieved this rare feat for me. (Conversely I find Ricky Gervais’ stand up almost unbearable because I can see what he is trying to do and know how he is going about it.)
Since becoming an author, and grappling with how best to express that form, I have started to lose some of the joy of reading. Even highly lauded (and awarded) novels leave me cold because I see too much of the construction going on. I generally don’t want to see how clever an artist is, I want them to hide it so I get swept up in the art and forget about how it was constructed.
This is one reason why I don’t consider myself much of a film person- I have long resented the feeling of being manipulated by filmakers. The film experiences I really enjoy are the ones where the filmaker transcends their constructive methods. It’s like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona- the only building that has ever literally taken my breath away. The architecture buffs can bang on all they like about the conceptual brilliance of that (as yet unfinished?) building and talk the of the audacious specifications of the structure, but when I saw it in the flesh, (well, in the plaster and steel), all that was forgotten as I stood before its transcendent glory.
Arvo Part’s piece is the same- it may be the most clinical construction in the musical universe, but he transcends that in his execution, and the last thing anyone but a music student is thinking about is the structure.
So well done Paddy, you got this exhausted brain to contemplate the nature of the sublime on a somnolent Sunday arvo.
