I’m Always Home. I’m Uncool.

Cinema hasn’t been invented yet? What?! Of course! It makes so much sense to me now! The goal of filmmakers (even the ones that make crazy fantastical films such as The Lord of the Rings) is to make a realistic world for us, the viewer. Whether that world is actually a mirror of real life (Saving Private Ryan – esque) or if it’s a fantasy world (thank you Peter Jackson), the filmmaker wants you to believe that you have been transported to that place, that time, that situation. But what if cinema hasn’t been invented yet? What if we haven’t reached that pivotal point where the line between real life and film blurs so much that they are indistinguishable from one another? That blows my mind.

You know what blows my mind even more? This thought I had a few minutes after class: what if we have reached that point and have surpassed it? What if, in our attempt to make things more and more life-like we have gone above and beyond life-like; we have created our own fantasy. Like someone was saying today in class (I’m sorry I have no idea as to your name!), films today give us a skewed perception of reality. What if we have gone so far past the reality that we know to exist that we have now created a NEW reality?

I don’t know about you, but my head is about to explode.

I don’t think I am cut out for philosophical debates. In the middle of them I tend to find myself screaming inside my head: “what does it all matter?”

Like today’s discussion. Is there truth or isn’t there? Is there meaning? What if meaning doesn’t turn out what you thought it would be? To all of those my only response is: what does it matter? Does it really matter if truth is real or not? I suppose to the people debating it is. What about those of us on the sidelines who aren’t fighting one way or the other, have no opinion, or don’t care? How does this debate affect us? I don’t think it really does, save giving me a rather nasty headache. I suppose I could use those arguments for any type of debate, not just philosophical ones.

I don’t know… this whole class debate has gotten me into a philosophical/existential/self-reflective way of thinking that I’m not sure I dig. It’s harshing my mellow. Debates are important, yeah. But they are important when they matter. Ah! When do they matter? When someone cares about them. Ah! When does someone care about them? When they matter.

I really do feel like I’m perpetually stuck in Waiting for Godot with Estragon nagging at me that “no, we haven’t been here before” as he struggles in vain to take off his shoe, and I sit there, for eternally, trying to convince him otherwise…

Ever since I first saw Gates of Heaven I have been thinking about Errol Morris, human nature, truth, and details.

Actually, watching Morris’s films has gotten me thinking about Stephen King novels. I have always been a Stephen King fan, and I can tell you exactly the reason why: his characters. I don’t know if any of you have read a Stephen King novel, but if you have, I know you’ll agree with me: his characters are amazing. There isn’t a single flat character. Every character has some sort of significance, even if they only say one word, and you forget them half a page later. They are all vivid, realistic characters. Granted, Stephen King doesn’t always portray humanity in the prettiest of lights, but that’s what I like so much about him: humans aren’t pretty! We are sometimes base, gross, disgusting, strange things. I think this is a memo that Stephen King and Errol Morris both got that most of the rest of their peers did not. Morris’s character just like Stephen King’s: a little strange, kind of bizarre, sometimes pretty depressing, and very, very true to life. These are real people! These aren’t actors; they don’t know how to be anyone other than themselves.

I don’t know about you guys, but I find myself more unnerved by true people, and the truth that comes with them, than any made up character in a book or film.

I think that the last line in Vernon, Florida is supposed to be very important… I’m just not sure how. The film ends with us out on the lake (pond, river, some type of body of water) with the gentleman who likes to hunt turkeys, looking at trees filled with buzzards. As he, and the rest of the men in Vernon, leaves us, he gives us one last pearl of wisdom: “I wish there were more turkeys than buzzards.”

In my mind, that statement should be leading to some kind of higher cognitive thought about the fact that maybe we are all a bunch of turkeys, waiting to get picked off by the next hunter or buzzard. I don’t know. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet.

I do know this: with all the very old men in Vernon, Florida, it sure looks like those buzzards are waiting around to some type of purpose…

I was thinking about what Dr. Campbell said about Errol Morris and his films, how he referred to them not as documentaries, but as non-fiction feature films. Now, I don’t know the exact description of a documentary, but I think we can all safely assume that they are real life events filmed exactly how they naturally occur in real life, peppered sometimes by interviews, and are more often than not rather boring. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the History, Animal, and Discovery Channel as much as the next guy, but there is a point when you feel rather inundated by history, and bored to tears by the monotone voice over man that I’m convinced is the same man who used to give lengthy speeches ay my Grandpa’s Elk’s Lodge…  Errol Morris, doesn’t film documentaries. He is in a class all his own. I agree when he says that his films are “non-fiction full length feature films.”

My first hint that this was way more than a documentary? The opening credits. As the credits begin to roll I thought I could hear birds, but it was way to fait to tell. I strained my ears trying to hear them, then suddenly the Sound Mixer’s name appeared on the screen and I could hear the birds and other outside noises loud and clear. Coincidence? I think not. Errol Morris obviously was meticulous about the way he filmed and edited his film. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like a documentary was trying to tell me something other than the obvious message of the film. I do feel like Errol Morris is trying to tell us something more important than this, rather simple, story of a pet cemetery. When you think about it, this film could have been so much shorter. It is, in fact, a really simple story. Guy starts pet cemetery, cemetery goes bust, they move pets to new cemetery, and cemetery flourishes. End of story. Not the case with Mr. Errol Morris.

I agree with Dr. Campbell, I now need to watch this film about ten times over, to get what it is trying to day to me.

ESTRAGON: Let’s go.

VLADIMIR: We can’t.

ESTRAGON: Why not?

VLADIMIR: We’re waiting for Godot.

ESTRAGON: Ah! 

PERSON 1: I hated that movie.

PERSON 2: That was a good movie!

PERSON 1: You liked it?

PERSON 2: No, I hated it, but it was a good movie.

PERSON 1: Ahhh!

I think that Serena and Robyn both bring up a very valid point: does this whole debate about liking a film verses it being “good” even really matter? Obviously it matters to Bordwell and Thompson. But does it really affect the average movie-goer? My bet has to be on “no.” The average American will probably not pay attention to movie reviews, but rather go and see a movie they think they will like based on the movie trailer. And, if the average American movie-goer does pay attention to reviews, I imagine that most of them don’t pay attention to who writes them, such as the father of the She’s My Rushmore blog owner (I’m sorry for not knowing your name). Granted, there are those people out there who do actually care if a movie is “good” or not. I can be that way myself. Now, what is “good?” I have no idea. Is it fantastic cinematography? Is it superb acting? Is it an original storyline? Is it a famous speech? Is it camera motion, or lighting? Who knows? There are many schools of thought on this subject. So how can we know for sure what is “good?” Well, we can listen to the critics, but I personally don’t like that idea, because I don’t care for other people telling me what I ought to consider “good;” or, we can each have our own individual ideas of what makes a “good” film. I’m willing to bet that there will be some similarities in our ways of thinking, and that it’s those similarities would create the canon of “good” or “classic” film.

But then again, like so many of you have said in your blogs, and in class: what does it really matter? If you like the movie, what does it matter if it’s also “good” or not?

I’d just like to go on record in saying that my last post was in no way meant to be a stab at anyone’s masculinity. I just needed a snazzy title. I can fully understand that there are some people don’t like Little Women, just like I can understand that there are men who do like it and women who don’t.

Also, the comment left on my pervious blog has got me thinking, and now I wish to change my question a bit: why is it that the title of Little Women gives a person (male or female) a natural wish to avoid it? When I first saw the title I thought it was hilariously funny… but then again, when you’re nine and stuck inside for hours on end while it’s raining, everything can seem hilariously funny…

Just before the break, I got my boyfriend to watch the 1994 Little Women with me. Little Women is my favorite book. My boyfriend hates Little Women. He has never read it, but only hears me talk about it. You’d think after such a glowing recommendation, he would be chopping at the bit to read this great American novel. Not true. It was only after much coercing that he agreed to even watch the movie with me. While watching the movie he kept saying things like “she likes him, doesn’t she” (referring to Jo and Laurie). I told him that he’d have to wait and see, but he was impatient and made me tell him anyway. Afterward he became very upset and kept insisting “but she looks so smitten!”  “If I were her, I’d be smitten.” He also couldn’t tell any of the girls apart, which was amazing to me as they all look and act very, very different. After the movie ended he complained for five minutes about how Jo and Laurie should have ended up together, and how he hated the Professor. I then said, “You should read the book, then maybe you’d understand more.” He responded: “no way, you know how much I hate that book.”

You cannot care that much about Jo and Laurie and “hate” Little Women.

This got me to thinking about all our talk about gender and our conversation way way back when about the male equivalent of Little Women. Why is it that men have a natural aversion to Little Women. And what does this say about the men that are actually in the book, themselves?