Royale With Cheese

For class on 4-4-2007

I’ve actually haven’t seen “The Thin Blue Line” yet, but from the clips I’ve seen in class it is obvious that Errol Morris used music to enhance the the film. Morris, as it is seen and heard, also uses this musical technique in “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control.” I found the latter film (I can only really speak for that one out of the two) seemed significantly different from Morris’s earlier movies. People just sit or stand in front of the camera and speak; any noise that is heard comes from the immediate surroundings. Now, music is incorporated into the later films and seems to have an incredible impact.

For one thing, I was stunned as soon as I heard it, because it was so different. But the music does play with viewers’ emotions. Sad music plays and people will probably begin to feel sad, and vice versa when it comes to happy or exciting instrumentals. But a sort of sad music is played over Rodney Brooks saying that there is nothing special about human life, while at the same time he is walking into his own birthday party. If the music is trying to enhance something that is being said, I can’t say that every viewer will get the point. I began watching the slow motion, black and white shot of Brooks’ students jumping around for him, and I became so caught up in seeing what was happening in the film that I forgot what was being said. Then watching that scene a couple more times I began to realize what Dr. Campbell was talking about. He was his students throwing a birthday party for him, all wearing shirts with their teacher/mentor’s face on it, and pictures of the solar system all around us, while saying there is nothing special about human life.

I actually enjoyed that fact that the film had some music in it, maybe because most films do and that is just what I’m used to, but it would throw me off at times. The instrumentals literally messed with my perception of the film itself. Maybe that is why Morris put music in the movie, to make it more complicated to get; cause people to want to dig deeper into his mind. I do feel that one of the key reasons music is used in the movie is simply to connect everything together. Dr. C stated it creates a continuity over a section of discontinuity. But I also feel that the circus was a recurring factor that somehow played into every person’s story, and at the circus music is always heard. It would be boring to go to the circus not have any music playing in the background, that’s just my opinion though. But the music and the circus scenes are everywhere, and I feel that is also another element lying beneath the surface of the film. I don’t know how to explain it yet or what it might mean, because I need to think it over in my head a little more, but I’ll just leave it at that for now.

“Fast, Cheap, & Out Of Control.” It was quite a film. I’m truly interested in further discussion of what the significance of “Darkest Africa” has in the film. I understand Clyde Beatty, with being a lion tamer in real life and playing one in this movie or television show (I’m not sure which), and he’s actually playing himself as well. But is that the only thing within showing that or is there something else? I know one thing. That little André The Giant/Chunk (from the Goonies) kid was freakin’ awesome. Running around in his diaper concoction fighting the forces of evil, how could you go wrong?

One thing that I feel that Errol Morris is trying to get across through this film, in addition to knowing reality and the meaning of life and how things “just happen.” I feel he is commenting on dreams; the fact that everyone has them and everyone needs them. These four men all have or had a dream that they strived for, they all reached theirs too. The film stars out with talking about dreams, and that is all I kept thinking about as I watched this film. I feel that the idea of having dreams in life was one of the major points of the movie, if not THE point. The beauty of dreaming of something is that it keeps you pushing forward in life. Even when the world around you is falling apart, a dream, just one dream, can help you survive.

The definition of reality was said to be ‘A complete and total representation of reality.’

I find this to be interesting, and I am not disagreeing with it, but what about fantasy and sci-fi films? Are those considered to be forms of cinema? They do not seem to represent reality at all, because these sorts of movies create exotically fictionalized worlds that do not exist, except within the mind. The FTC group on Wednesday stated that fantasy is not reality, in turn also making it not cinema. But then what is it? What are these kinds of mythical films considered? And more importantly, because this is a question that must always be asked when referring to definitions, who came up with meaning of the term cinema and were they qualified to make such distinctions between different types of films?

I do not have answers to follow up these questions, but I do have something that I want to throw out on the table in terms of cinema and reality. Fantasy films such as the “Lord Of The Rings” trilogy are certainly not recreations of the world we live in today. There are no dwarves running around with axes chopping down orcs; I haven’t seen them at least. But within these films there is some reality whether it seems like it or not. There is war, and people/creatures fighting for a greater cause. Kind of like what the U.S. has always and still is trying to do when stopping enemies. There are bonds between individuals, friendships are created; and sometimes between the most unlikely individuals. War creates bonds between people her in America. I have seen two war veterans who meet for the first time, not knowing a thing about each other, but they can talk for hours about anything because there is a connection there. There is love of all sorts sweeps across the screen as well. I think that one is pretty self-explanatory.

All I’m saying is that there are characteristics of reality within fantasy films; sci-fi films too. Most of the original Star Trek episodes always had some sort of moral they tried to convey to viewers about life. The morals of the reality that people follow today were relevant in sci-fi movies and television then. Is this enough to be considered cinema, or is there more to be done? Or are these ideas I have presented irrelevant? Who knows, other than ‘The Definer of Cinema.’