May 16, 2005
This writing has left me disguarded.
Bill Viola said:
"It is the invisible world of all the details of people’s personal lives – their desires, conflicts, motivations – that is hidden from our view and creates the intricate and seemingly infinite web of shifting relations that meets the eye."
I took this quote from this article by Yvette Bíró in the latest issue of Rouge, in which Viola's use of slow motion to develop an untraditional narrative is given close examination. The quote itself quite accurately describes the appeal of Viola's work, which I've been enamored with since first seeing Going Forth By Day at the Guggenheim in 2002, followed by the permanent installation of The Greeting at the Modern in Fort Worth. It's a mode of narrative I'm particularly interested in, although my goal is to uncover that "invisible world of details" in a more traditional time frame - as Gallo did in parts of The Brown Bunny, and as Van Sant's been doing with all his films lately (of those that I've seen, Gerry moreso than Elephant). I'm interested in the shift, in real time, in which something - something displayed - goes from mundane to interesting - and then perhaps back to boring, and then back to interesting again as new perspectives become available (in the way that a joke taken to certain extremes runs the gamut from hilarity to hilarity). By dragging a few seconds out to extended lengths of time, Viola skips any such transition; in a sense, he doesn't wait for any emergence of intrigue but instead dives headlong into his images and extracts the intrigue from them. An equally fascinating approach.
I was halfway watching Closer last night, mainly just to listen to the dialogue; but during the scene in the strip club, the way the dancers slid down their poles, upside down, caught my wandering eye. It looked sexy; it also looked sort of fun. So I went out to the pole in our backyard and gave it a try, and while I eventually managed a headfirst descent of some sort, I'm pretty sure it lacked any of the grace I was hoping to achieve. Thankfully, it was four AM and no one was there to laugh at me. My conclusion: stripping ain't easy.
Back to the second draft.
Posted by David Lowery at May 16, 2005 01:15 AM
Comments
"It looked sexy; it also looked sort of fun."
Oh, Lordy...
Posted by: Matt at May 16, 2005 02:22 AM
Least you know now that you have no career in that industry to fall back on.
Posted by: David at May 16, 2005 02:48 AM