September 1, 2005
I had one of those wonderful moments of near out-of-body self-recognition last night when I read this passage from Kieslowski On Kieslowski (which Yen lent me), in which Kieslowski himself seems to explain in explicit detail my reasoning behind Point Five from the list I composed last week regarding my next film.
At one stage we had the idea of making as many versions of Veronique as there are cinemas to be shown. What's a film? we thought. Theoretically it's something which goes through a projector at the speed of twenty-four frames a second and, in fact, the success of cinematogaphy depends on repetition. That is, whether you project in a huge cinema in Paris or a tiny cinema in Mlawa or a medium-sized cinema in Nebraska, the same things appears on screen because the film passes through the projector at the same speed. And so we thought, Why, in fact, does it have to be like that? Why can't we say that the film is hand-made? And that every version's going to be different? And that if you see version number 00241b then it'll be a bit different from 00243c. Maybe it'll have a slightly different ending, or maybe one scene will be a tiny bit longer and another shorter, or maybe there'll be a scene which isn't in the other version, and so on. That's how we worked it out. And that's how the script was written. We shot enough material to make these versions possible. It would be possible to release this film with the concept that it was, so to speak, hand-made. That if you got to a different cinema, you'll see the same film but in a slightly different version, and if you go to yet another cinema, you'll see yet another version, seemingly the same film but a little different. Maybe it'll have a happier ending, or maybe slightly sadder - that's the chance you take.
He goes a bit further, talking about the financial impossibility of cutting that many negatives, the time it would take, etc.
These are problems that have, of course, been nullified by technology...
Posted by David Lowery at September 1, 2005 2:20 AM
Comments
I'm interested in your dot, dot, dot.
A question: To what extent would the audience be involved in this 'different film' process?
I would hope to a significant extent.
Posted by: Matt at September 1, 2005 5:16 AM
That extent, and the manner by which it is utilized, is something I fluctuate over quite regularly....but it is there, most definitely.
Posted by: Ghostboy at September 1, 2005 1:32 PM