Post by klep on Dec 31, 2018 9:47:10 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/31: To Die For
WINTER WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor
The difference between film and television is a matter of display. Films are projected onto a screen, while television is broadcast into a box. Images are projected larger than life onto a screen through power of light - magnified and released - one of the reason there are so many fantasies about characters walking out of a movie screen and into the real world (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Are You Afraid of the Dark s02e02 "The Tale of the Midnight Madness"). But television... a signal is caught by the receiver, and the image is produced on the backside of the screen, and fantasies involve unsuspecting people being sucked inside (Stay Tuned, Kim Possible s03e06 "Dimension Twist"). Television is a prison, a translucent screen replacing iron bars. At least, that's the way it seems in Gus Van Sant's 1995 feature To Die For.
The film, chronicling the destructive path of the aspiring broadcast journalist Suzanne Stone, is a labyrinth, made up of interviews, newspaper clippings, television appearances, documentary footage, flashbacks, and one very long confessional. You are drawn in, following one point of view after another, and before you know it you're lost among the fragments of the bigger story. Sometimes this means that you're watching screens within the screen, like a TV set playing Suzanne's unfinished documentary on the modern American teen, or studio monitors showing panel discussion between Suzanne's parents and the parents of her late husband. Sometimes it's prison camcorder footage of the high school student she seduced and conscripted to kill her husband. And sometimes it's Suzanne herself, speaking directly to the audience from a featureless white void, telling us all about herself: her desires, her dreams, and her philosophy.
At one point when talking to the camera, Suzanne muses that "you're not anybody in America unless you're on TV." This is the central target of the film, a story born of tawdry daytime television and true crime obsession, and unwittingly prescient of the reality television craze that would grip the nation in 5 years. It's the logical conclusion of a dozen philosophers' musings on what makes something real. Suzanne would definitely agree with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, and it's even better if you get a million viewers to do the examining for you.
In that regard, Suzanne's death is deeply ironic. Not only does it take place in a narrative space outside of the mass of news coverage and interviews (we discover that Suzanne has been addressing a camcorder recording an audition tape in front of a blown-out window), and not only does it take place in a rural, isolated part of the state, but it takes place entirely off-screen. We aren't even sure she's dead until we get a shot of her frozen face, peering out through a sheet of translucent ice, being slowly obscured by snow (or static, if you prefer). And that image isn't even the final shot. The last thing we see is Larry's sister, skating by herself and for her own enjoyment, well outside of the narrative.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/7: Citizen Kane
DEBUT WEEK!
We'll be celebrating Debut Week with one of the most astounding debuts in history. Orson Welles was just 24 when he began work on what would eventually come to be known as the best movie of all - Citizen Kane. Join us next week for our discussion! Citizen Kane is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/26 & 1/1: Spider-Man 2/Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
So after saying they weren't sure exactly when the next edition of the podcast would drop, it ended up coming just a single day late and catching me by surprise. I'll be trying to get caught up by the end of this week.
WINTER WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor
The difference between film and television is a matter of display. Films are projected onto a screen, while television is broadcast into a box. Images are projected larger than life onto a screen through power of light - magnified and released - one of the reason there are so many fantasies about characters walking out of a movie screen and into the real world (The Purple Rose of Cairo, Are You Afraid of the Dark s02e02 "The Tale of the Midnight Madness"). But television... a signal is caught by the receiver, and the image is produced on the backside of the screen, and fantasies involve unsuspecting people being sucked inside (Stay Tuned, Kim Possible s03e06 "Dimension Twist"). Television is a prison, a translucent screen replacing iron bars. At least, that's the way it seems in Gus Van Sant's 1995 feature To Die For.
The film, chronicling the destructive path of the aspiring broadcast journalist Suzanne Stone, is a labyrinth, made up of interviews, newspaper clippings, television appearances, documentary footage, flashbacks, and one very long confessional. You are drawn in, following one point of view after another, and before you know it you're lost among the fragments of the bigger story. Sometimes this means that you're watching screens within the screen, like a TV set playing Suzanne's unfinished documentary on the modern American teen, or studio monitors showing panel discussion between Suzanne's parents and the parents of her late husband. Sometimes it's prison camcorder footage of the high school student she seduced and conscripted to kill her husband. And sometimes it's Suzanne herself, speaking directly to the audience from a featureless white void, telling us all about herself: her desires, her dreams, and her philosophy.
At one point when talking to the camera, Suzanne muses that "you're not anybody in America unless you're on TV." This is the central target of the film, a story born of tawdry daytime television and true crime obsession, and unwittingly prescient of the reality television craze that would grip the nation in 5 years. It's the logical conclusion of a dozen philosophers' musings on what makes something real. Suzanne would definitely agree with Socrates that the unexamined life is not worth living, and it's even better if you get a million viewers to do the examining for you.
In that regard, Suzanne's death is deeply ironic. Not only does it take place in a narrative space outside of the mass of news coverage and interviews (we discover that Suzanne has been addressing a camcorder recording an audition tape in front of a blown-out window), and not only does it take place in a rural, isolated part of the state, but it takes place entirely off-screen. We aren't even sure she's dead until we get a shot of her frozen face, peering out through a sheet of translucent ice, being slowly obscured by snow (or static, if you prefer). And that image isn't even the final shot. The last thing we see is Larry's sister, skating by herself and for her own enjoyment, well outside of the narrative.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 1/7: Citizen Kane
DEBUT WEEK!
We'll be celebrating Debut Week with one of the most astounding debuts in history. Orson Welles was just 24 when he began work on what would eventually come to be known as the best movie of all - Citizen Kane. Join us next week for our discussion! Citizen Kane is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
NEXT PICTURE SHOW PODCAST for 12/26 & 1/1: Spider-Man 2/Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
So after saying they weren't sure exactly when the next edition of the podcast would drop, it ended up coming just a single day late and catching me by surprise. I'll be trying to get caught up by the end of this week.