Looking without looking

The second glance - the one you take when when you think you've just seen something out of the corner of your eye - is too dismissive. You see nothing is there, or it's just a tree/bird/commonplace event, and think nothing of it. What made you think you saw something? What made you think you saw what you saw? And why does it always warrant a second glance?

Why does it happen when it does?

There's something there...

The figure that just dashed across the window or door behind you. The familiar face you recognise in a complete stranger. The unusual thing that seems not to exist when you look properly.

What if there was something truthful to the images you saw before you looked again? Something that kicks the second glance filter into gear and eradicates plausibility. Maybe there are lessons to be learned about oneself...

Or maybe something's being hidden.

But how can you search for answers when the only way to find them is looking without looking?

Dale.

'The Rules of Attraction' & Me

I watched Roger Avery's screenplay of a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, "The Rules of Attraction" today. Released in 2002, it stars a very recognisable cast, including James van der Beek, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth and "Boone" from Lost (Ian Somerhalder - who plays the gay character pretty well) to name a few. I enjoyed its unconventional style and reflexive technique. It didn't have a beginning/middle/end as such, or a linear story progression, it just unfolded and refolded onto itself, and it worked. It seemed to me Avery was really trying to subvert the structure of the traditional plot, and by doing so he achieved something very interesting.


A snapshot of a time in one character's life can be an interesting stand-alone story, but when you add snapshots from the other interconnected characters as well, it provides for a lot of resonance. Duh, right? Well this film made me look at the omniescent perspective in a different way (hehe). There really wasn't a narrator, essentially the film was a series of independant stories from each of the characters that, put together, made an overall story. Again, duh, yeah? There was just something about this film's techniques that mixed up the conventional... You might have to watch to see what I mean.

Sure, it's chock-full of sex and drugs and college-ness, but Avery uses each of these devices expertly to intimate a tone or a mood or realisation for a particular scene. The film (I haven't read the book) brings up some interesting points about how anyone can truly know another person; sounds depressing but is quite thought-provoking. Especially when wanting to know/love a certain someone is all that you really desire.

The film starts mid-sentence and it ends mid-sentence. I've never felt how I did after watching a movie than after this one.

The film summed up in 3 words? Unique/Confronting/Raw
The themes summed up in 5? Desire/False Hope/Rejection/Despondency.
Dale's rating? 4 out of 5 - for how much it got me thinking.

Would like to know if anyone else has seen it and whether reactions were similar... or very opposite!

Dale.

Imagination

So I haven’t blogged for a while now. I’ve been trying to channel my creative efforts into seriously doing some writing (in between uni shit). The sad thing is I haven’t actually written a lot. I’ve made a start on two projects, but I’m not very far in. I have ideas for both that excite me, but I’m having issues with form/structure. The pieces are raining down all mixed up and not falling into place, and I’m wondering if I need to approach the stories from another direction. Although as long as I’m still stimulated by my ideas I’m not worried.

I’m doing poetry this semester. And I don’t want this to alter my writing style. I’m an imitator. I tend to adopt elements of the style of writing I’m reading into my own writing. There’s this exercise that I have to do for my scriptwriting unit that’s designed to help me get some idea of who I am as a writer and why I write about the things I do; why I’m drawn to write about certain characters or ideas. So hopefully it will help me create a barrier against my writing turning all flowery and eloquent and grandiose. Notice I said the ‘S’ word in my first sentence? That might have been for this very purpose!

United States of Tara is just awesome. Thanks again, Luke! It’s not really like any other show you’ll see. It’s honest. I’m drawn to it. Sucks that the episodes only go for half an hour and that there are only twelve per season but what can I do? Use my imitation skills to write my own episodes? Not quite! To have that talent would be nothing other than extremely magnificent.

Brenton got me thinking yesterday, about how the world might be different if humans had super-vivid imaginations; the ability to imagine yourself in any kind of situation in your own mind. To create personalisable movies to live out fantasies or simply experience things you’ve always wanted to do. Would being able to envisage the otherwise unimaginable be a good or a bad thing for relationships or goals and ambitions, for example? Or would it lead to more depression and delusion? I guess it depends on how such imaginative powers were used. I wonder where I’d stop? And what would it mean for the film, tv, and book industries? And tourism? It would be very interesting to explore a world like that.

Hope everyone’s cool.

Dale.