Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Last night I watched The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (2010) and had one of those kismet moments. This film essentially touches on all the ideas I’ve been exploring in my work lately. Imagination, Dreams, Utopias, Escapes. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is whimsical, visually stunning, while metaphysically thought provoking and challenging.  It is eye candy for the impoverished imaginative soul. Terry Gilliam, who directed and co-wrote the film with Charles McKeown, presents a somewhat autobiographical story about the aging Dr. Parnassus who dreams of a world ruled by the imagination.
Set in contemporary London, the film follows a wandering band of gypsies who perform atop a theatrical caravan, seeking to enchant the public with the power of the imagination. During their performances, the troupe tries to entice people on stage to enter the mirror into Dr. Parnassus’ imagination. Going through the mirror, the participants enter the realms of their imagination, a world generated by their own minds. Once there, the participants are presented with a choice, go up the stairs to fully ascend into the imagination of Dr. Parnassus, or retreat to the distractions of the contemporary material world, represented as a bar and seedy motel in the film.  The participants must make a choice between sin and greed or imagination and enlightenment.  These choices are presented by Dr. Parnassus, on the side of the imagination, and his nemesis Mr. Nick, a devilish man in a bowler hat, who represents the darker side of scientific reason, capitalism, and modern progress. The participants choose not only between good and evil, but between imagination and reason.  The film presents the imagination as the supreme path to enlightenment and transformation. However, set in the contemporary moment, the film shows how Dr. Parnassus and imagination are losing in their immortal battle against Mr. Nick and the stampede of progress in the name of scientific reason and efficiency. Dr. Parnassus’ ability to enchant the world is strained under the current modern conditions, and the theatre troupe is cast on the margins of society. Yet, there is hope as Dr. Parnassus learns to adapt to the modern world, trying new methods of enticing the imagination of contemporary society.   


This is a story of dream worlds, of utopian Ideal Homes, and how the imagination serves as a vehicle of fantastical escape.  Gilliam’s aim for the film is to get us to dream again, to let our minds travel in the realms of the imagination. His stunning cinematography, with the exception of some low budget CGI scenes, fantastical costume and set design, and poetic dialogue mesmerizes viewers, leading us willingly through the magical mirror into Dr. Parnassus’ imagination. 


For a more complete plot summary or reviews, click on the links.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The 3-D Experience

Yesterday, I saw Toy Story 3 in IMAX 3D. Toy Story 3 was fantastic and I recommend that everyone see it, but that’s not the purpose of this post. Rather, I want to think about the 3-D experience.  Watching 3-D movies, I'm always surprised by how the 3-D animated images invoke a sense of childlike wonder in me. I let myself get caught up in the awe of the spectacle. Watching the movie, I feel the story coming somehow closer to my heart. But this may just be my experience.  Today, I want to explore the experience of seeing a 3-D IMAX movie and how new technologies may be changing our relationship to artistic representations.

Seeing Toy Story 3 entails much more than the feature film; going to a Jordan’s Furniture IMAX Theater is a fascinating, absolutely bizarre experience in its own right. At the gigantic complex in Reading, MA, Jordan’s Furniture has teamed up with IMAX theaters to present a consumer theme park, complete with Bean World, a life-size model town made of jelly beans, a laser water light show, and flying trapeze activity center. This is just the entrance of the store. You then wander through the maze of furniture displays, caressing the plush fabric of couches as you dodge sales clerks hunting for commissions. As you finally reach your destination, the IMAX theater, you understand the meaning behind Jordan’s Furniture’s slogan, “it’s more than a furniture store, it’s an experience.”                                                                                      

As you wait for the movie, the theater projects a light show synchronized to music. The psychedelic-like light show is a throwback to the “electric collage” light shows of the 1960s, an interesting homage given that 3-D movies made their first popular debut in that same era. Unfortunately, the choices in music, “Zoot Suit Riot,” “Dirty Boogie,” and “Mustang Sally,” dramatically diminished the effect; if only Jordan’s wasn’t afraid to play some more fitting psychedelic rock and turn it up to 11.

After a few previews for upcoming Pixar and Disney films, an advertisement for IMAX comes on. If you were not already sold on the idea that IMAX 3-D movies are “an experience” all their own, IMAX is committed to convince you. The IMAX ad claims viewers will “See More, Hear More, Feel More.” Using images of old movie reels, IMAX pays homage to the history of film and uses these visual references to declare IMAX 3D’s place as the next level in the film legacy. IMAX 3D films claim to “deliver the world's most powerful moviegoing experience” (1). According to their website, “the IMAX Experience in 3D - the world's most immersive movie experience - has entertained and enlightened millions of people worldwide. With crystal clear, larger-than-life, 3D images complemented by exhilarating state-of-the-art surround sound, audiences feel as though they are in the movie.” (1). 3D images employ stereoscopy, which, according to Wikipedia, is “any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the illusion of depth in an image” (2). By wearing 3D glasses, the viewer sees an illusion of enhanced visual depth perception. The images seem to extend off the screen, giving viewers the sense that these 2-D screen images are three dimensional in form. I have to admit that I know very little about the technology itself. What is most interesting to me is the way these technologies are described. 3-D technology sells itself based on the idea that it can bring you closer to reality. You will no longer simply view movies in the same way. You will “see more, hear more, feel more.” This repetition of “more” is the most fascinating, implying that these technologies will actually extend our human senses beyond their natural state. This is a promise that new technology has made over and over again. Come on consumers, extend your human capacity through technology.

IMAX describes the experience as such, “Images of immense size and striking clarity surround you. Deep, sharp sound lets you feel every vibration. Towering screens immerse you in fantastic and exciting worlds. Specifically designed theaters take you on a journey every time you sit down.” (1). Books, films, music, photography, sculpture, each of these mediums invoke different human senses. Music is heard. Books are seen and sometimes spoken aloud. Films are seen and heard. Sculptures can be touched. Our senses forge the initial contact and first relationship to these representations. Our senses make us feel. As we take in the film, book, or art piece, we apprehend it through the senses, feel an emotional reaction to the representation, and then mentally process that emotion through our thoughts about the representation. Watching an IMAX 3D movie invokes multiple senses simultaneously. We see images in enhanced visual depth; we hear the “deep, sharp sounds” of the soundtrack; we feel the vibrations underneath the theater chairs from the Butt Kicker® sound systems, which according to their product website, “recreate amplified audio signals in the feeling range.” (3). By invoking the multiple senses of the viewer, IMAX 3D films bring the viewer into the story, into the representation. If the viewer experiences the film through sight, sound, and touch, does this cause the viewer to forge a more direct experience to the representation? What if we could smell and taste what was happening in the film? These possibilities are already being explored. At another Jordan’s Furniture location in Avon, MA, you can ride the Motion Odyssey Movie (MOM), a ride that “engages all of your senses—sights, sounds, balance, and even touch” (4). I have not yet experienced this, but am very curious. Their current ride is “Happy Feet: Mumble’s Wild Ride!”:

Dare to race down the frozen cliffs of Antarctica in Mumble’s Wild Ride! Join Mumble and his hilarious penguin friends for a thrilling 4-D ride as they reach chilling speeds in this breathtaking icy adventure. When you join Mumble on Jordan's Verizon MOM 4-D movie ride, you'll not only experience 3D visuals, motion, and sound, but also ocean scents, wind, strobe lights, and more! (4)

Visuals, sound, motion, and even ocean scents! It’s like real life. Well, almost. What is so interesting about these 3-D, or in this case 4-D, technologies is the way they promise a more complete, more real experience. But more real than what exactly? If the technologies of representation (a 3D film for example) can invoke all the senses, and we call it “more than real,” how do we then feel about the rest of our “real life,” the life lived away from the IMAX theater? These technologies promise more total sensory experiences, yet to what extent can technology enhance our natural human senses? And in what cases should our human senses be enhanced by technology at all? What really concerns me is this: if we have technology capable of invoking all the senses, and these senses register in our bodies as feelings and emotions, to what extent can these technologies manipulate our emotions? Let me remind you that I do love 3-D movies. But I think that as we watch these technologies progress, we should be mindful of two things: of how technology artificially invokes our senses in order to produce certain emotional reactions, and how these technologies are redefining our sense of human reality.

Image Credits:  Toy Story 3; Movie Reel; Kids with 3-D Glasses

Friday, June 25, 2010

Sports Identification Part II

I watched another ESPN 30 for 30 the other night and want to return to my discussion of sports. If you haven’t checked out this film series, I heartedly recommend it (check On Demand on Comcast). In his documentary June 17, 1994, Brett Morgen examines the multiple sports events taking placing simultaneous to OJ Simpson’s infamous run from the police. On June 17, 1994, The New York Rangers celebrated their Stanley Cup victory, the celebrated Arnold Palmer played his final round in the U.S. Open, and the Knicks and the Rockets squared off in Game 5 of the NBA Finals. In the midst of all this, it was discovered that OJ Simpson was in a highway run from the LAPD, sending the media into frenzy. Solely using news and sports footage from 1994, Morgen skillfully recreates the drama of the day’s events. Morgen creates, what he calls, an “experiential documentary,” immersing the viewer in the story as if the events are unfolding in real time. The film captures the intensity of the public’s reaction to the murder of Nicole Simpson and OJ’s subsequent run from the police. Even 16 years later, the story continues to invoke a strong visceral experience as the viewer confronts the disparate realities of OJ Simpson as simultaneous accused murderer and beloved sports hero. What I find fascinating about the case of OJ Simpson is how the public reacted to the news, and what this may say about our relationship to public media figures at large.
                                                                  librarising.com
What the public knew about OJ was a media-produced myth based on his sports career and off field public appearances. OJ’s well known public image as revered football player and celebrity caused his fans to believe they personally knew the “Juice.” Fans invested their faith in OJ’s innocence because they could not confront the conflicting realities between OJ as accused murder and OJ as sports hero. Watching OJ’s run, newscasters repeatedly stuttered in disbelief; as one reporter telling stated, “I can’t believe this reality is real.” This comment is revealing in how the media constructs a certain reality around a sports figure that many fans believe in without questioning the limitations of that representation.

The public myths, the stories we believe about public figures, are based on media representations, and not on these individuals’ private lives. We must admit that what we know about sports players and celebrities is very limited and always mediated by commercial media representations and our individual perspectives. In Eating the Dinosaur, Chuck Klosterman looks at how his relationship to football is based on his individual perspective. He writes,
“I had played football and written about football and watched it exhaustively for twenty years, so I thought I knew certain inalienable assumed truths, which are not the same thing. I had brainwashed myself. I was unwilling to admit that my traditional, conservative football values were imaginary and symbolic. They belonged to a game I wasn’t actually watching, but was trying to see. Over time, I realized this had happened with almost every aspect of my life” (141).
Here, Klosterman recognizes that the football he watches is different than the football that others see. Based on his experience, Klosterman imagines football as a traditional, conservative game, but as he examines the NFL’s program and rules, he discovers it upholds more liberal and even socialist values. Klosterman’s view on football is an imagined and symbolic projection, a view on the world that Klosterman has chosen to see. Coming from different vantage points, we construct our reality based on our individual perspectives. Since we can never know and see all, part of our reality is what we imagine the world to be like. We can only imagine what life is like in the Middle East, or what OJ Simpson did or did not do. We project an imagined view of the world that helps us understand the things we do not know or have access to. This imagined projection creates symbolic meaning for us; it helps us understand our infinitely complex world. It allows us to consider the lives of others; by imagining their lives, we feel as if we can become connected to even strangers. But, what we must remember is that this imagined idea of others is only symbolic; it is necessarily true or real.

With that in mind, let’s consider the popularity of tabloid celebrity news. The American public seems to revel in the salacious stories of other’s mistakes. We discuss, interrogate, and ultimately judge these celebrities lives as if we have adequate knowledge to make a judgment on their lives. But we only have an imagined projection of what their lives are like. Yet, we feel personally outraged by the actions of John and Kate Gosselin, disgusted by Lindsey Lohan, let down by Tiger Wood. As I rewatched OJ flee from the police and media (on a side note, it is shocking how many people flocked to the highway during the chase in order to wave at OJ passing by), I could not help but feel sympathy for his flight. To have a nation watch and judge your downfall on TV would be absolute trauma. Yet, reality TV has made this spectacle of celebrity trauma into entertainment.
                                                            pocoperdiem.wordpress.com
Why do we revel in witnessing and judging the public downfall of others? Why do we feel personally affected by the actions of celebrities and sports figures? Do celebrities and sports figures make a social contract with fans to uphold and conform to set behaviors? I’m concerned with our too comfortable ability to judge celebrities. It is a dangerous practice because we feel justified in assigning judgment without adequate knowledge of the situation or the people involved, and without a conscious sense of ethics or justice. What if our legal courts operated like our public judgment? We must remember that our relationship to these public figures is imaginary and symbolic, influenced by our individual perspectives and the media’s limited representations. We must learn to differentiate between what/who we actually know and what/who we only imagine to know.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Reality on TV

"We nevertheless seek new means of creating the real"
 - David Shields, Reality Hunger, 2010

In Reality Hunger (2010), cultural theorist David Shields explores the rise of our “reality” obsessed media culture and its effect on our notions of the “real” and “true.”  Anyone who hasn’t been hiding under a rock the last 10 years knows that reality TV shows have become an American obsession, making up a significant portion of television broadcasts. Reality TV, as a genre, claims to depict non-actors reacting unscripted to different ‘real-life’ situations.  The reality TV genre promises a voyeuristic glimpse into the Real Lives of others.  Yet, as reality TV fans know, most shows are far from unscripted and unstaged. Rather, these reality TV shows present often highly sensationalized versions of “reality.”  Carefully produced and edited to attract viewers and generate advertising revenue, reality TV shows are only constructed representations of the situations and people they depict.  In framing “reality” in a certain light through the production and editing process, these shows do not show “reality” any better than fictional sitcoms.  Yet, for many viewers, there remains a desire for these shows to depict “reality,” to get as close to the Real as possible.  Why do we have this desire to see “reality” depicted on screen?  And what do we mean by the Real?

As David Shields notes in Reality Hunger, our contemporary American culture is captivated by “the lure and blur of the real” (5).  Shields suggests this desire to know and depict the real through artistic representation is a fundamental part of human society.   Drawing examples from Chekhov, Forster, Fitzgerald to Curb Your Enthusiasm, he claims, “Every artistic movement from the beginning of time is an attempt to figure out a way to smuggle more of what the artist thinks is reality into the work of art” (3). Shields argues that all art forms, even the most abstract, are manipulations of reality based on how the individual artist views the world (20). If reality is based on our individual perspective of the world formed by our background, experiences, education and values, than all of our realities are different, landing us in the unsteady, elusive terrain of perspectivism and relativism.  In this relative understanding of reality, we can see what Shields calls the “blur of the real.” This is not to say that we do not share common views on reality; social groupings of people based on shared views and values prove that we share some overlapping realities. Although we cannot claim there is a universal Reality shared by all, we continue to long for a connection to a realized, complete Reality.  We want the Real. We want to feel it. To experience reality’s realness.  So we seek it out through media representations and consumer products, which sell us produced, packaged versions of Reality.  But, what has convinced us that we, as living, breathing, feeling humans, do not already have access to this Real?

There’s profit to be made in selling humans the idea of reality.  Convince us that what we are experiencing is not real enough, and sell us what will help us get there.   Promoting their new 3D LED television, Samsung claims to bring the reality of a live soccer match to your home.


                          

                                           Samsung Soccer Mural Full Commercial - 3D LED TV

“Ever wonder if a picture could feel more like the real thing? We did. This changes the game. The Samsung 3D LED TV. Live sports in cutting edge clarity. Colors as intense as the game itself. And 3D that brings it all home. That's the wonder of Samsung.”

Samsung’s 3D LED television promises picture quality that is as “real” as the game itself.  As consumers, we’ve been trained to want a picture to appear and feel like the real thing.  Bringing us closer to “reality,” we experience a heightened connection to the representation.  Samsung suggests that we will no longer just watch TV, but we will experience the game in all of its actual intensity and immediacy.  3D televisions promise a more total sensory experience than their soon-to-be-outdated counterparts.  Like reality TV, these new technologies promise greater access to the Real than ever before.  But can they really deliver on these promises, when “reality” itself is a relative, perspective-based, elusive experience that no one can completely capture or represent?  What happens when we, as individuals and as a culture, accept these technological, mediated representations as the dominant and pure “reality”?  What are we escaping from when we’d rather choose to watch “reality” on TV rather than live in it?



Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Print.
"Samsung Soccer Mural." Commercial. You Tube. 14 June 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sypGYRwrIKY&feature=youtu.be


Monday, June 21, 2010

Escapes

As the name of this blog suggests, I’m interested in escape as a human activity. People seem to seek out and/or create many mental escapes from their everyday realities. Literature, film, TV, internet, music, sports, games, drugs, meditation, even dreaming while asleep, all of these activities provide an escape for people. This is certainly not a new idea, but what I’m interested in is what characterizes our contemporary escapes. What are we escaping from? What do we use to escape? And what does this process of escape entail?

But let’s back up for a moment. What do I mean by escape? When we read a book or watch a film, we become invested in the lives of the characters. We follow their stories and, depending on the quality of the book or film, we become emotionally invested, feeling emotions along with the characters on page or on screen. In the span of reading or viewing, we mentally live through the life of another. Through this mental activity, we imagine another world, another life than our own. As we imagine this other world, peopled by the characters of the book or movie, we transcend our own everyday reality. We become caught up in the story of another so much that we temporarily forget our own realities. We can lose ourselves in the book, movie, or TV show. For me, this is a form of escape. We escape into books, film, and other cultural works in order to partially and temporarily leave our own realities.

This escape is not a mindless pursuit. It is more than just vegging out, zombie-like, in front of the TV. Rather, our mind is processing the representation; our mind thinks, and our bodies begin to feel different emotions as we become invested in the work (see my earlier post on the emotions of sports). Books, TV, film, etc., these artistic representations engage both our mind and bodies, and we begin to live through the representation. We stop participating in our everyday lives, and start living through the life on screen or on the page. We mentally inhabit another’s life and the world in which they exist, which provides a temporary escape from participating in our own individual reality. During these mental escapes, our mind and bodies actively engage with the book, movie, show, or song as representations of an alternative reality. These alternative realities can range from the fantastical worlds of science fiction to the more realist depictions of people in communities other than our own. These artistic representations of other worlds, both real and fantastical, have existed throughout the long and diverse history of human cultures, and seem to fulfill a fundamental human need to mentally leave our actual realities and inhabit the lives of others. But, why do we desire to escape into the lives of others? And, what happens when we live too much through the alternative realities offered by these representations, and lose touch with the Real? These are some of the questions that I'll be exploring in my posts this week.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sports Identification

This first post comes from a budding interest in sports, Chuck Klosterman’s Eating the Dinosaur, and many late night talks with Nate.

This is an exercise in extending ideas I have about why we read books, watch films, listen to music, or look at photographs, paintings, etc. We have a culture filled with these aesthetic objects that represent aspects of human life. Yet, it is still unclear to me, why they exist. What human need do these representations fulfill? We experience works of art and culture through our bodily senses and process them through the mind. As we read, view, and listen to these works, we both feel and think. Do works of art and culture fulfill (evolutionary) emotional and/or intellectual needs for humans? Why do we find pleasure in experiencing these works, especially the ones that may bring us grief or frustration? These are some of the larger questions that will fuel the following exploration into sports culture.

Nate is teaching me to pay attention to the 3-Dimensional elements of sports. Beyond each official sports matchup, TV and radio stations broadcast a multitude of human stories. These broadcasts tell viewers stories about the individual lives of the sports figures we root for. As we watch these stories, we begin to identify with the sports figures. They become not only players on a sports team, but public figures whose lives some fans know more intimately than that of their own neighbors. We choose favorite sports players, not solely based on their physical prowess, but also on their personal values and actions as represented on ESPN and in Sports Illustrated. If we share the same values, we recognize aspects of ourselves in these sports figures. As their public images saturate sports broadcasting, we feel as if we know Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Tom Brady, or Tiger Woods. But, do we?

In Eating the Dinosaur (2009), Chuck Klosterman highlights how a media driven sports community creates fields of expectation that often eclipse the reality of an actual sports player’s skills and accomplishments. Klosterman uses the example of Houston Rocket’s Ralph Sampson, whose impressive physical build (7-foot-4) and finesse made sports commentators and fans believe Sampson would “revolutionize the game.” While Sampson had a solid career in the NBA, he ultimately did not meet the high expectations of fans and critics. Yet, as Klosterman points out, fans only saw the media’s representation of Sampson’s unfulfilled promise, ignoring the reality of Sampson’s actual accomplishments (three-time College Player of the Year, four-time NBA All Star). Fans felt personally disappointed by Sampson; but why? Why do sports fans have personal investments in players? What purpose does this emotional investment serve?


In the 30 for 30 ESPN Film, Without Bias, Kirk Fraser tells the tragic story of Len Bias, the University of Maryland basketball star who died of a cocaine overdose two days after he was selected as the Celtic’s 1986 draft pick. Bias’ death affected not only those in his local community, but much of the nation. Fans across the country grieved for the death of Len Bias. I want to take a moment to look at this phenomenon. By varying degrees, fans watched Len Bias play throughout his college career and rooted for his draft success. Bias seemed to be a player destined for greatness. Fans were emotionally invested in Bias’ public persona and thus grieved his death as if they knew Bias personally. Yet, we must remember that most fans likely only knew Bias through broadcasts of the game, TV interviews and segments on his career. These broadcasts were only representations of Len Bias. Recorded, edited, and televised, these media-constructed representations can only depict a partial picture of Bias. Fans watch and identify with these representations and become invested in the fates of these public sports figures. We grieve for the loss of Len Bias because we recognize the potential for unfulfilled promise in our own lives. As I watched the documentary on Bias’ death, Fraser’s detailed storytelling made me grieve for Bias, and even though his death does not affect my daily life, I felt this grief both bodily and mentally. In watching films or in watching sports, we experience a range of human emotions from jubilation when our team wins to frustration and grief when they lose. When our team loses, we feel as if we lost. This identification with sports figures is much like our identification with certain characters in books and films. And I believe it serves a fundamental human purpose.

When we identify with these public figures, we allow ourselves to feel a range of human emotions through these figures. We emotionally invest in these sports players. Through this emotional investment, we use these people to dream, to play out our desires and fantasies. Who hasn’t dreamed of becoming a sports superstar? Their sports victories become our victories; their losses (and tragedies in the case of Bias) become ours. Yet, why do humans want to feel these emotions, which are experienced not directly through our own lives, but through the lives of others? We experience joy, grief, frustration, camaraderie. It seems we learn from living emotionally and intellectually with these public figures. This form of empathy (identifying with the emotions of others) is valuable. It allows us to recognize the humanity in other people, a cognitive skill that has value far beyond sports. By experiencing these emotions through the lives of others, we practice feeling emotions that will help prepare us for our “real” life victories and losses. In watching sports, we practice being human.

Note: I'll admit I'm new to this sports fan world, so this is just an idea of how sports identification works. Sports fans, please set me straight if I am way off here!