Abstract Film and YouTube

I found Stan Brackhage’s “Mothlight” to be a film that was short but had an interesting message. “Mothlight” questioned the idea of what film was. Brackhage used a dead moth as his subject for the short film. However, instead of filming the dead moth, he crushed it into the filmstrip. This produced a film that was a bit confusing for the viewer. Brackhage’s “Mothlight” makes the audience question the way film examines its subject. Most films manipulate the picture in front of them to create a narrative. Many would argue that this narrative, which provides a narrow scope for viewing reality is often mistaken as absolute reality by mass audiences. Brackhage’s film shows the moth in fragments, an altered piece of a real moth. It’s almost as if Brackhage directly alerts us of the falseness of the reality we see in film.

            YouTube has undoubtedly changed the face of film, particularly experimentalist film. The span of viewership crosses across countries. For experimentalist film, this trend means that artists have a venue to have their voice heard. What one person films in their backyard can be seen millions of miles away. I’m sure that this trend has been to the delight of many young film makers, but I think the philosophy behind YouTube is even more in sync with experimentalists. YouTube is essentially about the experience, about sharing experiences. It’s about how the viewer feels. The viewer is allowed to interact with the video: like it, dislike it or comment it. The viewer can watch a video from the comfort of his own home. These ideals are at the core of avant-guard film philosophy. These abstract films want to teach through feeling, concentrating on the spectator’s reaction to what’s on the screen rather than what’s actually on the screen. Again, this echoes with YouTube, a site where a seemingly pointless video of a double rainbow can hit thousands of views within hours. These viewers don’t really care about the double rainbow, they watch for the reactive emotion it produces. Therefore, YouTube is unconsciously encouraging experimental films just in the very nature of its site. Viewers are subscribing to experimental, abstract, structuralist, and surrealist film philosophies without even realizing it. 

Disturbia Extra Credit Post

          In both Disturbia (D.J. Curaso, 2007) and Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954), the main characters witness strange ominous events through a window. Both characters become obsessive in finding out what their mysterious neighbor is hiding. Both also suspect the neighbor is guilty of murder. The two movies present a similar plot in different ways.

         Hitchcock relies on suspense and delay in Rear Window. Almost the entire movie is shot from one point of view, that of Jeff, played by Jimmy Stuart. We feel his sense of entrapment because we too are stuck in the same apartment with him. Hitchcock slowly builds up the climax. We never really know if Jeff is right or wrong until the end of the film. The pace is slow. Hitchcock reveals one point at a time. We as viewers are left to piece together these moments. We see a flash of a knife, a suitcase, and a strange phone call. Never do we see any blatant signs that indicate murder.

         Curaso’s Disturbia takes a very different approach. Unlike Rear Window, Disturbia is filmed in a typical Hollywood fashion. The actors are considerably younger, and the suspense is limited. Curaso does everything but spell out the answers. The signs of murder in Disturbia are more blatant, more direct. We never really doubt that the neighbor was not a murderer. Everything is very cookie cutter-esque. The plot follows a line that is somewhat predictable and does have some suspense. However, this type of suspense is not of the articulate and poignant manner of Hitchcock. Instead, the suspense in Disturbia is more characteristic of a slasher film.

         The two films seem to echo similar themes about notions of privacy. In my opinion, Rear Window is a lot more thematically driven while Disturbia is more driven by plot. The theme is somewhat explicit in Rear Window. In the same way that Curaso spells out the plot, Hitchcock spells out the theme. For example, a scene that directly points to this happens mid way through the movie, when a neighbor’s dog is found dead. A dramatic monologue points to the seeming aloof nature of such a close quarters. All of the tenants are stuck in their own private worlds to the point that their own neighbors are strangers. Jeff’s position however demonstrates an alteration of this notion. Jeff knows everything about his neighbors, but still is disconnected by his position in private quarters. In Disturbia, this theme of privacy is not all that evident. The only vestiges of the themes seem unintentional. In Disturbia, there is no parallel scene for the dead dog monologue, a decision that I believe was a terrible mistake on this adaptation.  
         Both Disturbia and Rear Window also feature main characters who are stuck in their private quarters, forcing them to spy on their neighbors for entertainment. In Rear Window, we don’t get a lot of back story. We know the bare minimum about Jeff’s accident. We only know what is relevant, in this case. However in Disturbia, Curaso overkills the back story aspect. We see an accident in which Sam’s father is tragically killed. This propels Sam to hit his teacher at school because he made a remark about his father. Hence, Sam is sentenced to house arrest. Curaso must make his character feel isolated, which is admittedly much harder to do in a modern setting, so he constructs ways for Sam to lose certain TV and computer privileges. Thus, Curaso’s narrative feels much more messy and constructed than does Rear Window, which feels seamless and more natural.

         Both Curaso and Hitchcock employ a similar plot, but the way in which they tell their stories bring drastically different results.