Blog 5: Brzeski & Faden

“Certain subjects… may be termed ‘cinematic’ because they seem to exert a peculiar attraction on the medium. It is as if the medium were predestined (and eager) to exhibit them.” – Sigfried Kracauer, Theory of Film

This quote prefaces Tracking Theory: The Synthetic Philosophy of The Glance, By Eric S. Faden. In both his movie and Eva Ilona Brzeski’s film, This Unfamiliar Place, they introduce their main plot by using a story or an anecdote to capture the readers’ attention. Brzeski’s story of being “intrigued by disaster” as a little girl seems to flow easier into the main story about her father. Faden’s whole film covers a much broader topic; he sets up his film by showing the three movies that inspired him, Wong Kar Wai's 2046, Lars Von Trier's Europa, and Gustavo Mosquera's Moebius, describing their themes, and his interpretation of them.

Brzeski’s film seems to be a personal exploration of her family. The narrator seems to be speaking from Brzeski’s point of view and the whole film has a dreamlike quality about it. The footage is mostly smooth and slow with audio playing on top of the images. Usually during an interview or the narration, there is music or whistling or nature sounds. Even the happy clip of her parents dancing at the end is slowed down. The visual imagery of that clip, though, is contrasted with the father’s words being spoken over it: “some of those things I don’t even think about. You know, I don’t even want to remember.” His life now seems to be a dream after the nightmare of Nazi occupation. There are a few clips of “destruction” – literal interpretations of the narrator’s words at the beginning—but even these seem to be slowed down and have music or narration over them, making them not seem quite as scary. They seem more to be a memory than an actual event taking place.

In my micro-seminar I took during Welcome Week with Michael Renov, we read two chapters of the book Collecting Visible Evidence. (I just found out that he was a co-editor of this book.) One of the strategies we discussed was that of “coimplication,” which was defined as “a kind of supplementary autobiographical practice; it functions as a vehicle of self-examination, a means through which to construct self-knowledge through recourse to the familial other.” This idea is visible in Brzeski’s film; she learns more about herself through exploring her father’s past. At one point in the film, you can tell that he is speaking directly to his daughter who is filming him. He says, “I would like to talk about other things if I have a choice, do I?” This part refers to Renov’s theory of “textual authority,” in which the “filial obligation outpaces directorial control.” She probably wasn’t expecting her father to turn around the interview and ask her questions. This exchange wouldn’t be possible if he was someone she didn’t know very well, but because he is her father, that usurpation of power is possible.

Faden begins his story with a different sort of personal anecdote. It definitely doesn’t feel as intimate as the story from Brzeski’s childhood, but his film isn’t as personal as hers seems to be. The whole introduction seemed a collage of words, video and audio clips. While the narrator was speaking, you could also hear other clips of audio as well as see words float across the screen. This modern compilation of media segued into an old time looking movie. At first, I was convinced I was looking at an authentic old piece of film, especially because the narrator had said, “By coincidence, when doing archival research last year, I stumbled upon the very movie that I had dreamed.” But after I heard one of the people in the film speak, I was pretty sure it wasn’t; I don’t think they had the technology to produce sound with the visuals when that type of filming was being done. I thought it was interesting how the narration preceding the old movie exactly described it.

“I thought about a long ago time when movies did more than just tell stories. A time when exhibitors edited fragments together and lecturers supplemented the visual spectacle with details and knowledge.”

I also really liked the ending, where it jolts the viewer back to the present with a SUV driving across the screen and going from black and white, grainy film to colored, smooth-looking, modern film.

Both movies had references to trains, although Faden’s examples of them were much more direct. In Brzeski’s film, a train is shown when she is talking about her trip as a twelve year old to the alps while her father wrote his memoirs. Both movies use film clips as metaphors to further the meaning of their words. In Faden’s film, he uses abstract images along with the narration. They don’t necessarily seem to be metaphors as much of the time as literal representation of what he is saying. He shows people working with the footage while discussing finding the archival footage and clips of old movies while talking about them. One instance where it does seem to be a metaphor is when he says he “stumbled upon the very movie” and the clip being shown is of two trains crashing into each other. It makes it seem like he has “crashed” head-on to the conclusion he is making about film. Brzeski uses clips of rain and the sound of rain, which seems to be a sign of renewal. Her father’s life is new and the old parts are washed away; he has forgotten about his old life because he’s so involved with his life now. There is also a clip of empty carnival rides that has the audio over it saying she was “anticipating a reaction that never came.” I think using the visual clips in addition to the narration is an extremely effective way to saturate the viewer with the desired meaning.