This is a busy time. Hope to see you when I get part 2 up.

Matt B., I find your thought that (what I’m assuming is) commercial cinema is ritualistic because of its elliptical structure absolutely fascinating. Film’s power to discuss and portray love is unique on one hand because of its elliptical structure (Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood for Love, or really any feature), or because of its simplicity (The Hairdresser’s Husband), but both of these are depictions of romantic love. Film, because of its unique ability to immerse and demand duration (neither the novel, painting, or music can display time in the way film does), especially in a non-elliptical structure, can show a more Christian love (i.e. mundane and service oriented—self sacrificing over time. The sacrifices of Mary and Martha versus the parting of the Red Sea).

Great discussion. I wish I could garner this kind of discussion on my blog devoted to LDS cinema, the link to which I will shamelessly post here: “Toward an LDS Cinema”

I can’t wait to see where the discussion goes.

I disagree with your claim that memory isn’t self-conscious. Admittedly it is often unconscious. That is we aren’t thinking about what we are doing when we are doing it.

This, I think, is important, and I’m fine with the term ‘unconscious.’ I would simply submit that the narratives our memories create are rarely (if ever) utterly unique; we build them through association, through the use of patterns and types, we instinctively know what is important and what is not based upon what we have internalized as true. There’s a fair amount of work out there, for example, on the ways converts to a new faith reconceive their memories accordingly.

And story-telling - via film, fiction, non-fiction, etc - are where we find those patterns. Stories of whatever type construct them; those which endure provide powerful models.

I disagree with your claim that memory isn’t self-conscious. Admittedly it is often unconscious. That is we aren’t thinking about what we are doing when we are doing it. (Even if the doing is thinking) Yet I’d argue this is as true of making movies, writing books, and so forth. (And that’s without getting into the problem that movies are joint-works rather than individual works and thus have a phenomena very similar to the unconscious with respect to any one individual)

Actions irrelevant do not make it into the reality of the film. On the other hand, daily life is chronicle, not history - it’s one event after another, and because of that the meaning-making we do there draws upon a multiplicity of narratives.

I’d simply note that this is exactly what memory does. As I remember (and then re-store the memory) I build a narrative based upon exclusions and connections to larger narratives. Meaning is inherently this making of connections.

So if the point about realism is merely the time and exclusion factor then I’d agree, but it seems a trivial point. Further pretty well every event phenomena (remembering, facts, history, etc.) is also non-realistic according to your use.

But that experience is primarily about how an art form informs our sensibilities by means of metaphor–while our experience in the real world is more about the realization of action and it’s tangible consequences.

Jack - I actually don’t think we necessarily disagree. I just see a connection between these two things. Why does, say, Johnny Lingo exist if not to teach us the consequences of actions like judging others, showing kindness, and cattle trading?

Just to beat the dead horse a little more–

I agree that we do have a real time experience with movies as we watch them. But that experience is primarily about how an art form informs our sensibilities by means of metaphor–while our experience in the real world is more about the realization of action and it’s tangible consequences.

Re: Love–It’s true that we may be informed in some measure as to it’s expression by means of a cinema experience–but only as we intuit a connection to our real world experience with other human beings.

Fun thread.

Movies are more representational than experiential

I think, in and of themselves, that’s true. But at the same time, of course, movies are something we experience, and are a place (to draw on your own example) we learn how to express love.

I recall reading somewhere that Coppola and Scorsese movies, for example, are wildly popular in the world of organized crime; they teach mobsters how to act.

Now, you’re certainly right to say that all ways in which we encounter reality - memory, books, etc - manage it to some extent. It’s too simplistic, though, in my view, to equate film with memory - film is managed self consciously to a degree which I don’t think we percieve ourselves reaching in daily life.

I imagine we do disagree on your first paragraph; I tend toward lfw, and thus imagine life as a series of free agents bumping against each other, often uncomfortably. I don’t see divine plan in the unfolding of my own life, but rather, read Christianity as a narrative which helps me manage the chaos.