'Smart Film'. Case study on Fight Club and Donnie Darko - Essay Example

?Visual Arts and Film Studies Discuss the term “Smart Film” referring to appropriate filmic case studies of your choice. Do “Smart Films” exist? The term “Smart Film” was coined by Jeremy Sconce (2002 and 2006) to refer to a group of films produced in the 1990s, and the early years of the new millennium, largely in reaction to the intellectual mediocrity of most Hollywood blockbuster films produced in the large studios. As the name suggests, this supposed genre has intellectual pretensions, and deals with issues which have more depth and meaning than the usual mainstream narrative films which are aimed at a wide audience and a large box office profit. “Smart Film” is also a genre which challenges traditional narrative structures and encourages a more layered reading of the plot lines, drawing the audience into the task of making meanings out of difficult, or contradictory events and propositions. This paper defines what Sconce means by this term, “Smart Film,” showing how it emerges out of both classical and art film cinema history, and provides some examples from two key films which have been categorized within this genre. There is then a discussion of the validity of the term, considering several possible objections to this classification. Finally, the paper concludes that the term “Smart film” is a valid genre descriptor, so long as it is understood in the ironic way that Sconce originally intended, and not as an indicator of quality or status. One of the main features of the “Smart Film” is the absence of a single plot line, or main character to unify the action. The way that the characters relate to each other is more complex, and the audience has to work harder to make sense of the connections and dis-connections that appear on the screen. This shift of focus from more traditional linear approaches is described by Sconce as a narrative style “centering not on a central unifying character’s dynamic action (as in classic Hollywood cinema) nor on relatively passive observations (as in previous art cinema), but rather on a series of seemingly random events befalling a loosely related set of characters.” (Sconce, 2002, 362) Sconce’s observation sets “Smart Film” apart from the tendency of Hollywood mainstream films to focus on clear and simple narrative techniques. Kristin Thompson argues that this has been a tendency of blockbuster movies right through the 1970s and 1980s: “... Hollywood continues to succeed through its skill in telling strong stories based on fast-paced action and characters with clear psychological traits. The ideal American film still centers around a well-structured, carefully motivated series of events that the spectator can comprehend relatively easily.” (Thompson, 1999, 8) This so-called “classical” style of movie production endures because it has become the accepted “norm” for the majority of film audiences. Thompson acknowledges the importance of episodic films, and the emergence of post-modern cinema, which breaks with many of these traditions, but maintains that Hollywood will doubtless continue to be fascinated by genres such as the action film which tend to be both “formulaic” and “overblown” (Thompson, 1999, 338) The impact of non-classical films like Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, has, according to Thompson, been minimal, leaving a legacy which encourages imitators to dwell on the extremes of sex and violence rather than engage in novel approaches to narrative structure. Thompson makes valid points, but the “Smart Film” genre shows that some independent film-makers working together with the large studios have managed to break away from the stranglehold of classical expectations. Sconce’s reference to art films, as well as classical film, is highly relevant, and although Sconce is keen to point out the differences between his new genre of “Smart Films” and the art film genre, there are also many similarities between the two genres. The work of Bordwell has done much to explain the specific art film contribution to filmic narrative style. A key point in what he calls “art-cinema” is the multifaceted nature of reality in these films: “The film will deal with “real” subject matter, current psychological problems such as contemporary ‘alienation’ and ‘lack of communication.” (Bordwell, 1985, 206) These are ambitious topics, and they are conveyed through a multitude of techniques as well as in the dialog and in the action of the art film. Experimental ways of cutting scenes, different camera angles, the use of black and white and color to create different effects, flashbacks and flashes forward, for example, are all techniques that were used in the mid twentieth century to disrupt a single linear narrative and inject some additional layers of meaning or avenues of interpretation. The reception of art films is different from mainstream film: the audience specifically wants to talk about the meanings that they see in the film, and there is an expectation that theoretical points will be debated by critics and commentators in the art press and in academic journals. The films are consciously intellectual and they feed an almost spiritual desire to understand deep messages and analyse the film maker’s revelatory techniques. Multiple interpretations are possible, or even encouraged, and this is what marks out art films as a genre apart. Entertainment is still a feature of the cinema-going experience, but it is tinged with analysis and reflection. There is, of course, a tension between commercial imperatives and the film-maker’s desire to break new ground. Art films can be criticized for being too elitist, or even pretentious, especially when the storytelling and entertainment aspects of the film become overshadowed or even lost altogether. These are features which for many years were anathema to Hollywood studios, who aimed their work at the majority of viewers, looking for mass circulation and large profits more than critical acclaim. Bordwell cites the role of chance encounters and miraculous events in art films to point out the general lack of narrative line that exists in real life and is mirrored in art cinema: “not only does the art film create unfocused gaps and less stringent hypotheses about upcoming actions: it also facilitates an open-ended approach to causality in general.” (Bordwell, 1985, 207) This is true of both dramatic events and also inner workings of the characters’ minds. What art cinema did was create a tolerance for ambiguity and a focus on the act of narration, whether this be in a semi-autobiographical mode, or through the perpetuation of a particular directorial style through many films. A film-maker can conduct a conversation with his audience over a whole series of films, creating levels of meaning that operate within the bounds of each separate film, but reach out to reflect on previous films and provide a foretaste of films to come. Many of the post-war art film techniques were quite radical in their time, and one can see in the works of Antonioni, for example, many separate decisions to depart from the comfortable traditions of Hollywood’s plot-based narrative style. The mise en scene places the human beings in a world where they are not necessarily the most important players. Other forces of nature, of consumerism, of industrialization, or any number of chance events drive what happens in these films, and the characters are depicted struggling to find their place in the complex puzzle of experiences that confronts them. It is against this background that we should see the newer genre of “smart film”, since it owes so much to those earlier innovations. What Sconce suggests is that “Smart Film” combines the best of both worlds: it reaches wide audiences but manages at the same time to convey many of the ambiguities and complexities of the art film genre. The characters in these so-called “Smart Films” are often drawn from the same general pool as Hollywood heroes and anti-heroes: they are conflicted individuals who are uneasy in their roles. They are rebels and outcasts who have failed to achieve success in the mainstream world of capitalist America, and yet they engender support and empathy in an audience which likewise finds some aspects of modern society difficult and alienating. Characters like Jack, in Fight Club and Donnie in Donnie Darko are, therefore, presented in such a way that their inner world draws the audience in, suggesting an alternative view of reality that defies rational definition but still makes some kind of sense to a troubled millennial generation. The narrative techniques of these two films illustrate perfectly what Sconce means by the term “Smart Film.” Instead of a simplistic dream/reality contrast, which carefully draws a line between reality and fantasy, these films present some kind of middle ground of consciousness: Jack’s insomnia and Donnie’s sleepwalking are doorways into another plane of being which places the regular world in a different light. While both characters evidently would be labelled as suffering from a mental illness by professional psychologists, the films present their view of the world as a valid and logical proposition. There are echoes here of such films as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which in the 1960s served to call into question some oppressive features in American society at the time. The two later films take this approach much further. The hallucinations, if that is what they are, that Jack and Donnie experience, are presented as events with full significance in the film, and the audience accepts them despite nagging doubts about their status. The point is that for Jack and for Donnie, the strange rabbit figure and the character of Tyler respectively, are indeed part of reality. It is just a matter of perspective whether they are accorded significance or dismissed as lunacy. The film asks that the audience suspend their prejudice and walk in the shoes of these two troubled characters. Smart films often raise themes or issues but then leave them only partially developed. In Donnie Darko, for example, there is a very playful characterization of one overweight child who appears in various guises, usually on the edge of scenes involving group activities. The relevance of this character is not clear in terms of plot, but the emotional resonance of her appearances is very important. She creates a feeling of pity, or sympathy, which indeed Donnie echoes. She is another lost soul, an outsider, and any attempts to contact her or involve her end in failure. Donnie notices her, while the world ignores her, and the plaintive looks that she shares with him are an indication of his humanity. These very short and apparently pointless interjections prevent the character of Donnie from becoming a stereotypical disaffected youth: he can call his mother “bitch” one moment, and then show sympathy for the dejected girl the next. It does not matter that he cannot help the girl. The point is that he wants to, and this gives his character a moral grounding. The observations of Sconce on the term “Smart Film” home in on the ironic and deadpan narrative style which traditionally is linked with art films rather than Hollywood blockbuster movies. It could be said that these films at the end of the twentieth century revive and update the reflective, questioning approach of film-makers from the immediate post-war period. In the 1990s, as in the 1950s and 1960s, there was an emerging new generation of mainly white, college-educated, middle class film fans who are eager to see their own take on the world reflected on the large screen. While the post war economic boom produced reflections on urbanization and consumerism, the crisis-ridden decade preceding the end of the millennium was altogether darker, and even more ambivalent about future trends. Sconce points out that directors express this ambivalence through the use of “ironic disdain.” (Sconce, 2002, 352) Violence, when it occurs, can be extreme and pointless, as if to demonstrate the futility of human life, and of any concerted effort to build a solid, moral existence. Tyler in Fight Club significantly forces Jack to suffer a chemical burn as if it is a ceremonial rite of passage from passive victim to active player in the world. Masculinity and self-harming are thus psychologically linked in a memorable way. The short flashes of Tyler that Jack sees out of the corner of his eye in Fight Club are also disconcerting to the audience. In this film it is very difficult to pin down what is real and what is fantasy, but as the involvement with the fight club gains momentum , it becomes clear that Jack and Tyler are dimensions of the same character. This conceit is a parody of Hollywood superhero narratives, where a normal human being transforms into a larger than life character with superhuman abilities. Violence is at one and the same time glorified and shown to be an aberration. Its underworld attractiveness is conveyed in the dimly lit cellar and alleyway scenes. This alternative world is depicted as the necessary counterpoint to the ordered, hierarchical world of Jack’s office on the surface. Audiences respond with cult-like enthusiasm because they recognize the paradox from their own everyday life in modern America. It is no coincidence that the heroes of “Smart Films” (and they are usually male) tend to be in some way exiled from mainstream society. Often, as in the case of Tyler in Fight Club, these individuals are simultaneously victims and perpetrators in a society which is violent and unpredictable. The setting up of a kind of organized violence club can be seen as a parody of Western civilization, with its oppression of the weak and its rampant capitalism, which allows the economically strong to rise up and take more than their fair share of the goods that are available. The Darwinian principle of “survival of the fittest” is transplanted into this artificial arena, allowing disenfranchised males to achieve some kind of temporary glory and esteem, which they cannot achieve in the “real” world outside the club. The point of the film is not to glorify this enclave of masculinity but to demonstrate how futile it is, and question everyday assumptions about the way maleness and aggression are linked. The way that a mild and inoffensive character such as Bob is first duped, and then manipulated, and finally disposed of, shows that there is something sick about this fight club. It is only an apparent solution to the problem of social exclusion, and in fact it mirrors the unfairness of the mainstream world with graphic and brutal treatment of the weaker members of the group. The intention of this film is to take a contemporary issue (masculine violence stemming from social exclusion) to its logical extreme and expose its fascination and its deadly power. There is a necessary focus on with the use and abuse of power, and it initially at least is portrayed as something positive and appealing, because this is necessary if people are to engage with the film on an emotional level. The character of Donnie Darko embodies the alienation of young people from their parents. When his mother fails to communicate with him, she asks “What happened to my son?” indicating that there is a gap between her expectations of him, and the way he is turning out to be. Donnie is under medication for an unspecified mental illness, but he is torn between taking the pills, or resisting them. Neither he nor the audience know whether the pills are actually causing his alienation or than helping him. The tension between what is healthy and what is sick, what is real and what is unreal, then underpins the whole of the rest of the film. One technique that is used to very good effect in “Donnie Darko” is the juxtaposition of scenes of destruction with hyper-normal scenes of middle class American life. An good example of this can be seen when Donnie is depicted dousing Jim Cunningham’s living room with petrol and setting it on fire, and these scenes are placed in between scenes of girls dancing on stage, and being feted by an admiring audience of relatives. The institution of the family is here being parodied, since the glitzy dancers in the “Sparkle Motion” dance group represent a consumerist idealization of girlhood, while the hooded Donnie represents the antithesis of this: a criminally destructive rebel, bent on destroying all the family’s trappings of wealth and success. It is not gratuitous violence, however, because of Cunningham’s apparent predilection for child pornography. There are therefore grey areas of morality here, so that it is possible to see some kind of justification for Donnie’s actions, based not just on the imaginary promptings of “Frank” but also on some kind of vague natural justice. Donnie is an anti-hero in the traditional sense: taking action against evil people in ways that are not sanctioned by society. The audience agrees at least with the sentiment, if not always with the method, and there is always the excuse of insanity to make it palatable and safe to enjoy the element of revenge. These examples show that the term “Smart Film” is both valid and useful as a descriptor of films which both celebrate and put into question the values that are at the core of post-modern Western culture. The word “smart” is not the same as “intellectual” or “arty”. It has connotations of a quick and intuitive grasping of the deep content, without dwelling on the detail. The kind of knowledge it imparts is not elitist or theoretical, but rather practical, and suited for applications on the street and in the daily lives of disaffected youths and young adults. It fits the short attention span of modern audiences, especially youth audiences, and it encourages brief analytic exchanges such as can be found on blogs, tweets, and social media platforms. Smart films sum up the post-modern condition: fragmentary, intuitive, dealing with profound issues in concentrated spurts and living in a network of paradoxes. When such films hit a nerve with the public, they quickly become viral. The art-film has thus finally broken through into the mainstream, blurring the distinction between classical and experimental cinema, and revelling in deliberate ambiguity in order to provoke emotional and intellectual responses from the audience in ways which reflect the zeitgeist. References Bordwell, D. 1985. Art cinema narration. In Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 205-273. Sconce, J. 2002. Irony, nihilism, and the new American ‘smart’ film. Screen 43 (4), 349-369. Sconce, J. 2006. Smart Cinema. In L.R. Williams and M. Hammond (eds.). Contemporary American Cinema. Maidenhead: Open University Press. Thompson, K. 1999. Storytelling in the new Hollywood: understanding classical narrative technique. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Read More