What the Water Said 4-6 is a piece that clearly uses the relationship of sound and image to create a thought or question. Without knowing what the background of the project, or what the images and sounds are, the piece would loose its mystique and not be interesting anymore. What the Water Said 4-6 is a collection of short films by David Gatten made by plunging film and audio reels into the ocean off the coast of South Carolina. After a period of time, both the film and the audio reels are brought up and played simultaneously.
Without that background, the film would suffer, but with it the film evokes many images and questions. The relationship of the audio to the image is very clear in the film. When the film looks more battered, resembling static, the audio reel sounds like deep static. When scratches are sparse and the film looks largely untouched, the audio is soft and calm. The sound and image work rhythmically together at times, sparking ones imagination as to just what the water must have been like at that time. A picture of nature begins to appear in the viewer’s mind of the water and what it must have been doing to create the sounds and images it creates.
The final roll, #6, was a unique and wonderful display of color and sound. The film stock turned out very blue, with lots of deep scratches revealing white behind the blue. The scratches were very round and were so frequent and fast they resembled fireworks. The audio was just the same, sounding like a never-ending stream of fireworks that popped and hissed. For a film made completely of scratches and bumps, the aesthetic quality of that experience was amazing.
With that said, it was interesting to see the relationship between sound and image in an unmanipulated way. By knowing that the scratched and tears in both reels where made by the ocean, and not the filmmaker, the cohesion that the two share feels much more incredible. The uninhibited abuse of nature on the reels, especially when the intensity of sound and image parallel each other so closely, serves to provide the viewer with a look at nature and its power.
Three hours, fifteen minutes before the hurricane struck was a completely different experience. It took quotes from victims of Hurricane Katrina three hours and fifteen minutes before the hurricane struck. Diorama figures are faded in between the quotes, with no sound. The intense emotion that Hurricane evokes is the catalyst for this films emotional pull. Without the deep feelings toward the subject, the film could not be silent, and would lose a lot of attention.
The silence in the film does a number of things. It forces the viewer to concentrate on the images and quotes rather than sound and image. If there is no sound to back up your images, the images stand alone, almost naked, so their quality and the message that the filmmaker is trying to convey must be that much clearer. By not having sound, the images popped out of the frame more, and were viewed as displays of art featured in film, rather than a traditional film.
Another thing silence does is create tension. In our world today, especially in an urban area, silence is hard to come by. To show a silent film at all creates tension in the viewer because they are not used to silence, especially in a group of people. The tension created by this film served wonderfully to bring the thoughts of that time back into the viewers mind.
The term “calm before the storm” comes to mind in respect to the silence in the film. The quotes were taken from before Katrina hit. The calm before the storm is a pretty usual saying. To have sound before a major event such as a Hurricane would only make the film seem small in comparison to the booming and crashing of Hurricane. Instead of sounding small, the lack of sound provides and ominous and tense precursor to what we all know to be a terrible disaster.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Senses of Cinema - Journal - Final Blog
“If the point of publicly sponsored documentary was to solicit public consent for the existing order, in affording glimpses of constituencies beyond the tweedy didactic boardroom, these films listened to other voices, other instincts.”
- Richard Armstrong
The films that Richard Armstrong refers to in this quote are the British Film Institute’s Box set Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950. In his article for sensesofcinema.com, Armstrong critiques the short, publicly funded documentaries that became a movement in the mid 30’s to late 50’s in Britain.
Concentrating on the social concerns of the working class, many of these films were focused on non-traditional areas of chronicled life, such as women and children. A main topic addressed at the time was housing concerns. In the film “Housing Problems” the filmmakers film the tenements and their inhabitants as is, giving the tenants a change to speak and be heard regarding the terrible living conditions they faced every day.
Armstrong brings up an interesting point in that, “the dominant voices of British documentary, like mainstream cinema, were always middle class and determinedly Oxbridge.” To understand that these were well educated, middle class people making the films provides us with a background as to why the films were made. People living in these terrible conditions didn’t make the films; they were made by intellectuals interested in the subject. To be able to step away from those conditions at the end of the day gives them a distinct point of view on each matter they film.
They Also Serve and Children at School focus on women who stay at home while their husbands are at war, and school children and the empowerment of education. Armstrong makes note of the fact that these films were not only some of the first of their kind to be made in Britain, but were stringently detailed. They were no slop jobs. These were serious professionals making serious high quality films about the social concerns of the masses.
The fact that such a movement existed is really interesting and intriguing to me. I’d love to sit down and watch a few of these films. The fact that they are all under 40 minutes makes them interesting in that you can only get a small glimpse into ones life in that amount of time or less. These films serve as only short glimpses into these lives, almost begging for others to discover more and work towards a solution.
These short pieces became a movement, and every movement has a cause. It's interesting to think about why British filmmakers decided to make short documentaries rather than long fully encompassing ones. I take it to be that there were so many social concerns that this group wanted to cover, and funding was a major concern, so they took to making shorter films so they could cover a number of areas. With so much going on in the post Victorian age in Britain, the documentary community must have felt overwhelmed with all they could, and should do. I would not be surprised if another movement like that started in America. It seems more concerns and problems are arising every day, much more so than 10 years ago. It may be time that these problems be addressed again in short format. I personally think it's time.
I will now comment on the above quote. To have publicly funded projects that really dive into real life situations is something very special. The comment about the boardroom rings true. To make a film today that will reach as many people as these films have and still do, a studio must be involved. Monetary interests are involved as well. These films did not set out to make money. They set out to address concerns. They had a utilitarian purpose. To be able to avoid studios and the making of money and make completely socially observant films does create voices and instincts not heard on film in that time. The films are then allowed to serve the people they were meant to serve: The subjects of the film.
This collection sounds amazing and I hope to find it someday.
Filmmaking today is a homage to the past, an experiment of the present, and an unconscious leap towards the future.
- Richard Armstrong
The films that Richard Armstrong refers to in this quote are the British Film Institute’s Box set Land of Promise: The British Documentary Movement 1930-1950. In his article for sensesofcinema.com, Armstrong critiques the short, publicly funded documentaries that became a movement in the mid 30’s to late 50’s in Britain.
Concentrating on the social concerns of the working class, many of these films were focused on non-traditional areas of chronicled life, such as women and children. A main topic addressed at the time was housing concerns. In the film “Housing Problems” the filmmakers film the tenements and their inhabitants as is, giving the tenants a change to speak and be heard regarding the terrible living conditions they faced every day.
Armstrong brings up an interesting point in that, “the dominant voices of British documentary, like mainstream cinema, were always middle class and determinedly Oxbridge.” To understand that these were well educated, middle class people making the films provides us with a background as to why the films were made. People living in these terrible conditions didn’t make the films; they were made by intellectuals interested in the subject. To be able to step away from those conditions at the end of the day gives them a distinct point of view on each matter they film.
They Also Serve and Children at School focus on women who stay at home while their husbands are at war, and school children and the empowerment of education. Armstrong makes note of the fact that these films were not only some of the first of their kind to be made in Britain, but were stringently detailed. They were no slop jobs. These were serious professionals making serious high quality films about the social concerns of the masses.
The fact that such a movement existed is really interesting and intriguing to me. I’d love to sit down and watch a few of these films. The fact that they are all under 40 minutes makes them interesting in that you can only get a small glimpse into ones life in that amount of time or less. These films serve as only short glimpses into these lives, almost begging for others to discover more and work towards a solution.
These short pieces became a movement, and every movement has a cause. It's interesting to think about why British filmmakers decided to make short documentaries rather than long fully encompassing ones. I take it to be that there were so many social concerns that this group wanted to cover, and funding was a major concern, so they took to making shorter films so they could cover a number of areas. With so much going on in the post Victorian age in Britain, the documentary community must have felt overwhelmed with all they could, and should do. I would not be surprised if another movement like that started in America. It seems more concerns and problems are arising every day, much more so than 10 years ago. It may be time that these problems be addressed again in short format. I personally think it's time.
I will now comment on the above quote. To have publicly funded projects that really dive into real life situations is something very special. The comment about the boardroom rings true. To make a film today that will reach as many people as these films have and still do, a studio must be involved. Monetary interests are involved as well. These films did not set out to make money. They set out to address concerns. They had a utilitarian purpose. To be able to avoid studios and the making of money and make completely socially observant films does create voices and instincts not heard on film in that time. The films are then allowed to serve the people they were meant to serve: The subjects of the film.
This collection sounds amazing and I hope to find it someday.
Filmmaking today is a homage to the past, an experiment of the present, and an unconscious leap towards the future.
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