cinema-verite - noun - a style of filmmaking characterized by realism in that artificiality is avoided and effects are made with simple equipment (Google)
I don't know about you, but I have spent an inordinate amount of time immersed in movies throughout my life. And from 1988 until 2004, I even owned and managed a video store, housing about 10,000 titles. My love of film began when I was a small child. I'm talking four or five. My mother would drop off my sister and me (who wasn't much older) at the Rialto, watch us enter the movie house, and then depart for places unknown whilst we were babysat by slightly more mature strangers and Walt Disney via his early masterpieces, such as Bambi, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, etc. No worries. She always came back for us within two hours. (Clearly, it was a different world back then.) As a teen, I started associating with more urbane friends who had penchants for Ingmar Bergman and his unlikely protege Woody Allen, who transitioned from the fatuous, fantasy Sleeper to the dark, authentic Interiors within a brief span of time. In the late seventies, both directors were the toast of cinema-verite, which is rarely used today since the blockbusters emphasize computer generation and escapism on the big screen. And why not? Art imitates life. Our lives today are all about technology, and due to the difficulties we are facing at the moment (Do I need to mention the "C" word?), Goodness knows, we all need a quick exit from reality.
For the past two weekends, my daughter, who is even more obsessed with celluloid than I (because she literally grew up in the aforementioned video emporium), spent a few, masked cumulative hours in the local AMC, devouring two movies that are quite the opposite of cinema-verite, No Time to Die, perhaps the last of the Bond series, and Dune, a remake of the 1980s' sci-fi classic. Both involve CGI and the necessity that the audience suspend disbelief. Both allow the onlookers to become lost for over two hours in other lands and times.
Of course, for those who enjoy reality, there is always the small screen, for instance, the Bergman remake on HBO Max, "Scenes from a Marriage," which is classic cinema-verite although few might wish to watch a believable marriage dissolve in front of their eyes since so many are dissolving in real life. As does life, cinema involves free will, a.k.a. choice.
As for my personal taste, I tend to like romances that don't necessarily have Hollywood endings. You know, the realistic ones. Films like La La Land, Havana, Casablanca, etc. turn me on because I know in life, perfection between two lovers is rarely possible for any length of time, so when things go wrong, I feel it is best to count your losses, walk away with the the best moments in your memory–as opposed to the worst–put them in an imagined box, tie it up with a big red bow, store it in the attic of your mind and take it out and unwrap it if nostalgia warrants it. You can create your own feel-good film that way, using cinema-verite or not. And you have an option of changing the ending in your thoughts or sometimes in actuality. It is all up to you. Again, there is that thing called choice. Choosing happiness over misery is always the better option in reel life as well as real life.
#word of the day, #vocabulary, #writers, #writers and poets, #words, #inspiration, #optimism, #inspiring words, #humor, #spilled thoughts, #motivation, #inspirational thoughts, #inspiration, #inspirational words, #words of wisdom, #affirmation, #optimism, #poets and writers, #writers community, #writers, #readers #writing
No comments:
Post a Comment