Sinister: In Defense of invention

[Scott Turner]

Sorry for the double post- and sorry for insighting a negative thread 
and getting people peaved, but i wanted to give a proper defense of 
Blair without cheap shots at people who didn't like it. 

(Intimations of B&S content at the end.)



Please don't read if you haven't seen Blair Witch.





I think I understand where the Witch hunt is coming from but I still 
fervently disagree with it because it is not dealing with the movie on 
its own terms.

Ask the question: Why was there no character development?

- the movie is a fake. What's it faking. Its supposed to be actual 16mm 
film reels that a bunch of wankers were shooting for a documentary. 
There is no real character development, because the footage they are 
filming has absolutely no interest with the lives of the filmakers. The 
footage is not supposed to be about heather, mike and josh- its 
supposed to be enough film and DAT that heather can go into the editing 
room, do a voice over and put together a documentary for her class. 
Personally, I liked the non-character development in the sense that you 
learned about these three people, very similarly in how they would have 
learned about each other. Heather became more and more annoying as the 
film went on, so annoying that you just end up hating the dumb-bitch. 
Same with Mike- you want to chop his head off when you find out the 
dumb-fuck threw away the map. And josh?- caught some where between 
redneck and Marilyn Manson. Are any of them likeable? I sure don't 
think so. which leads, i think to the interesting ethical dimension of 
the film. We are the forth person along on the hike, and the most 
disabled of the lot. We see through the limitations of a shitty cameras 
eye, and hear through a DAT that hasn't been set up very well. We're 
like some fucked up tag along beast that can't say or do anything but 
is put through the torment of being at the whimsy of their fucked up 
decisions. The ethical dimension- I not only felt scared for my own 
mutant camera/dat body, but I felt really bad for them. I mean I did 
not like them, but I felt really bad for them. I mean do you really 
want all those kids like them to die horrible deaths. Really. It was a 
peversely empathetic experience. Their dialogue- do most people like 
them speak as if a professional writer were scripting their everyword. 
of course not. They say fuck way too much. Don't believe, go outside 
and listen.

Which leads me to the point of emersing yourself in the movie and the 
jaded comments. This movie is very emersable, so much so, that lots of 
people puke in the theatre because their senses are so disoriented. The 
movie fucks with the forth-persons (the viewers) ability to form 
knowledge. Not to go off on a Kant tangent, but, we form knowledge by 
synthesizing our multiple sensations of an object or experience through 
time into our intellect so we clearly "understand" an object or 
experinece. This film incessantly inhibited our ability to "know" 
things in the movie. Our visuals were almost always poor (so poor that 
the close up of the bundle couldn't make out whether they were josh's 
fingers or his intestines) and the sound was constantly inhibited, not 
being able to decipher sounds and was many times disjoined from the 
visuals themselves (ie. the last scene, mike gets knocked down, the 
edit cuts to heathers reel, but the DAT is still with mike in the 
basement. We see Heathers visuals, but only faintly hear her screams 
because the recorder is all the way in the basement. As she approaches 
the basement we hear her screams startlingly louder and louder until 
she is in the same room with the DAT, sees mike and gets clubbed. It 
was absolutely brilliant- hitchcock would have loved that sequence more 
than anybody!).
Which is where for me the fright was- not simply in the unknown, but 
the fact that I was trying so hard to know things in the film with my 
senses, but the film wouldn't let me, like I was a cripple in some 
fucked up dream. That for me was petrifying.

Back to hitchcock- hitchcock was brilliant and scary. But that was 
before most of us were born. He set the standard for the horror flick, 
and his movies were truly great. He made the rules of the genre- and 
for over thirty years we've been subjected to below average films 
following these rules like they came from Moses. Can their be another 
Hitchcock? The genre has become so cliche that in my opinion the best 
horror movie of recent years was gus van sant's shot-by-shot remake of 
psycho- weird, yes- postmodern, yes- a final comment on the genre, yes. 
What I love about the Blair Witch Project is that it was trying to do 
something new with the emotion "fear". It is inventive. Instead of 
ripping everything off from the father hitchcock, it set its sight on 
creating something different. 

Untimely, yes. Different, yes, Emotive, imo, yes. Sounds a bit like 
Belle and Sebastian in that slant, doesn't it.



.scott



Memo from Lana622 on 3 August 1999, 11:36  Tuesday
To:	sinister  
cc:	   (bcc: Scott Turner)
Subject:	Sinister: In Defense of the Non-Jaded People

 Hello everybody,
       I don't get mad very often, but I'm slightly, um, peeved now.  
If it
wasn't for the extremely supportive show of anti-Blair Witch
sentiments--we're going to start a club, you know--I wouldn't send this 
to
the list, but I feel the need to defend all the others on the list who 
didn't
like this movie.    Sorry if it offends anyone who liked the film, just
remember how bad I'll feel tomorrow for sending this, if that makes you 
feel
better.

Scott Turner writes:

>>Not just that most of the criticisms completely
didn't know how to deal with the movie on its own terms ("uh, the
character development was a bit shakey",... "uh, the dialogue left alot
to be desired, I think hemmingway could have done a better job with
it"),<<
       Okay, here's what I have a problem with.  Besides the fact that 
there
was NO character development, the dialogue sucked!  I hate Hemingway, 
but at
least he wrote sentences that didn't always contain the word "fuck."  
How can
you accept that as decent dialogue?  Those actors were obviously 
running out
of things to say, and it was painfully obvious.  They'd sort of look 
around
after a while, say, "Um, FUCK!"  and then look very pleased with 
themselves.

 >>I mean people should do psychology experiments on you. What on earth 
is
scary to you then?<<
      I can tell you what's NOT scary...obnoxious people running around 
in
the woods.  I was rooting for the Blair Witch, especially in the case 
of that
Heather chick.  She should have been the first to go, she reminded me 
of too
many people I went to school with.

   >>A confessional ending that ties up all the loose
ends for you, puts your emotions in a tidy little package until the
sequel???!!!! I am really interested to find out what you'all think is
frightening.<<
   I do enjoy it when the movie is CLEAR as to what's going on, but oh 
god,
that's probably just me being dumb, huh?  Have you ever seen an Alfred
Hitchcock?  He manages to be scary and clear at the same time.


>>In Blair Witch, there were no suprises, no sexual exploitation, no
special effects, at all, yet if you emersed yourself into the
experience, it was absolutely frightening. The film technique was truly
inventive and forceful. See it without prejudice. Shed the emotive
programming and feel something fresh for a change. Leave your
insulation of jade and irony at home, and expose yourself to something
new.<<
      Heather, you can be honest...we know it's you, darling!!

Okay, that's enough of me being bitchy for the day, and now I'm feeling 
bad
and sorry for being mean.  Now I'll think of nice things to put me in a
better mood.
  Spunky Flowers (thanx paul)
   She's Losing It (who needs boys...la la la)
   Sunny Days
   Puppies and kittens
    Mick Cooke


Love,
    Lana

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To:	sinister at Majordomo.net@Internet
cc:	 (bcc: CN=Scott Turner/OU=PHI-PA/OU=US/OU=JHMarsh/O=MMC)
From:	Lana622 at xxx.com

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  To send to the list mail "sinister at majordomo.net". To unsubscribe
   send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
  "majordomo at majordomo.net".  WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+
 +-+  "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+
 +-+                     "jelly-filled danishes"                   +-+
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