Mulholland Drive
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20688441
discussing the dream elements within Mulholland Dr (2001)
Lost Highway
http://www.othervoices.org/1.3/bh/highway.php
interesting application of lacan to lost highway and interesting comments on how we read films
Thursday, 21 November 2013
Wild Strawberries
interesting and dense dream sequence that changes the characters perception of his life as his subconscious tells him that he may have been successful in his work but he is alone & death is around the corner
within this we see examples of symbolism, conceptual & visualisation - the clock with no hands. the scrunched faced man who mirrors his own disposition on life (displacement, symbolism, visualisation) and then a great example of the revelatory where the coffin breaks open on the ground which is revealed to be his own.
Animation
the various aesthetics of animated film have dream like aspects
- Stop Motion
the fast cutting jittering imagery has something very hyper real about it and yet something that is completely unrealistic in a very unnerving way
Jan Svankmajers The Jabberwocky is a perfect example of this hyper reality that represents so perfectly the dream of a child in frauds view. very surrealist.
hyper-reality
very dense imagery - examples of condensation & subjectivity as well as displacement and conceptual
- Stop Motion
the fast cutting jittering imagery has something very hyper real about it and yet something that is completely unrealistic in a very unnerving way
Jan Svankmajers The Jabberwocky is a perfect example of this hyper reality that represents so perfectly the dream of a child in frauds view. very surrealist.
hyper-reality
very dense imagery - examples of condensation & subjectivity as well as displacement and conceptual
Dreams in the Edit Suite
we don't dream about travelling to any of the various dream landscapes we find ourselves in but we cut from scene to scene "first i was …. then i/we were …" similar to the way a film cuts from scene to scene
use of editing that has influenced dream like quality in film
dreams that have influenced the editing of film?
Jan Svankmajer uses montages of juxtaposing sight and sound to change perception or to make light of scene or simply to add atmosphere
cutting of images to create harmony/contrast.
story can be told through disjointed scenes
SECONDARY ELABORATION - the outcome of the dreamer's natural tendency to make some sort of "sense" or "story" out of the various elements of the manifest content as recollected. (Freud, in fact, was wont to stress that it was not merely futile but actually misleading to attempt to "explain" one part of the manifest content with reference to another part as if the manifest dream somehow constituted some unified or coherent conception).
films that use secondary elaboration - LA JETEE
Long Transitions - examples within stanley kubricks - THE SHINING (see ROOM 237)
long transitions that transpose constructed images from colliding scenes through long fades
creates images within images CONDENSATION - visualisation/symbolism
these images may be hidden or not noticeable without editing software but choice by creators
use of editing that has influenced dream like quality in film
dreams that have influenced the editing of film?
Jan Svankmajer uses montages of juxtaposing sight and sound to change perception or to make light of scene or simply to add atmosphere
cutting of images to create harmony/contrast.
story can be told through disjointed scenes
SECONDARY ELABORATION - the outcome of the dreamer's natural tendency to make some sort of "sense" or "story" out of the various elements of the manifest content as recollected. (Freud, in fact, was wont to stress that it was not merely futile but actually misleading to attempt to "explain" one part of the manifest content with reference to another part as if the manifest dream somehow constituted some unified or coherent conception).
films that use secondary elaboration - LA JETEE
Long Transitions - examples within stanley kubricks - THE SHINING (see ROOM 237)
long transitions that transpose constructed images from colliding scenes through long fades
creates images within images CONDENSATION - visualisation/symbolism
these images may be hidden or not noticeable without editing software but choice by creators
Oneiric Film Theory
Refers to what is described as the depiction of dream like states in film or the use of the metaphor of a dream to analyse film
-Jean Epstein argued films have a dream like quality.
-Raymond Bellour and Guy Rosolato made psychoanalytical analogies between films and dream states - films having "latent" content - used Freuds Interpretation of Dreams
Barthes - viewer as passive. - "para-oneiric" state
" sleepy and drowsy as if they had just woken up"
breton-
viewer enters a state between "awake and flaying asleep"
Rene clair referred to these as a dream like state
Esthetique et psychologie du cinema (1963) discusses connection between films & dream state
- jean cocteau - conscious hallucination
filmmakers who have been described as using oneiric theory
- Ingmar bergman - persona
- Luis Bunuel
- Lars Von Trier
- Andrei Tarkovsky
- David Lynch
- Stanley Kubrick
- Orson Welles - The Trial
i have began looking at the 4 schools of surrealist thought, the subjective, the imagistic, the conceptual and the revelatory and comparing and contrasting these with the 4 types of dream logic - condensation, visualisation, displacement and symbolism.
I will begin by laying these terms and the meaning down so that we may both grasp better understanding of them
Freud's Dream Logic
Condensation - Where one dream object stands for several associations and/or ideas
Visualisation - a thought is transformed into the visual image
Displacement - a dream objects emotional significance to the dreamer is transposed onto another object so as to not raise the suspicions of the dreamer
Symbolism - a symbol replaces a person, idea or action
Freud also hypothesised that "secondary elaboration" could be added to these as this is the act of the dreamer stringing the events of the dream into one story and trying to decipher a narrative from this. this i don't believe to be part of dream interpretation or logic as it not key to deciphering the latent content of the dream it is merely a device used by the dreamer to form cohesion out of their own madness & a dream is not a continuos narrative or thought pattern it is a whole series of thoughts, ideas or desires being connected by the dreamer as interpreter and there only way of possibly being linked together is the dreamer and the knowledge and experiences therein. we can only hope to learn more about the dreamers life experiences as to gain insight to his night experiences.
Surrealist Schools of Thought (i will be using the creation of art to explain these terms)
The Conceptual - this is where the ideas or concepts behind the piece take precedence over the aesthetic nature of the work
The Imagistic - the conveying of meaning and ideas through precise images
The Revelatory - revealing something that was hitherto unknown
The Subjective - something that acts onto the viewer and can be interpreted in a multiude of ways
I will begin by laying these terms and the meaning down so that we may both grasp better understanding of them
Freud's Dream Logic
Condensation - Where one dream object stands for several associations and/or ideas
Visualisation - a thought is transformed into the visual image
Displacement - a dream objects emotional significance to the dreamer is transposed onto another object so as to not raise the suspicions of the dreamer
Symbolism - a symbol replaces a person, idea or action
Freud also hypothesised that "secondary elaboration" could be added to these as this is the act of the dreamer stringing the events of the dream into one story and trying to decipher a narrative from this. this i don't believe to be part of dream interpretation or logic as it not key to deciphering the latent content of the dream it is merely a device used by the dreamer to form cohesion out of their own madness & a dream is not a continuos narrative or thought pattern it is a whole series of thoughts, ideas or desires being connected by the dreamer as interpreter and there only way of possibly being linked together is the dreamer and the knowledge and experiences therein. we can only hope to learn more about the dreamers life experiences as to gain insight to his night experiences.
Surrealist Schools of Thought (i will be using the creation of art to explain these terms)
The Conceptual - this is where the ideas or concepts behind the piece take precedence over the aesthetic nature of the work
The Imagistic - the conveying of meaning and ideas through precise images
The Revelatory - revealing something that was hitherto unknown
The Subjective - something that acts onto the viewer and can be interpreted in a multiude of ways
The Conscious Hallucination
The cinema is designed to induce a state that resembles sleep you are shut off in a dark space devoid of distraction from the outside world and made to experience sequential images that you have no control over but that convey a certain aspect of existence, this is a dream state
"the surrealist praised the way the cinematic image unfolded to approximate the workings of the imagination and the dream-state. the surrealists' untamed eye is the first and foremost an inner eye. of central importance to their views on the cinema is the relationship between viewing of a film and the act of dreaming. to them watching a film unfolding in a darkened cinema embodied the closest thing to a dream. jean goudal described the cinema as a 'conscious hallucination' - even more powerful than literature"
this idea of a "conscious hallucination"a hallucination that thinks and evolves out of itself and not only that that is aware of itself
dreams essentially boil down all our knowledge and being and fuse that with the most recent events of our life that are still floating about in our frontal lobe yet to work themselves into the recesses of our mind
"The cinema, then, constitutes a conscious hallucination, and utilises this fusion of dream and consciousness which surrealism would like to see realised in the literary domain. these moving images delude us, by leaving us with a confused awareness of our own personality and by allowing us to evoke, if necessary, the resources of our memory"
"the surrealist praised the way the cinematic image unfolded to approximate the workings of the imagination and the dream-state. the surrealists' untamed eye is the first and foremost an inner eye. of central importance to their views on the cinema is the relationship between viewing of a film and the act of dreaming. to them watching a film unfolding in a darkened cinema embodied the closest thing to a dream. jean goudal described the cinema as a 'conscious hallucination' - even more powerful than literature"
this idea of a "conscious hallucination"a hallucination that thinks and evolves out of itself and not only that that is aware of itself
dreams essentially boil down all our knowledge and being and fuse that with the most recent events of our life that are still floating about in our frontal lobe yet to work themselves into the recesses of our mind
"The cinema, then, constitutes a conscious hallucination, and utilises this fusion of dream and consciousness which surrealism would like to see realised in the literary domain. these moving images delude us, by leaving us with a confused awareness of our own personality and by allowing us to evoke, if necessary, the resources of our memory"
Sunday, 13 October 2013
Dream Logic
Freuds Examples of Dream Logic
"dreams are brief, meagre and laconic in comparison with the range and wealth of the dream-thoughts."
condensation - where a single dream object carries several different association and ideaSymbolism - a symbol replaces a person, idea or action
Visualisation - where a thought is made visual
Displacement - a dream objects emotional connection to a person is changed either by substituting the object for another or by chagning the meaning of the object completely
a cinematic example of this is in David Lynchs Mulholland Drive where we see the Red Lamp displaced across the film in different locations to subtly tell a deeper story or a hidden subtext that changes the story of the dream. here we see an item that has been displaced to give meaning to it's location and through the course of Mulholland Dr. we see it manifest itself as an item that is connected with the main protagonists home and it's substitution is her implanting her own home into the home of her "aunt".
This object can be read in a way which embodies all of the forms of dream logic as it carries several different associations, it replaces and acts as symbol of herself and is a visual representation of a state of mind, "home".
Wednesday, 19 June 2013
dissertation proposal REJECTED haha
just kidding but here's an ongoing thought process of what i could do
refine to surrealism i had already considered this as an anti-art approach to film while being something I'm interested in is not what i have been looking at
why is film such a potent medium to depict surreal/subconcious/dream like imagery ?
- we believe film, if we can see something we can believe in it (comment on our literal society who devalue religion for this factor)
-films that create an emotional reaction often act off situations that we can all relate to therefor we find reality in the films
- we inject reality into what we watch (projecting ourselves & situations that could be far removed from our actual reality but we want to believe in it and make connections that are entirely subjective/ objective)
- we believe in it and give it life - we give it reality without us it's just people going through precomposed scenes
- collective consciousness & shared experience - dreams are a boiling down of all our memories, knowledge & subconscious mind acting out acting as an escape from our everyday lives, while our body sleeps our minds float to different vistas of being through the never and towards infinity.
we all realise that dreams hold some key to our subconscious or that lurking in our subconscious is the key to our dreams so when we see a dream sequence in a film we immediately try to apply meaning to it and decipher it, while this may be
escapism - we/some of us use these films an outlet/escape for/from our everyday lives and existence to gaze into a world more beautiful or at least resolved than our own
we can look into someone else's existence whether it is ultimately the same as our or the complete opposite they can offer emotional support or an outlet for some emotional problem - again looking to characters for help with our real world issues which ultimately boils it down to a directors/writers/actors life experience as to how believable or unbelieverble a story or event is.
does the realism come from realistic characters? setting? directing? or like i said earlier do we, the viewer create it
we can look to them for ideological guidance whether it's from a character we identify with or with a director we empathise with
films (more often than not) have resolutions, life does not. there is only one ending for us all but where they choose to close the credits in a film thats only the beginning for a lot of characters they then have their happy or not so happy ever after to live or not live again depending on what your watching
- this could be a pro or a con. resolutions only mean the end of one story and the beginning of another when a film leaves you in suspense at an ending it's mostly not due to poor writing staff this is where that second story begins the one that you write. alternatively this non-resolved resolution could offer more solace than a resolved one - in a non resolved ending we never have to deal with the reality or consequences of the last metaphorical 90 minutes we can choose to simply say to ourselves when the curtains draw that the dashing smooth talking womaniser made it out alive despite all odds and that ending fight was too jaw droopingly awesome to be shown for fear it may cause spontaneous combustion of certain audience members heads or that it was an utter massacre and the misogynist prick got what he deserved - this again is where personal ideologies and experience come into play, these aren't unbiased opinions.
what running time would you give the film of your life? a short 20 minute emotional roller coaster? a two hour and forty eight minute epic or just your run of the mill 84 minute production that simply ticks all the boxes
would your life be in colour or black and white? stark and full of contrast or a symphony of technicolour and equality
how would you film it? in quick snappy shots to maintain movement and dramaticism like godard or a slowed down pan because you see the beauty in the world and wish to experience it?
in glorious HD? grainy 8mm ? or gritty mobile phone ?
where would you begin the story of your life? at the beginning and have it play through chronologically ? would you narrate your own humble beginnings? or would you do something a bit more non linear and start with your death or empty funeral, original right? or some moment that starts the film off with a laugh break the audience in - maybe an embarrassing moment. or go for the emotional anchor, your wife leaves you boo hoo.
and is your life so mundane that you'd shoot it in 3-d just to try and give it some depth
as i type this i can see the first piss golden rays of sun cascading across the roves of the houses opposite the window i'm looking out of or through. soon the characters will be awakening to star in their own shit little pointless self indulgent crap while i continue mine.
i really am talking absolute unfocussed bollocks in this post but it's late/early and i'm enjoying the fact that someone may read this.
refine to surrealism i had already considered this as an anti-art approach to film while being something I'm interested in is not what i have been looking at
why is film such a potent medium to depict surreal/subconcious/dream like imagery ?
- we believe film, if we can see something we can believe in it (comment on our literal society who devalue religion for this factor)
-films that create an emotional reaction often act off situations that we can all relate to therefor we find reality in the films
- we inject reality into what we watch (projecting ourselves & situations that could be far removed from our actual reality but we want to believe in it and make connections that are entirely subjective/ objective)
- we believe in it and give it life - we give it reality without us it's just people going through precomposed scenes
- collective consciousness & shared experience - dreams are a boiling down of all our memories, knowledge & subconscious mind acting out acting as an escape from our everyday lives, while our body sleeps our minds float to different vistas of being through the never and towards infinity.
we all realise that dreams hold some key to our subconscious or that lurking in our subconscious is the key to our dreams so when we see a dream sequence in a film we immediately try to apply meaning to it and decipher it, while this may be
escapism - we/some of us use these films an outlet/escape for/from our everyday lives and existence to gaze into a world more beautiful or at least resolved than our own
we can look into someone else's existence whether it is ultimately the same as our or the complete opposite they can offer emotional support or an outlet for some emotional problem - again looking to characters for help with our real world issues which ultimately boils it down to a directors/writers/actors life experience as to how believable or unbelieverble a story or event is.
does the realism come from realistic characters? setting? directing? or like i said earlier do we, the viewer create it
we can look to them for ideological guidance whether it's from a character we identify with or with a director we empathise with
films (more often than not) have resolutions, life does not. there is only one ending for us all but where they choose to close the credits in a film thats only the beginning for a lot of characters they then have their happy or not so happy ever after to live or not live again depending on what your watching
- this could be a pro or a con. resolutions only mean the end of one story and the beginning of another when a film leaves you in suspense at an ending it's mostly not due to poor writing staff this is where that second story begins the one that you write. alternatively this non-resolved resolution could offer more solace than a resolved one - in a non resolved ending we never have to deal with the reality or consequences of the last metaphorical 90 minutes we can choose to simply say to ourselves when the curtains draw that the dashing smooth talking womaniser made it out alive despite all odds and that ending fight was too jaw droopingly awesome to be shown for fear it may cause spontaneous combustion of certain audience members heads or that it was an utter massacre and the misogynist prick got what he deserved - this again is where personal ideologies and experience come into play, these aren't unbiased opinions.
what running time would you give the film of your life? a short 20 minute emotional roller coaster? a two hour and forty eight minute epic or just your run of the mill 84 minute production that simply ticks all the boxes
would your life be in colour or black and white? stark and full of contrast or a symphony of technicolour and equality
how would you film it? in quick snappy shots to maintain movement and dramaticism like godard or a slowed down pan because you see the beauty in the world and wish to experience it?
in glorious HD? grainy 8mm ? or gritty mobile phone ?
where would you begin the story of your life? at the beginning and have it play through chronologically ? would you narrate your own humble beginnings? or would you do something a bit more non linear and start with your death or empty funeral, original right? or some moment that starts the film off with a laugh break the audience in - maybe an embarrassing moment. or go for the emotional anchor, your wife leaves you boo hoo.
and is your life so mundane that you'd shoot it in 3-d just to try and give it some depth
as i type this i can see the first piss golden rays of sun cascading across the roves of the houses opposite the window i'm looking out of or through. soon the characters will be awakening to star in their own shit little pointless self indulgent crap while i continue mine.
i really am talking absolute unfocussed bollocks in this post but it's late/early and i'm enjoying the fact that someone may read this.
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