Why We REALLY Fight

Crash helmets on? Good. Recently it occurred to me that my original post, “Why We Fight,” was a misnomer. In actuality, all I really describe in that post was the “how” of what I was doing, not the “why.” I want to rectify that now, and to do so we have to delve into some pretty theoretical musings on theme, narrative structure, and the role entertainment plays in film. Be aware that as an attempt to describe a deeply held passion, I had to really work to objectively understand my need to do this thesis. It’s not an easy thing to delve into one’s own psyche, especially when the subject matter is so viscerally intertwined with the essence of who you are. Next week, I promise to show pictures of the candy-like raygun that I painstakingly hand-painted along with the neat wall prop I’ve been slaving over, but for now I’m afraid it’s just another wall of text... sorry.

My brain has been whirring and spinning around in my skull for several days now. Normally, I really don't go up there much (many will tell you I prefer not to involve my brain in daily activities), but the racket was getting so noisy I finally looked into my body's attic to see what all the fuss was about. As I suspected, the hullabaloo was related to the last class I'd been in. It's a class designed to aid grad students as they walk (totter, stagger, crawl... what have you) down the path to a final thesis and almost-too-remote-too-imagine graduation.

I have been waiting for this class to be invented for two years. My ability to navigate grad school bureaucracy is about at the same level as my cat's ability to read (he can’t). I forget to get papers signed, lose track of vital events and quickly grow bewildered at the arcane procedures involved in keeping the gears of the school satisfied. I may be a decent scholar, but I'm a lousy student. Now, however, I feel as if the gates of Shangri-La have been opened to me and I've been invited to sip nectar from buttercups with the serene monks of the city. For I have a school-directed PLAN (TM) to graduation. So why the brain somersaults?

Well, at this point in the class we're discussing the foundations of our thesis films. The big questions. Theme, plot, story, character, length, height, weight, etc. Nuts and bolts elements that I've only partially mulled over while arm-deep in real-life nuts and bolts prop building. And it was during this latest session that I realized how lacking I was in the whole "what is my story about?" area. Or, to be more precise, I had neglected to construct a coherent articulation of what my story is about.

See, I know what my story is about. Now I can ask you to trust me, because we're over three entries in here and have developed a rapport. But one can't ask an accredited school to do the same. Accredited arts colleges just don't go passing out M.F.A. degrees because one wild-eyed (possibly smelly) grad student whispers, "Trust me." Can you blame them? Unfortunately, I was ill-prepared to say otherwise. Up to this point I'd been laying the groundwork for this project with the unquestioning belief of Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. "Build it, and they will give you a degree," whispered the inner voice of Kevin (that is, my voice, not Costner's) in its best impression of James Earl Jones. So that's what I had been doing.

The problem is that the school deserves a reasonable explanation (plus I don’t want everyone to start staring at me and murmuring to their friends about “the wacky 50s sci-fi dood” when I walk by). So it's time for me to try and explain my process. To answer the big question: what is my film really about? Why am I making it? What am I trying to say? It's these questions that have dogged me for the last several days, ever since I staggered out of that class with my brow furrowed. My forward progress has grinded to a halt since then. In my head, the various elements of the plot that were beginning to coalesce drifted to a stop and waited. There could be no progress until I had at least made an effort to explain my purpose. I could almost feel my partially created characters staring, counting on me not to make a fool of them; they needed to be justified to a world that has largely forgotten television sci-fi of the fifties. And then my first revelation came as a surprise: even I didn't know exactly what compelled me. Why was this inactive children's genre so enthralling to me?

I thought about it for days. I discussed it in rapid bursts with my patient wife while we drove around on errands. I would then continue agonizing about it while we picked up dinner supplies at the grocery store. I put off e-mails to professors until I managed to get an initial attempt down. But even that initial try proved elusive (though not impossible, since you're finally reading it now). It was so frustrating because I kept foundering while trying to define the “theme” of the film. Between bouts of seemingly unproductive brain-raking I would retreat to my PS2 the way an earlier generation might turn to drink. So what was the problem? For me, it turned out to be the framework I was trying to use. Humans understand their world through models, paradigms and frameworks, and one of the classic frameworks used to analyze the purpose of narrative art, "theme," was proving uncooperative. Whenever I tried to analyze this film I kept coming up with multiple intertwining themes with only one common denominator: me. It's a movie that possesses the elements I really need to see, because no one's shown it to me yet. And I'm gambling that there's people out there like me who are waiting to see it too. So let me just get this out of the way quick (like pulling off a band-aid), and then table this topic for the moment and examine the problem from a different angle (see below).

Themes of Spacemen

Good will always triumph over evil.
Evil will always have a hand in its own downfall.
Always do what's right.

There you have it. Basic and iconic, like most children's fare. Though in this case even more so due to the 50s spin. But let's delve deeper, into the “meta-themes.” That’s where the real stuff is churning. It’s there that the answer as to why I'm making this resides. Now there’s no guarantee that this is entirely accurate (creators often don't know their own minds), but here's what my days of introspection netted me:

Meta-Themes of Spacemen

Honor the past and learn from it.
Don't let modern distractions clutter basic issues of right and wrong.
Nostalgia serves its own purpose.
Take joy in simple pleasures.

These are the themes one can derive from my modern attempt to recreate the genre. The first list are the themes of the genre itself, while the second list is derived from questions about why I might be employing it. To a large degree, the medium (in this case, the genre itself) is the message (the theme). That's as simple as I can make it. Perhaps my fellow students and our Professor can help me to boil it down into a unified essence. We'll see.

And Now For Something Equally Important: Intention

The artist's intention is essentially an examination of the same issues of story and theme, but with a slightly different emphasis. Here, the question is "How do you want your work to be received?" Many answers are possible, but one is almost universally unacceptable in a serious filmmaking environment: "to entertain." I have never met a professor who was happy with this response, and for good reason. A lot of forethought and consideration is expected before one describes their intent. More often than not, saying "I want to entertain" is the same as saying "I'm not sure.” It’s a shrug response. And thanks to those students who have fallen back on it when in doubt, it’s become unsatisfactorily vague. That’s unfortunate, since this is largely my answer. My intent is to make you smile. To give you a thrill, to send a tremor of exhilaration down your spine. I want you to loosen up, relax, and forget the troubles that have beset you on this tiring day. My goal... is to entertain. And thanks to those filmmakers who should have simply responded “I don’t know” when asked their intent, I now have to write pages of analysis to back up what should be a simple assertion. I won’t try to change filmmakers’ minds about the value of “mere” entertainment. Rather, my goal is to persuade any readers that my answer has emerged after much forethought and consideration, and that I have come to trust in it deeply as an artist. Here’s an attempt to codify the framework I use:

Building Blocks of Entertainment

I believe that the primary goal of mainstream cinema has to be entertainment. It’s not just the sugary coating that you use to make the audience swallow your theme/intent; it’s a primary element in its own right. In fact, it’s the primary element. If a person is setting out to make a conventional film (decide for yourself what “conventional” is -- I use it as shorthand for the vast majority of Hollywood-style efforts), then they should be aiming to entertain their audience first and foremost (after all, Hollywood isn’t called the “Theme Industry”). However, the central approach to my framework isn’t so different from the standard model; a lot of the building blocks used to construct “entertainment” are the same one’s we’ve been discussing: Story, Plot, Characters, and Theme are all examples. But now we can add additional blocks that are also relevant to the goal: Structural Flourishes, Technical Sophistication, Visual Interest, and Novelty. To extend this framework further, we could even split our blocks into two groups based on perceived social value (i.e. value beyond purely satisfactory entertainment). Our heavy-hitters (Story, Plot, Character, and Theme) become “Meaning Blocks,” while their flashy counterparts (Structural Flourishes, Technical Sophistication, Visual Interest, and Novelty) become “Style Blocks.” So entertainment isn’t just one of a variety of elements to consider, rather, it’s the final product of all the elements in a film (the castle you construct out of the blocks, if you will). And make no mistake, good entertainment will invariably use blocks from both of these categories.

“Pure” Entertainment

While pure entertainment serves a useful purpose (after a harrowing day trying to get my loans fixed I’m liable to get far more use out of Tron than I would Apocalypse Now), it’s also just a theoretical construct. I have never encountered a film that is “purely” entertaining (i.e. made up only of Style Blocks). Every single film that has entertained me has always had at least a few competently executed Meaning Blocks as part of its make-up (Tron’s themes deal with questions of faith and religious persecution, for example).

Intent Revisited

So in this (admittedly vestigial) Building Blocks framework, the question of intent is still vital, but what has changed is the assumption that the answer must in some way transcend “entertainment.” In my outlook, “entertainment” (and the simple benefits of being entertained) is a viable response -- though of course not the only one. And I’ll be the first to acknowledge that a filmmaker whose goal is to provide style over meaning has chosen a more modest approach, and one that will affect his audience less deeply... but that doesn’t mean the approach isn’t relevant. To the contrary, one of the purposes of many genre films is to comfort rather than provoke, and films that go this route have nothing to be ashamed of; a lot of people (especially grad students) could use the comfort. In my opinion, movies that are often described as “guilty pleasures” would be better described as “simple ones.”

I hope it’s clear that this block framework completely allows for mainstream movies that do incite, provoke and disturb, but I also believe that these elements should still be considered part of the overarching goal of entertainment (indeed, the previously mentioned Apocalypse Now serves as an excellent example of an entertaining film that uses pretty much every block in the cupboard brilliantly).

And of course, once out of the nebulous “mainstream,” this outlook should have all the authority of a snail discussing sports cars (okay, that’s a weird analogy, but you know what I mean). There is a vital need for a cinema whose purpose is to consider things other than entertainment. Films that challenge you to understand them or explore the boundaries of the medium are integral to advancing it. I am consistently intrigued by the offerings of video artists as well as other filmmakers who use different paradigms than the one I’ve tried to define (by putting Character as the primary emphasis for example). But as a genre filmmaker, I must admit that my ability to discuss them is limited (and at this point I’m too exhausted to make even a cursory effort).

So what were we talking about?

Oh yeah, why I really fight. You’ve already got my best guess as to theme, and now I have the tools to describe intent. I’m sure it’s clear by now that my thesis is primarily “style entertainment.” As a piece aimed towards children (and throwbacks like me), I am satisfied by its artistic credentials. And even though my choice might normally be described (using my own framework) as modest, it is also completely true to the story I need to tell. Spacemen will be my fifth thesis script. Every other script failed to get made because I wasn’t true to my vision. Every previous story I pursued was compromised, edited and revised in an effort to appeal to my fellow filmmakers and my perceived audience. And in the end it nearly drove me out of this calling I love so dearly. So no more compromises. As I finish what I started over three years ago, I have resolved to be completely honest about what I’m trying to do. So much so that I would rather write thousands of words on why I should be allowed to tell a story whose primary value is entertainment, rather than put together a smokescreen of deeper meanings that would ultimately be disrespectful to the work I’m trying to perform. In the words of a great man (okay, it was Popeye): “I yam what I yam and that’s all that I am.”

And that should be enough.