Friday, March 27, 2009

. . . Geekin' up a storm, as usual.

Well, i was over on IMDB's Avatar board, Geekin' up a storm as usual. Avatar is a film by James Francis Cameron, the guy who created the earth in 7 days. It comes out on 12/18/09 and when you see it your soul will immediately leave your body, having been raised to a new level of beauty and high-divinity. . . its a very technology-heavy film, 2.5 years and counting of post-production, and The Geeks, like me, have been following it and drooling over every bit of behind-the-scenes leaks and etc. for about as long as i can remember. 

Anyway, all this led to someone asking if the Magic of experiencing and enjoying the film would be less magical because we all know the behind-the-scenes mumbo jumbo before we watch it. 
Well, i had a response. a real good one. I decided that it was Quite Blogalicious, or Blogtastic, if you will, so like, i copied/pasted it here.

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Read Watchmen. at the end of one of the chapters, the little quips on un-comic text, Character Dan Dreiberg writes an essay, musing about wether or not understanding all the aeronautics anatomy mumbojumbo destroys the poetry/the beauty of watching a beautiful bird in flight. 

Basically, the point of it is that Understanding the Science and technical junk that goes into something, be it Art or Mother Nature, in fact Augments the poetry it carries, and the dry science and the True beauty augment each other rather than diminish. 


I used to watch movies like just a movie i'd be watching at the time. (i really loved 'em so i decided to watch more, naturally). at some point, as i grew (this was a gradual thing), i began to understand certain techniques. be it storytelling, script structuring, editing, camera junk, cinematography, etc. etc. etc. . and now, as any likeminded or similar experienced person will agree, my enjoyment of a movie is ssoooooo muuucccch more now that i fully appreciate, or am much closer to fully appreciating, all the techniques, expertise, beauty, etc. etc. etc. behind it. 

I believe this is more true in Film than in anything else, because i've seen artistically ignorant folk enjoy themselves at a painting exhibit, and not just 'we go to a painting exhibit because thats what those of our social class do' but actually absorbing what their looking at. i've seen the musically ignorant really enjoy themselves absorbing Mozart or Clementi, both of these the people may not know entirely why they dig something as the recreationally absorb it, but the can. . Anyway, for film, i don't think it works quite the same way. Does anyone whom does not take their interest in film seriously ever sit down and watch Akira Kurusawa? or Peckinpah's non-action work? or Paul W.S. Anderson:)? i'd be surprised if i met one who even heard of Kurusawa. The point is, a good deal of the beauty and poetry in cinema can only be met by those who have the insight/understanding of the Technical mumbojumbo behind it. 

Even in the Genre-est of Genrefilms, someone just passing through to sit down and watch a flick may enjoy themselves and may even be able to hold up in a discussion about it, but only those who have had an interest strong-and/or-long enough to appreciate the work done in the 3D art department, or sound, or photography, Or in Avatar's case 3D technology, CGI, Motion Capture, etc. will entirely realize and fall in love with the piece of cinema. 


I found the same to be true in Music. Alan Moore (posing as Dan Dreiberg, in this case) understands that about Birds & Flight. 

and were i more well-read, or well-versed in any other kind of artform, and i'd imagine this to be true in science/math as well, i'd be hella likely to feel the same way about whatever. 

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The intro and Conclusion were both directly related to the film and the rest of the post, and would make zero sense out of context, so i left'em out. . . .. 

but like, yeah. . . 

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