Thursday, November 7, 2013

Is it possible to "tell a film"?

You might want to try to succeed where Jafar Panahi failed. In This is Not a Film, he tried to "tell a film" rather than make a film. Can it be done? Would anybody watch it? Anyone at all?

Panahi was doing this because the script he wrote didn't make it past the censors. In your case, do it because you have no money.

I think it's like what I heard on the radio, that I wrote about before. An opera fan had advice for non-opera fans hoping to attend the opera. Study it ahead of time. Learn who the characters are, what the plot is, what happens from scene to scene, because you're not going to figure any of that out by listening to the lyrics. Learn all about it in advance so you can relax and listen to the music.

That's what you'd have to do----don't act out the movie for the camera.

Look at Pasolini's Notes Towards an African Orestes, a documentary about a film that was never made. I had seen it years ago and remember him discussing different approaches to take to the story.

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