So I just reached the final leg of a three-day weekend.  Remember that feeling of intense dread you got as a kid on a Sunday night?  You knew the fun was nearly over as you had to wake up early and go back to school the next morning.  As much as it pains me to say, nothing has changed.  The sun will rise tomorrow morning and I will have to power through another week of work.  However, I can take comfort in the fact that I spent the weekend wisely, as I have sat through nearly six movies.  No lie.  That’s an impressive stretch to say the least.  Saturday night consisted of a double feature, with the exquisite Midnight In Paris and the loud but fun Thor.  The following night featured The Help (excellent) and the first half of Hook (amusing) before I fell asleep.  As for today, I had the joyous experience of seeing Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, in addition to the visceral Warrior.  This sudden binge of movie watching lit a fuse in my brain, as I firmly believe that I would be content with watching movies all the damn time, every minute of everyday.  I could do it, I’m not kidding. Naturally, this realization gave way to the question of why?  I figured I’d take a moment and attempt to provide at least a thread of an answer to the previous question.  So here goes nothing:

The idea of dreams was one that was present throughout Hugo.  No, not on an Inception-like level (“Hey look!  A dream within a dream within a dream! Confused yet?”) but prevalent nonetheless.  To me, and I’m sure to others, cinema can serve as the outward expression of your dreams, the manifestation of your deepest thoughts and grandest adventures.  I believe we often find solace and satisfaction in dreams because they can be unedited, direct channels to the creative part of our brains; the deep place inside ourselves that lives to tell stories.  Storytelling, whether we realize it or not, is perhaps the most common way of communication and interaction we have with other people; it has been since the dawn of time and always will be.  Think about it.  Usually, when you want to share something with someone else, you tell them a story:  “Oh you wouldn’t believe what that guy said to me!” or “Remember that time when we went streaking through the snow?” See?  Storytelling is everywhere…it’s the essence of who we are. 

The concept of sharing stories envelopes a large part of who we are as humans, which is why we often respond so strongly to different forms of expressing these stories.  We use art (books, cinema, painting, music, etc.) to convey a story, to share that deepest part of ourselves with others.  But here we are again…why?  Why do we use stories as means to connect with others?  I don’t think I have the answer to this behemoth of a question and if I did, I would be a very wealthy man.  However, for yours truly, stories (more specifically, their manifestation through cinema) serve as a means of connecting to the raw, beautiful emotion inside.  Just as we communicate with others via stories, stories communicate right back to us.  They serve as a platform of safety, a haven and reprieve from the vast darkness inside that threatens to blanket everything in its path.  As strange as it may sound, a film is often the only way I can truly connect with others, the only way I can feel emotions in their purest forms.  In watching a powerful story unfold in front of my eyes and hearing a gorgeous cinematic melody support it, I receive nothing but unfiltered feeling.  It is the greatest gift of all. 

As humans, I believe we are constantly looking for ways to feel something.  Think of a beautiful young child.  He or she touches or plays with everything they do not understand.  They are exploring what is right in front of them.  But at its core, their exploration is a search for knowledge.  After all, we were once in that same position.  But what if we are still adorable babies searching for something?  Instead of trying to find familiarity, we strive to feel emotion.  There is place of transcendent feeling and sentiment inside all of us, whether we realize it or not.  It’s a place where we can truly connect to others, to something that may be greater than us.  Some people call it God, others call it sex, the hippies called it love; it has many different names and forms.  As for me, I am beginning to discover that this Eden of true, gorgeous vulnerability and serene emotion exists within, not in the sky over my head, on a cloud, behind gleaming, pearly gates.  It is buried deep inside me, beneath all the hurt, filth, fear and pain.  It may not be easy to see, but it’s there.  It is a vibrant garden of liberty, this place of emotion.  It is free of all judgment and hurt.  It took me awhile to figure it out, but storytelling is the easiest way for me to access this part of me.  Cinema is the chariot in which I ride to this Shambhala, this paradise.  This inner palace of emotion is as pure as anything you will ever experience.  You see, emotion is the purest thing there is in this world.  We all experience it in different ways, at different times.  But everything we say, do or be is rooted in emotion and feeling. It’s the “end all, be all”, as they say.

 So how do you reach your palace of divine feeling?  I know how I do.  It is by means of something so simple as projected light behind a thin piece of transparent celluloid coated in chemical emulsion.  I can only hope that one day, I am able to provide to others what countless filmmakers have given me.  I hope I can tell a story that resonates deeply within someone.  Actually, I know I will.  I’ll get there someday.  For me, the emotions you can feel while exploring cinema are some of the best forms of therapy.  It can be the lump you get in your throat during a heavy drama.  It can be the smoldering fire of inspiration you feel from a rousing speech.  It can be the uninhibited wonder you feel before a grand adventure.  It can be the cathartic experience of belly laugh during a comedy.  It can be the warm rush of discovery, the unearthing of a story so fresh that it just has to be shared.   Whatever it is, the bottom line is that you actually felt something, which is the closest we can get to the true essence and purpose of being.  It is the greatest moment you could ever share with someone else.

With that being said, it’s time for me to go watch another movie.  Why don’t you take some time to access your own inner paradise of emotion?  I urge you to go feel something.  Trust me.  It’s worth it. 

(Copyright 2012 ~ Jason Natzke)

In my opinion, the best stories are the ones that ask some of the deepest, most challenging questions, but give the audience permission to discover their own idiosyncratic answers. 

            So I have been on a week-long journey through the Star Wars prequels, as I just finished Episode II last night.  The film was just as visually enticing as I remember when I saw it for my birthday ten years ago.  But on the flipside, the film as a whole was just as weak and frustrating as I remember as well.  Attack of the Clones featured some utterly stunning visuals and a grand, breathtaking vision, complete with excellent battle sequences and action set pieces.  I would be lying if the ten-year-old inside of me was not captivated by the nighttime speeder chase or an army of droids duking it out with some badass Jedi Knights.  However, the film school graduate in me has come to realize that the spectacular visuals have little or no power of they aren’t supported by some type of strong story that harbors commanding human emotion and drama.  It’s like going out on a date with a drop-dead gorgeous girl, only to discover at the dinner table that she has no personality.  Zilch.

            I feel the need to say that I respect George Lucas as a filmmaker, as he has one of the most original visual imaginations out there.  With that being said, I find the biggest flaw of Clones is a glaring one, an insurmountable distraction.  I find its dialogue to be poorly written and the performances to be just as weak.  What is supposed to be imaginative human drama comes across as something that would fit in just perfectly on a Tuesday morning soap-opera that your grandmother might watch: “Obi-wan is holding me back!”  LAME. 

            While dialogue was never a strength of the original Star Wars trilogy, the weak writing and character development is more glaringly distracting this time around, mostly due to the fact that the film is so special effects driven.  Because of the over reliance on CGI, I was pushed to near virtual overload, so much that I began clamoring for something authentic and real.  My desire for something human to latch onto only made this viewer look for them more than I did in the original trilogy, which inevitably led to my disappointment.  I needed to feel something, rather than just see something.  There was no rugged authenticity of Harrison Ford (yes, I have a man-crush), no jaw-dropping “Luke, I am your father” moments, only thousands of computer-generated images, albeit beautiful ones.  Now I know that Star Wars is meant to be more escapism than brilliant human drama, but the heart has to be engaged somehow, or else it’s just like that pretty date without a personality. 

            With the original Star Wars films, there was something oddly archaic about them, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  To call a science fiction film archaic can be a compliment I believe, if explained correctly.  By having the limitations of real-life sets constructed of wood or polyurethane, rather than a green-screen behind the actors, it helped the audience believe that what they were watching could actually be happening in another universe.  It grounded a fantastical story in reality.  In my opinion, a heavy reliance on special effects only dilutes the power of the story being told on film and can distract the audience from what is really important, or what the film should really be about, which is the story.  Because filmmaking is such a visual medium, I’m sure that some will say that film is really about the images you are seeing on screen. I agree to an extent, but it is my belief that the most important aspect of filmmaking remains, and always will remain, the story.  You could have fantastically breathtaking visuals on screen that may push the boundaries of our imaginations in the most exciting way, but the film may ultimately be hollow if there is not a strong, unique or original story to support those visuals (cough cough Avatar…that’s another rant for another time).  For yours truly, what makes watching a moving picture so incredible is its power to be an all-encompassing experience for the mind and spirit.  One of my favorite cinema experiences of my young life was when I first saw Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King in 2003.  Not only were my eyes and mind treated to spectacular visual images on screen, but my spirit was deeply moved by the power of the story.  Not only was I watching something that pushed envelope of what I thought I could see on screen, but because of the strong performances and engaging story, my heart was engaged in the cinematic experience, which made it such a worthwhile one.  Those are the type of films I hope to make someday; or to define this desire more clearly, I intend to make films that are visually engaging, but grounded in the beauty of raw, powerful and centered human emotion.

            So I started writing my thoughts about Star Wars, which then morphed into a mini-review and ended up talking about Lord of the Rings.  Call me a geek, but both of those trilogies had a profound impact on me; they were watershed moments on my cinematic voyage that continues to chug along.  They certainly solidified my love for cinema and proved that I was on the right path.  Now, I feel the need to clarify that I do not despise special effects-driven films, as I believe that they provide the opportunity to create and express concepts that we are unable to physically create.  I mean, c’mon, I’ve seen Avengers twice already in the span of two weeks.  However, there must be a balance.  While I may be drawn to more films that use an original story, engaging performances from its actors and an overall attention to the “human” side of things, I cannot deny that special effects can serve a story in a positive way and can make a film an exciting one.  Special effects should support the story, not engulf it.

             I think I just figured out what I have been trying to say this whole time, which is the fact that I will NOT be seeing the movie Battleship this weekend for my birthday.  If you made it this far into this blog post, I thank you for putting up with my ramblings and highly opinionated viewpoints.  Now please enjoy the next special effects-laden film you see! But if you leave the theatre feeling underwhelmed, chances are your eyes were stimulated more than your spirit.

(Copyright 2012 ~ Jason Natzke)