The Construction of a New Narrative

Once again, we see the impact that cinematic edits and technology can have on a film. In Alone, Life Wastes Andy Hardy, Martin Arnold uses the concept of looping to create a different narrative than what normally may have happened. By constantly rewinding and playing a scene multiple times in different rhythms, he transforms simple scenes into a complex storyline. For example, in the opening scene, Andy and his mother share an intimate moment that is fragmented by a constant pause and repetition. As a scene that originally could just be a simple motherly embrace and kiss, Martin Arnold has made this become a motherly obsession – an Oedipal lust. By slowing down motions, actions are heightened. His body is thrust into hers, and her momentary sensual facial expression is repeated multiple times. These heightened exaggerations lend part to creating this underlying storyline of a boy in love with the mother, while being scared of the father (who repeatedly tells him to “Shut Up” and proceeds to slap him), ultimately running to a girl his own age. Some scenes are played in its real time, like the slap is. But most of the scenes are slow, drawn out, repeated, and looped. The careful juxtaposition of certain scenes develops the narrative that Lev Manovich discusses in “The New Temporality”. Martin Arnold’s use of this type of repetition creates a narrative that is very extreme and dramatic. By looping the last kiss with the girl, he is not only solidifying a created relationship, but also constructing a dramatic artificial love in the relationship than was originally absent. In the original film, it was just one passionate kiss. But Arnold’s formal manipulation techniques of the film want us to believe that it was in fact 50 kisses of different lengths. Furthermore, Martin Arnold purposefully forces a real lag-time during the movie. By editing the scenes and slowing things down, he creates a sense of anxiety, anticipation, and general tension, as demonstrated in the scene when someone is at the door when the girl is singing, and all you can see is his shadow.

Another thing I noticed was that the editing seems to mechanize everything. The repetitive noise was like a machine churning, the repeated actions were like a malfunctioning robot; everything was disjointed and fragmented – temporally distorted while creating a mechanized feel. But overall, with this repetitive technique, this film really draws out the extremity in which you can manipulate film to construct different narratives, just as Manovich claimed.

A Cinematic Relationship with Still Image

In “The Database” by Lev Manovich, I was most intrigued by his argument in the section titled “Paradigm and Syntagm”. While he defines the syntagmatic dimension as “stringing together elements, one after another, in a linear sequence” (230), the paradigmatic dimension is described as the more varying possibilities for these sequences. For example, with the example he gives, in a fashion outfit, there are elements that compose it (a skirt, blouse, jacket, shoes, etc.), but there are other combinations of outfits that exist in the viewer’s imagination. The syntagm here is naturally explicit (the actual narrative), while the paradigm is implicit (the database).

He argues that new media reverses this relationship. “The database is given material existence, while narrative is dematerialized” (231). Paradigm is privileged over syntagm, made real and no longer virtual. These new media objects (e.g. images made by computers) place the database at the center of the design process. The database, in which we select components to add onto our object, is listed out and exists materially. Everything is a simple mouse-click away, and the elements are arranged in a menu, in which you can select from and construct your image accordingly. Every action has become dependent on the explicit database, and a simple narrative has been placed secondary.

But what I found the most interesting was his initial comparison of these new media objects to cinema. In the beginning of the section, he discusses these images as having layers, where combined and juxtaposed would result in a montage look. Each layer is responsible for a certain component of the image. For example, one could encompass the background, one could encompass the subject, and one could encompass the lettering. Combined, these layers present a full representation – a complete scene. Yet, if a layer stands on its own, it tells a blank story that viewers are unable to garner much information from. This is similar to the idea of cinema. Juxtaposing multiple screen shots presents a complete scene, but on its own, it is a still image that we cannot gather as much from. Here, cinema has an impact on the visual language. With these still images, they have components that can make it come alive – just as cinema makes a scene come alive. This linear sequence of layers still gives the viewers an experience on its own in visual culture, while tapping into moving images. The new media objects, especially still images with layers made in programs like Adobe Photoshop, mirror the composite of cinema – a series of disjointed scenes (comparable to different layers) that comprise of a full scene (comparable to a complete, diluted image).

This comparison made me think differently about the influence cinema may have on the visual culture in general, and how that can stem into still, computer-distorted images. It made me realize that you do not need a series of still images to alter a scene, but these mere still images can be manipulated in a way that can materialize the database while downplaying the actual narrative.

Time Indefinite: Memories embedded into technology

While I was watching this film, I was struck by Ross McElwee’s compulsive obsession to film every aspect of his life. As demonstrated by the filming of his brother shaving in front of a mirror 12 years ago to his sister giving him advice after a break-up, he uses film to transverse time. By playing back his old footage, he allows viewers to travel into his past with him as he narrates different memories he has. His obsession to film seems to suggest his dependence on technology to capture seemingly everyday moments in his life. He relies on it to help him remember moments in his life, such as his post-baptism moments with his mother. Yet, as demonstrated with his battery dying after his wedding announcement, technology still has a funny way of failing him. He was obsessed with finding a new battery to document this, but wouldn’t his natural perception and memory of the event be sufficient? He does not think so. I feel like his obsession to film indicates a dependence on technology to record what he goes through on a daily basis, everyday memories from his point of view. His memories are embedded in his film, and his past is intertwined with a tainted reliving of a memory. The camera is the self-created barrier that prevents him from experiencing the beauty of natural memory.

Distorted Reality in Man with a Movie Camera

Dziga Vertov’s 1929 film “A Man with a Movie Camera” was a collaboration of “experimental events”. But already from the beginning of the film, Vertov’s theater scene has a central message about the changing relationship between humans and machines.

The scene starts out in an empty theater with empty seats, with a man upstairs in the process of loading film. Ironically, the camera– a machine– is lit and full of life, while the theater– a place usually full of people– is dead. Slowly, the music builds up and a musical production is underway. The theater components begin to come to life as people begin flooding in. The strangest part is when the seats begin to liven up. They are being put down before people even got to sit down. In this situation, the machine-to-human dependency and restriction is eliminated. In real life, those types of seats would go down only under human weight. But now, machines had a life that is uncontrolled by humans. It has switched, demonstrating machine’s control over human space. Humans are immersed in a distorted reality created by machines, and Vertov demonstrates that perfectly in the beginning of this scene.

In the next part of the scene, once everyone is seated, the music is cut as silence fills the theater. The spectators are waiting for the show to begin, and the orchestra is on stand-by, awaiting the camera’s cue. Each orchestra player is frozen in time, waiting for the camera to turn on with life and essentially rejuvenate their own lives. Once the light from the camera turns on, the show starts. The orchestra begins playing, the music starts up again, and the audience becomes engaged in the production. I was intrigued by this scene mainly because of the orchestra players. Here, Vertov is again depicting humanity’s dependence on machine temporally, instead of spatially like the beginning part with the seats. The orchestra players are waiting on the camera’s cue, essentially running on machine time. Humans subject themselves to their control, and once again, the machine-to-human dependency and restriction that was previously present has completely changed.

Another interesting thing I discovered while watching the scene was the theater itself. The style of that theater, with its massive drapes and seating, is usually used for plays or operas. It has now been turned into a movie theater, where humans are now spending more and more time with machines. They are now allocating their time for machine-produced entertainment. Like the orchestra players, this act demonstrates technology’s control over people’s time. The fact that people are donating their time to sit in this theater and watch this film, rather than human-produced plays or operas, demonstrates the lack of resistance to machine control. They are acknowledging what technology can bring to them, and relishing in it. It has reached the point where the machine control over humans is prevalent, and humans are making no effort to change that.

Through the three components of this beginning scene, the machine control over human space and time has become so prevalent that there is a dependency. The seats are already down by themselves before the spectators sit, the orchestra does not start until they get the light cue from the camera, and people donate their time for machine-produced entertainment. Vertov uses this film to ultimately depict a distorted reality that humans are increasingly subjecting themselves to through their growing dependence on machines.