"The continuous optical spread is shattered into its many constituent features, which are then recomposed, by a new logic of design, without reference to the original optical unit...
[The color] approaches monochrome so as not to compete with the design...."
I recently came across this description of Cubism in
Gardner's Art Through the Ages (10th edition I believe) and I smiled. I'd been searching for a written way to describe what I'm trying to do here with SIXMARTINIS AND THE SEVENTH ART. Now, reading about my most favorite visual style in modern art, I found the very words I'd been searching out.
What I want to present is the magic that I feel when I'm watching certain films.
I like films that transport me into another world. A certain and precise set of circumstances have to combine for me to suspend my disbelief enough for this to happen. I'm not even aware at the time this is going on until certain moments present themselves as culminations of many elements great and small. Then it's like the roller coaster car tipping over the first hill of the ride. It's a moment when I gasp out loud and feel the need to clasp my hand over my mouth while trying not to blink so as to not miss a single frame of film. My only explanation is that a kind of magic is created.
To me a great film is one that envelopes me completely, but what bowls me over is the visuals.
To try to convey this to another person with words alone is very difficult for me to do. I could employ a vast vocabulary of standard film terms and still feel that I'm not coming across as I'd like to be understood. It's like trying to find an alchemic formula to turn visuals and feelings and magic into words.
Writing about film eventually becomes it's own art form. Daily, I read many great film writers who practice this with their own blogs. I'm impressed and entertained and I learn a lot, and yet it's ultimately different than what I'm trying to do. My analysis is a different take so I've adapted a different form.
I try to analyze what amazes me in visual terms.
It only makes sense to try convey that to you all by also using visuals to show what I see when I watch a film. As there is no tangible way to describe the magic, I try to recreate some here.
