Museum Visit-The Cartoon Museum

http://cartoonmuseum.org/

This visit was actually a happy accident, which in  itself is inspirational to me.
My plan for the day was to visit the British Museum, so I alighted at Holborn & followed the signs until I was hopelessly lost. First, I found a wonderful academic magic shop, not like the gimmicky ones, it a shop dedicated to the academic study of witchcraft, Wicca, Hellenism, Heathenism, Buddhism & various other doctrines (not enough Kemeticism for my taste but still wonderful). For some reason, I found myself talking about my life to the woman on the desk. She was very tolerant but I'm sure she was happy when I left. I am like Bridget Jones in the respect that I am prone to bouts of verbal diarrhea (that can't be the right spelling, I swear it's longer... dammit Yank-Blogger!) so I hope the lady wasn't too uncomfortable. I am truly sorry to everyone I have ever bothered with information they weren't interested in. I can be everso self-indulgent, it's something I'm working on. After all, if I want to make films that other people are interested in watching, I need to make them with audience in mind.
So, after I left the magic bibliothek, I once again embarked to find the British Museum. I really wanted to go, as the museum exhibits some gorgeous statues of my pantheon, so it is a very moving experience for me to stand in front of my Gods like that. I remember last time I went, there was a great statue of the Fearsome Lady Sekhmet & I was excitedly telling anyone who would listen the story of Ra sending Sekhmet to punish the humans for not worshipping, but She became blood-crazed & ate too many people. The resourceful Ra filled the Nile with beer & cochineal, so She thought it was a river of blood & promptly drank it dry & fell down in a drunken stupor. It was then that She was transfigured into the Blessed Lady Hethert (Hathor), goddess of love & tenderness. This feminine duality of war machine vs caring lover/mother is a fascinating aspect of ancient Kemetic culture. It is one of my dreams to create pieces of film which portray the great Egyptian mythological tales in a way which is both entertaining for non-Kemetics & devotional & holy for Kemetics.
THAT was not the point of the story. See what I mean about self-indulgent?
So, after much clueless wandering, I found the Cartoon Museum, a tiny treasure-trove tucked away in a corner. It really is small.Of course, size is not the main thing, 'tis what one does with it, & the Cartoon Museum is doing its best.
It was a curious little place full of old political cartoons from days before I was born, so a lot of it was lost of me, but some of the old adventure comics made me think of my favourite [adult swim] cartoon series. For anyone unfamiliar with [as] early output, the majority of the founding shows consisted of archive-Saturday Morning children's cartoons remixed & repurposed as surreal & satirical comedy for adults. I am referring here to classics such as Space Ghost Coast To Coast (made from SatAM show Space Ghost), The Brak Show (based on a villain from the Space Ghost original series), Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law (based on Birdman & The Galaxy Trio, partial inspiration for Birdman, the film), Aqua Teen Hunger Force (an almost nightmarishly strange send-up of children's capitalist mascots), Sealab 2021 (based on Sealab 2020, a children's environmental adventure cartoon) & a few others.These are some of my all-time favourite programmes & [as] is a company I would love to write & develop shows for one day, so looking at all these fairly obscure comic characters (such as Dan Dare, Jackie & The Wild Boys, Laura & The Legend of Hadley House & more) made me think of how wonderful it would be to reintroduce this kind of era of heroism with a satirical modern slant. Hardly original, I know, but I am passionate about old [as] content, so it struck a chord with me. Mike Milne showed us in a Contemporary Industry Practice lecture that only 1 in 10 of the top box office films of last year were based on original properties, which is telling of the popularity & profitability of tried & tested formulae.

5 Photo Self-Portrait

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwNDUPjhVxI "I can't find myself now, 'cause I've lost a sense of everything, in just days in Berlin"- Spiral69, Berlin

 Me in costume as Evan Sabahnur from Wolverine & The X-Men. Cosplay is one of my main hobbies & my favourite way to make new friends.

This photo says a lot about me. The pout is the symbol of Millenial Selfie-Culture; the raised hand displaying my correct pronouns illustrates my gender & the trouble I have with people mistaking me for a girl; the stickers are from the anime & manga series Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, which shows how I struggle to differentiate between my interests & my identity...

 I am proud of this image, despite the fact that it is not necessarily flattering, as this shows one of the best weekends of my life. I went to Germany in July to see my favourite band, The Beauty of Gemina, playing at a festival in the Teutobergerwald. I became very ill from the heat & nearly had to go to hospital, but I made the paramedics leave me as I'd come all the way to Germany to see the band, I wasn't about to let crippling chest pain keep me away from them. I met them afterwards & the lead singer, Michael Sele, recognised me from a previous show. This made me feel like I mattered & gave me hope for the future, when I will direct some music videos for them. That's one of my goals.

Finalment, me asleep on Fudge. Fudge & I have been companions for 9 years so we are comfortable falling asleep together. Moving to London has been difficult for me as I have been missing my pets achingly. I hope I can make them proud.

Technical probelms more like techMEcal problems...

Why must everything I touch turn to ash?
I made a spangly new wordpress blog for my BA film production, now it appears to have corrupted. I'm not going to make excuses as nobody wants to hear that, so I thought I'd repurpose my A-Level film blog since I know I can operate it without blowing something up. So I'm having to re-do all my posts as they have all been lost. Bah. So, dearest lecturers, if you are reading this: I am so sorry. I'm not going to make excuses or expect leniency; I know it's just not good enough. I am more disappointed in myself than you ever could be with me, so please bear with. Also: my pronouns are they/them, so if you could all try to stop using she/her for me, that would help me get out of bed in the morning & curb attacks of dysphoria which seriously impede my abilities as a student. I respect you wholeheartedly, if you could do this one thing for me, it would mean more to me than you can ever know (maybe you can know, I don't know)
So, yeah. New start. I am a disappointment & currently having an anxiety attack. Welp.

Aims & Context

Genre
Length
References: Warhol for candids, Anger for episodes, Wong Kar Wai
Target audience
theme: Paranoiacs in love

Delusional, distorted personalities & the way they interact with the world

Presentation script

Me: La politique des auteurs, the auteur theory, states that a director can ascend from the status of a mere technician to one of an artist, called an auteur, if they show a consistency in style & theme. An auteur is somebody with the power to create a good film out of a mediocre or even a bad script, whereas a director who simply exists as a cog in the machine of production, a metteur-en-scene, can only ever create a mediocre or bad film from a mediocre or bad script.
I believe David Cronenberg fits the profile of 'auteur'.
Projector: Photos of David Cronenberg looking unassuming & Canadian.
Me: David Cronenberg, at first meeting, is an unassuming, polite & quietly intelligent Canadian film director with a sparkling wit & piercing eyes, yet esteemed fellow director Martin Scorsese was initially terrified to meet the mild-mannered 'king of venereal horror'. Why is this? What could possibly fill the creator of Taxi Driver with fear?
Projector: show clips from various scary bits from his films.
Me:The answer clearly lies within the flesh of his films. People confuse you with your work, & Cronenberg has certainly been a victim of this, but for good reason. His films are consistently graphic & disturbing, probing into areas often unexplored by other high-quality directors & leaving audiences & censors confused & outraged.
Projector: notes from item 7
Me: These are some of the opinions expressed by unwitting members of the public after they were shown Cronenberg's 1983 body horror masterpiece 'Videodrome'

How far does the impact of La Haine depend on distinctive uses of film techniques?

La Haine would certainly not have the same impact without certain technical details.
The editing in particular gives a great impact, as the use of non-diegetic sound during the cuts is very shocking. At each cut after an important event, there is a loud non-diegetic gunshot-like sound that has the effect of jarring the audience & waking them from any complacency that might have developed. This film is an uncomfortable film, purposefully so, as it deals with uncomfortable issues that should not sit comfortably with the audience. This is why the use of disconcerting visuals & sounds is so effective.
The recurring motif of a 360 or 180 degree rotation, a French Revolution, so to speak, on a pivot about the head of a character is filled with deeper meanings that unfold on repeated viewings, each time opening up a new perspective. These rotations are like tiny, microcosmic re-enactments of the endless revolutions of France, a notorious country for strikes & riots. This constant stream of public discontent in France is always the same: the government do something, the people are angry, they strike or riot, the government change something, the rioting stops, the people find something else to be angry about & the cycle continues.

David Cronenberg utilises venereal 'body horror' in his films to shock & manipulate the primal fears of mutilation & transformation in his audience. Does this make him an auteur?

*FINISHED?*

Films

Item 1: Videodrome (1983)
-Videodrome is a body horror film with elements of surrealism involving the physical & psychological transformation of man to machine-hybrid. The film contains heavy sexual elements that illustrate a bizarre, twisted sexuality being absorbed visually by the mass audience & more literally by the protagonist, Max Renn, as he spirals deeper & deeper into the dark & terrifying world of Videodrome. Rick Baker's body horror effects in Videodrome were way ahead of their time, utilising latex & mechanical parts to covey the warped sexuality & disturbing venereal horror of Cronenberg's vision. The test audience (see articles section) reacted negatively, as they found the gore too shocking.

Item 2: The Fly (1986)
-The Fly is a science-fiction body horror film remake of a 1958 film based on a short story by George Langelaan. The viewer is first led to sympathy, then revulsion, as the main character makes his gruesome transformation from human to giant mutant insect. This was one of Cronenberg's most commercially successful films, almost crossing into the sphere of mainstream science-horror without compromising his grotesque vision. The special effects, though inferior to Rick Baker's in Videodrome, won an Oscar.

Item 3: eXistenZ (1999)
-This film has a very staccato & disjointed dialogue, which at first perturbed me, but then I noticed that it was used purposefully to contrast with the organic technology. The organic humans behave in a robotic manner, whereas the robotic games consoles writhe & behave like organic creatures. In a manner similar to Kubrick's '2001', where the artificially intelligent computer displays more emotion & humanity than the actual humans, Cronenberg gives a startling but familiar vision of a near future where the ghost has moved from the humans to the machines.

Documentary
Item 4: Forging the New Flesh
-This documentary tells the story of the making of Videodrome through the eyes of the special effects team. They describe their shock at reading the original draft of Videodrome & wondering how they were going to manage to help him realise his vision. David himself talks about the recurring theme in his films of decay of society, the mind & the body.

Item 5: David Cronenberg & the Cinema of the Extreme
- This documentary sees David Cronenberg, George A Romero & Alex Cox discussing disturbing cinema & how Cronenberg's work can be regarded as a pinnacle of work that is not just shocking or gory, but also psychologically disturbing. The other directors notice the recurring motifs of internal strife & transformation so prevalent in his films, which Romero compares to his own work, which is more interested in the breakdown of society rather than individuals.

Articles

Item 6: http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/559-the-sex-violence-and-new-flesh-of-videodrome/
Article on The Dissolve called 'The Sex, Violence & New Flesh of Videodrome'
-This article is a discussion between 4 people critiquing the special effects, acting, philosophy & psychology of Videodrome. They speak of the sexual elements & the motivations behind them & the way they affected an audience. They debate the different emotions & reactions invoked by both CGI & physical special effects, & how a CGI Videodrome would simply not be as effective. CGI does not produce a sympathetic response in the bodies of the audiences, whereas corporeal latex flesh has the power to move audiences in revulsion & terror.

Item 7://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2193-notes-from-a-videodrome-test-screening
Notes from a Videodrome test screening on the website of the Criterion Collection.
-This is extremely interesting & useful as it shows the reactions of unwitting members of the public. The consensus was that Videodrome was too violent, too sexual & too gory. None of the subjects seemed to grasp the point of the film & were disturbed by the graphic imagery. This item provides an insight into the minds of a people that had not experienced anything like Videodrome before, which is difficult for someone nowadays to truly understand, as our world has been changed & influenced by the work of Cronenberg, whereas the public in 1983 hadn't been affected the way modern audiences have.

Item 8: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/23979/looking-back-at-david-cronenbergs-the-fly
-This article explains the balance between emotional drama & science-fiction horror that made The Fly so successful.It compares the film to earlier & later films by Cronenberg, showing the thematic similarities & genre conventions used.

Item 9: Sight & Sound magazine article "Odd Man Out"
-This article begins by describing the usual conventions of a David Cronenberg film, such as gore & mutilation, as these are the elements that an audience would come to expect since he includes & explorers these elements in so many of his films. It then proceeds to explain how these elements are surprisingly absent in his film Spider. I think this shows how much of an auteur he is, as his signature stylistic elements are so well-known that any deviation from the usual gore surprises people, even though his psychological stamps are still in place.

Item 10: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/sep/12/david-cronenberg-suicide-fantastic-exit
-This article has David Cronenberg discussing the fantastic technology in his earlier films & whether he really predicted the rise of products such as iPods & the effect of the internet. He talks about the death scenes in his films & how they reflect his own preoccupation & mixed feelings about death which shows how his films are so personal to him, rather than being made to some sort of standard to please audiences.

Item 11: http://filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-filmmaking-tips-from-david-cronenberg-lpalm.php
-This article mentions Cronenberg's reluctance to storyboard his scenes before going onto the set because he puts the importance of crafting the lighting & camera angles around individual actors instead of meticulously planning things to make it easier later. He pays attention to every single shot there & then, like an author writing a chapter of a book or an artist painting a picture or a photographer paying close attention to the composition of a still. I think this is evidence to Cronenberg's auteurism.

Books

Item 12: Cronenberg on Cronenberg
-This entire book is a testament to the auteur Cronenberg & how the thematic elements  reoccurring in most of his films all come from deep down in his own psyche & they all have a great personal value to him. His own stamp is on his work because he would not be able to make a film that was intentionally pandering to the masses or copying the style of another to please crowds of fit in.

Item 13:The Directors Take Four
-This book contains a useful quote that steers me in the direction of the view that Cronenberg is an auteur, as Holly Hunter says David would  never step out of his involvement in the story & would spend all his time alone at the monitors. This shows he would not settle for anything less than the true fulfillment of his artistic vision, an auteuristic quality. Cronenberg himself also talks in this book about how he sees his filmmaking as a very personal experience. He is not trying to make films to sell to people, he is making the films that he feels need to be made, as they should be made. This shows that he is not a mainstream crowd-pleaser, but an artist working for himself.

Item 14: Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers
-The section on David Cronenberg in this book starts by almost immediately explaining why David Cronenberg is an auteur, using understandable & logical arguments for this. This will be very useful as I will be able to quote this in my presentation. 

Item 15: An Introduction to Film Studies
-This book explains the meaning of the auteur theory & the criteria one has to fulfil to be an auteur, which is very helpful to me as it ensures I understand the auteur theory well enough to argue for Cronenberg's status as an auteur. It explains how an auteur is someone who puts the essence of themselves & their personality into their films.

Rejected Items

The Dead Zone (1983)
-Despite being a really excellent film & wonderful example of Cronenberg's directing, this film does not contain the elements of body horror which I am studying. It still deals with transformation, but this time in a psychological sense rather than a physical sense.

Scanners (1981)
-This film seems to be highly praised but it bored me. It also does not contain enough body horror to be a good example of Cronenberg's venereal auteurism, as it is more closely resembling a science fiction film, albeit with two body-horror effects scenes, which fir in nicely with the rest of his more venereal work, but not the rest of the film. 

 http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/16/david-cronenbergs-secrets-of-body-horror-and-the-rest-of-todays-pop-culture
-Despite being one of the first results on Google when typing in 'Cronenberg body horror', this page is not useful to my project. Watching how they made the exploding head in Scanners was interesting but not relevant.