Rust & Bone - What It Means To Love A Movie: The Objective-Subjective Cinematic Space
Thoughts On: Rust and Bone (De Rouille Et D'os, 2012)
We will not be discussing this film directly today, instead will work on some film theory assuming you have seen this before.
Recently, I've been developing a framework of thinking around impressionism. If you're not familiar with this, you may want to follow this link. With each of the three posts I have so far done on subjective and objective impressionism, we have traced some of the details of the ideas as well as deepened them. In pushing further into this theory, what has come to strike me is its purpose, or rather, the question it attempts to confront. This became quite obvious with the post on Amélie, but with objective and subjective impressionism, I am attempting to ask why and how some movies are so great. So, not only have I attempted to articulate why I like one of my all-time favourite movies so much, but I have questioned how great characters and symbols may be constructed.
In thinking over where this theory has developed to so far, I have realised that there is a much bigger picture that this subject resides in. As a result, this object-subject theory needs a lot more exploration. To make one of the first steps today with a focus on another of of my all-time favorites, Rust and Bone, I will be referencing a post we did a while a go on The Wolf of Wall Street where we essentially questioned what it means to watch a movie and to be immersed in it. To briefly recap this framework, we shall start with the basics:
What is this act? What does it mean to stare at moving images of people pretending and reality being manipulated?
This act is, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, watching a movie. Watching a movie requires the construction of a cinematic space; it takes a group of filmmakers (directors, actors, editors, cinematographers, etc.) presenting a document that frames a fantasy that we must lift off of a screen with our spectatorship and imagination. Thus, cinema is a creation of the audience, the filmmaker and the material or apparatus of cinema (the screen, for example) that exists in some place between all three entities.
To be immersed in a film, we need to step inside the cinematic space by projecting a necessary persona. This persona is one that understands a story with all of its contrivance and so adapts to its rules. Thus, we become different people when watching different movies. When watching an action movie, for example, we are a person that does not necessarily care about death and murder (especially if it is of a bad guy). In a romance or a drama, death is something we may be forced to take more seriously, however. We feel in accordance to the rules of a cinematic space and in conjuncture to the persona we project into it.
However, we are never lost to the cinematic space as we have an ability to watch ourselves watch a movie. This means that we can co-exist inside and outside of the space, enjoying a movie for what it is and simultaneously judging and thinking about it as a contrived document of artistic creation.
Taking a step back. To be immersed in cinema is to be under the control of a filmmaker; our projected persona resonates with the world of a story. Thus, this is what it looks like to enjoy and be immersed in a movie.
To not like a movie, to be disengaged from it, is an indication of a lack of harmony; a filmmaker attempts to convey one thing, but we see another, and such a discord prevents resonation in the cinematic space and so we begin to dislike a movie, or at least, feel disconnected from it.
In addition to this, however, we can feel harmonised with a cinematic space and still judge a film and thus impact the cinematic space in which we exist by perceiving a film with a different perspective, new depth, etc.
This is the fundamental concept of The Cinematic Space Theory. To better describe the way in which the cinematic space functions, however, we have to combine this theory with our objective-subjective impressionism theory. So, to build forward, let us start with the basics.
As we have explored by questioning what this act is: cinema is an illusion. In many respects, cinema is an impressionistic illusion as it is so often concerned with reality giving the impression of fantasy, actors impressing characters, editors impressing time, light impressing movement, etc. Just because we can recognise this, it does mean that all of cinema is impressionistic, however. Impressionism rises from a filmmaker understanding how to recognise, manipulate and emphasise the latent impressionism that lies at the heart of cinema. Thus, impressionistic films embody a fundamental impressionism by creating an aesthetic that is concerned with the representation and communication of subtext through visuals.
Beyond fundamental impressionism, we come to techniques that are not unique to the impressionistic film: objective and subjective impressionism. Objective impressionism, in its most basic form, is concerned with the building of symbols. Whilst we have discussed symbols such as Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, within Rust and Bone, we find a film that is not highly symbolic, but nonetheless holds symbols.
The two most expressive symbols in this film are the wheelchair and then the aluminum legs. As an extension of the sense of fate that is imbued into this film by the alignment of tragedy with a disastrous lifestyle, the wheelchair signifies that Stéphanie has just about hit rock bottom and has been left, literally, physically, mentally and figuratively, debilitated. The wheel chair thus represents the pain and depression that Stéphanie feels she must pull herself through. This symbol holds so much weight when it is allowed to become omnipresent in scenes such as this where she is alleviated of her depression, of her wheelchair, and taken to swim.
In this scene, the wheelchair as a symbol impresses a sense of fear, doubt and hope into the cinematic space as we question Stéphanie's limitations and also Alain's intentions and ability to actually take care of her. As we see their relationship progresses and as Stéphanie strengthens, the wheelchair falls away and is replaced with the aluminum legs.
The legs signify an intensified struggle that runs in parallel to her and Alain's development as a couple and as individuals. Connotations of a journey being taken, a new path being walked, then become obvious here. However, the legs as a symbol are not so simple.
Stéphanie's legs represent reconstruction and a source of power for both herself and Alain. This sequence is then one of the greatest instances of objective impressionism as we are made to feel the presence of the aluminum legs as a force that impacts the reality of the scene; a truly beautiful moment of filmmaking and storytelling.
Briefly returning to our discussion of subjective and objective impressionism, we have now to turn to Rust and Bone to find an example of subjective impressionism.
The power of characterisation in this film speaks for itself and so we won't explore it in depth. However, with the sequence above where we get a dream/flashback sequence that preempts Stéphanie's descent into depression that almost ends with suicide, we see a masterful example of an impressionistic sequence that puts us into the skin of a character so we may feel as they do.
We shall not dwell on the fundamentals of subject-objective impressionism here as, having read previous posts, I'm sure you can see where this analysis develops. Instead, we will now attempt to classify further objective and subjective impression. The main point of development that I then want to work on in this post is a clarification of the process of impressionism.
Just because a filmmaker attempts to make an impressionistic film, or a film with great characters constructed via subjective impressionism, no one is guaranteed success. Moreover, filmmakers will often take various approaches dependent on their taste, aims and abilities to build characters or symbols. We then have to accept that some characters and symbols will be better than others. However, better doesn't imply complex. You can, for example, get an array of great characters that are constructed very simply - consider the caricatures of the Marx brothers or even Chaplin's iconic Tramp. Thus, we have to judge quality ourselves as an aside to this theory and instead distinguish the approaches to objective and subjective impressionism on the grounds of simplicity and complexity. As a result, we are forced to break objective and subjective impressionism down in accordance to the x and y axis above.
Here we find the needed step of complexification to begin to fill out the objective-subjective theory. There are three kinds of subjective impressionism and three kinds of objective impressionism that form a spectrum of story construction techniques upon the four axis of object-subjective and simple-complex. To start at the top with simple objective impressionism, we come to a form of symbolism that is, at its heart, very basic.
Simple symbols in movies are often called MacGuffins and they essentially engage a plot, but don't really matter so much. The best MacGuffins are, however, constructed with objective impressionism and they not only effect a narrative, but impact its rules and space. In Pulp Fiction, for example, we have the suitcase as a device that does nothing, but means everything. This is more than a throw-away symbol - a poorly constructed MacGuffin - as it in fact facilitates important character decisions: Sam Jackson's character deciding to walk away from the business. The MacGuffin is, in many ways, a sacrificial symbol that gives itself up to a space and engages an audience. We could then argue that the wheelchair from Rust and Bone is a MacGuffin as it does bear some of these traits. Let us return to this later though.
One of the most iconic and meaningful MacGuffins that is deeply embedded in objective impressionism is the sled from Citizen Kane: rosebud. Like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction, this means everything and nothing; it is a means for us to get to know a man, but symbolises a little more than a frame. With rosebud it is then made obvious that a well constructed MacGuffin emotes and has a powerful, albeit brief and transient, presence in a narrative.
In some respects, we can see the sled from Citizen Kane to be an archetypal symbol, an object-archetype, as it is, in many respects, just a artefact of childhood. Because it is so loosely embedded into the plot and not used for catharsis or a moment of character design, I would feel confident in leaving rosebud a MacGuffin. We can, however, look to the balloons in both Up and The Red Balloon to find a highly recurrent artefact of childhood: an object-archetype. And there are a vast abundance of these kind of symbols - everything from apples, to crowns, to jewelry, to swords, etc. Object-archetypes can then be abstracted from a story, unlike rosebud, and so are inherently understandable. Thus, the mere evocation of an object-archetype is often enough in a story - and such is the case with the likes of The Red Balloon and Up.
The object-archetype is both complex and simple in that it holds deep emotional and subtextual weight, but is a general symbol; it holds no individual weight, but is bound to the collective unconscious. These symbols then come to be incredibly central to a narrative, but feel like a somewhat distant or unexplained presence. As with the balloons in both of the films touched on, there is emotional reasoning as to why they are part of the narrative, but they do not have much of a causal reason to be there in the first place: the kid just finds a balloon in The Red Balloon and the balloons of Up just come with Carl's job in the zoo. Thus, we can only truly understand object-archetypes through intertextual reference; we have seen balloons in other movies and already have a sense of what they mean and so must map such subtext onto Up and The Red Balloon instead of deriving subtext directly from their content. As a result, the kind of objective-impressionism that occurs here is bound to legend, mythology, folklore, story tropes and personal experiences most people have; we are made to tap into grander modes of narrative via the evocation of trope.
Moving on, we come to the most complex objects: symbols. It is harder to identify unique or individual symbols as they are often just important objects that are central to a very specific narrative. We find this to be true with Rust and Bone. The wheelchair and aluminium legs are not entirely original symbols. We see both the wheelchair and metal legs in Forrest Gump, for example...
However, whilst these symbols are somewhat recurrent, they function in accordance to the specific details of a film; they may be somewhat paradigmatic, but nowhere near as much as, for example, the sword or apple are. As a result, whilst the wheelchair is a slight MacGuffin as it doesn't have much presence in Rust and Bone, and whilst it is a general, almost archetypal symbol, of debilitation, it is only so affective in moments such as the swimming scene because it is bound to a unique character who walks a unique path. So, more than they are MacGuffins or archetypes, the important objects of Rust and Bone are symbols.
Before moving on to a discussion of the spectrum of complex and simple subjects, it has to be noted that many objects--and subjects for that matter--will not fit into categories so cleanly. This is why there is a spectrum. Referring to the chart again, we can then understand that the symbols of Rust and Bone are somewhat recurrent and so may sit at about 7 O'clock and be somewhere closer to the centre of the chart as it they not completely complex, but a little simple. This itself inspires an even more complex diagram that would map onto a far more detailed colour wheel such as this:
However, let us save this complexity for another time and stay with our current mechanism to briefly investigate its subjective side.
Starting with the top, we have caricatures. We have already mentioned a few examples of these - the Marx Brothers and Chaplin's Tramp - and they are essentially characters that are simple, but, because of high quality subjective-impressionism, can be incredibly affective.
Figures such as the Tramp (which is almost an archetype because of fame) force us to question what we mean by subjective impressionism. After all, all I have so far implied is that subjective impressionism leads to great characters. The fact is, however, that subjective impressionism of any kind (the kind that creates caricatures, archetypes or individual characters) can be done well or badly. What determines quality is not the kind of subject created, but how well we are put into their shoes and how much we feel for them. So, whilst subjective impressionism implies that it is the illusion of a conscious subject that makes for a great characters, the truth is far more nuanced than this; you can parody a great character as Chaplin does with the Tramp, you can infer character through archetypes such as a king or evil step mother, or, you can build one from scratch, and still create a strong figure. Jumping past the archetype (its description mirrors that of the object-archetype) and to the individual character, we then come to Rust and Bone again.
Whilst there are some elements of Stéphanie that we understand via archetype - for instance, she is somewhat nihilistic in the beginning - the only way to judge her character is an as individual. And through the fact that we are not only convinced that she is a real person by the character designers (writers, directors, Marion Cotillard), but that she also resonates with us, we find an answer to the question that the Tramp poses: What makes a good character?
Developing harmony. This is our answer. A great MucGuffin, caricature, object-archetype, subject-archetype, symbol or character builds a resonant cinematic space. This means that we are brought into the conventions of the world and are lost in it. However, transcendent characters - objects too - do more than this: we are not just lost in the cinematic space, but can reflect upon it with them as an anchor. This reflection can itself be harmonious with our sensation of watching a film, and can even further enhance it.
The reason why I have then chosen Rust and Bone to talk about today is that I both love being lost in this movie and can step outside of it and analyse it to find out that I love it even more. As we have done minimally already with the symbol of the wheelchair and aluminum legs, investigating the meaning of the film has us realise that it is not just entertaining, but meaningful and fulfilling. And this is the source of the film's harmony; I don't just love the characters, direction, aesthetic and plot unconsciously, but consciously love the themes of resilience, growth and fallibility that give rise to an abstract sensation of tainted success whose scratches and bruises make the journey towards it worthwhile; and all of this harmonises further to imply that this narrative explores rust - the burdens we carry within ourselves - coexisting with the bones that we use to carry them.
The sensation that all of this breeds within me is, in short, the reason why I love this movie, and it is all to do with the mapping of subject and objective impressionism onto a cinematic space. And it is by understanding this final point that we can assimilate a greater understanding of these symbiotic theories.
As we watch, for example, the depicted depression sequence, we are bombarded with information about Stéphanie via subjective impressionism. This information gives the impression that she is a real human being, and is one who exists in a space of moral and ethical value: the dramatic space. Whilst we are engaged in this space, however, we can reflect upon it and so engage with the information and emotional evocation by attempting to further nestle within Stéphanie's skin; Jean Epstein, as we have touched on before, would call this photogénie. It is the harmony of emotions and thoughts - which we have represented in the diagrams through colour - that turn a movie into a kind of music. Whilst all art forms function in this manner, music does this most obviously: music implies emotion and causes a physical reaction within you that catalyses emotion and behaviour; for example, we feel great and want to dance. Within a harmonious, developing and singing cinematic space, a very similar thing is occurring. The key difference between cinema and music, however, is the visual importance of cinema as an art form that further utilises other arts (music, writing, etc.). Nonetheless, our final point is that, to love a movie is to feel this harmony.
Having gone through much today, I will end things around here having hopefully given reason for what I mean when I say I love the movie Rust and Bone. There is so much more to be said about our objective-subjective cinematic space theory, however. For instance, we have already loosely implied that there are different kinds of cinematic spaces attached to genres. Just as important as this, a major point of development that this theory requires concerns conventions and modes of representation. In such, whilst we have so far talked about impressionism, we also need to talk about expressionism, realism and surrealism. And this means that we need to talk about objective and subjective expressionism, realism, etc. So, there is certainly far more to discover in the future. But, whilst I hope you look forward to that, what are your thoughts on all we have so far covered?
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Thoughts On's 50 Best Films Of 2017 Pt. 2
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Monsieur Hire - The Pallid Introvert
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amazon.com/author/danielslack
We will not be discussing this film directly today, instead will work on some film theory assuming you have seen this before.
Recently, I've been developing a framework of thinking around impressionism. If you're not familiar with this, you may want to follow this link. With each of the three posts I have so far done on subjective and objective impressionism, we have traced some of the details of the ideas as well as deepened them. In pushing further into this theory, what has come to strike me is its purpose, or rather, the question it attempts to confront. This became quite obvious with the post on Amélie, but with objective and subjective impressionism, I am attempting to ask why and how some movies are so great. So, not only have I attempted to articulate why I like one of my all-time favourite movies so much, but I have questioned how great characters and symbols may be constructed.
In thinking over where this theory has developed to so far, I have realised that there is a much bigger picture that this subject resides in. As a result, this object-subject theory needs a lot more exploration. To make one of the first steps today with a focus on another of of my all-time favorites, Rust and Bone, I will be referencing a post we did a while a go on The Wolf of Wall Street where we essentially questioned what it means to watch a movie and to be immersed in it. To briefly recap this framework, we shall start with the basics:
This act is, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you, watching a movie. Watching a movie requires the construction of a cinematic space; it takes a group of filmmakers (directors, actors, editors, cinematographers, etc.) presenting a document that frames a fantasy that we must lift off of a screen with our spectatorship and imagination. Thus, cinema is a creation of the audience, the filmmaker and the material or apparatus of cinema (the screen, for example) that exists in some place between all three entities.
To be immersed in a film, we need to step inside the cinematic space by projecting a necessary persona. This persona is one that understands a story with all of its contrivance and so adapts to its rules. Thus, we become different people when watching different movies. When watching an action movie, for example, we are a person that does not necessarily care about death and murder (especially if it is of a bad guy). In a romance or a drama, death is something we may be forced to take more seriously, however. We feel in accordance to the rules of a cinematic space and in conjuncture to the persona we project into it.
However, we are never lost to the cinematic space as we have an ability to watch ourselves watch a movie. This means that we can co-exist inside and outside of the space, enjoying a movie for what it is and simultaneously judging and thinking about it as a contrived document of artistic creation.
Taking a step back. To be immersed in cinema is to be under the control of a filmmaker; our projected persona resonates with the world of a story. Thus, this is what it looks like to enjoy and be immersed in a movie.
To not like a movie, to be disengaged from it, is an indication of a lack of harmony; a filmmaker attempts to convey one thing, but we see another, and such a discord prevents resonation in the cinematic space and so we begin to dislike a movie, or at least, feel disconnected from it.
In addition to this, however, we can feel harmonised with a cinematic space and still judge a film and thus impact the cinematic space in which we exist by perceiving a film with a different perspective, new depth, etc.
This is the fundamental concept of The Cinematic Space Theory. To better describe the way in which the cinematic space functions, however, we have to combine this theory with our objective-subjective impressionism theory. So, to build forward, let us start with the basics.
As we have explored by questioning what this act is: cinema is an illusion. In many respects, cinema is an impressionistic illusion as it is so often concerned with reality giving the impression of fantasy, actors impressing characters, editors impressing time, light impressing movement, etc. Just because we can recognise this, it does mean that all of cinema is impressionistic, however. Impressionism rises from a filmmaker understanding how to recognise, manipulate and emphasise the latent impressionism that lies at the heart of cinema. Thus, impressionistic films embody a fundamental impressionism by creating an aesthetic that is concerned with the representation and communication of subtext through visuals.
Beyond fundamental impressionism, we come to techniques that are not unique to the impressionistic film: objective and subjective impressionism. Objective impressionism, in its most basic form, is concerned with the building of symbols. Whilst we have discussed symbols such as Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, within Rust and Bone, we find a film that is not highly symbolic, but nonetheless holds symbols.
The two most expressive symbols in this film are the wheelchair and then the aluminum legs. As an extension of the sense of fate that is imbued into this film by the alignment of tragedy with a disastrous lifestyle, the wheelchair signifies that Stéphanie has just about hit rock bottom and has been left, literally, physically, mentally and figuratively, debilitated. The wheel chair thus represents the pain and depression that Stéphanie feels she must pull herself through. This symbol holds so much weight when it is allowed to become omnipresent in scenes such as this where she is alleviated of her depression, of her wheelchair, and taken to swim.
In this scene, the wheelchair as a symbol impresses a sense of fear, doubt and hope into the cinematic space as we question Stéphanie's limitations and also Alain's intentions and ability to actually take care of her. As we see their relationship progresses and as Stéphanie strengthens, the wheelchair falls away and is replaced with the aluminum legs.
The legs signify an intensified struggle that runs in parallel to her and Alain's development as a couple and as individuals. Connotations of a journey being taken, a new path being walked, then become obvious here. However, the legs as a symbol are not so simple.
Stéphanie's legs represent reconstruction and a source of power for both herself and Alain. This sequence is then one of the greatest instances of objective impressionism as we are made to feel the presence of the aluminum legs as a force that impacts the reality of the scene; a truly beautiful moment of filmmaking and storytelling.
Briefly returning to our discussion of subjective and objective impressionism, we have now to turn to Rust and Bone to find an example of subjective impressionism.
The power of characterisation in this film speaks for itself and so we won't explore it in depth. However, with the sequence above where we get a dream/flashback sequence that preempts Stéphanie's descent into depression that almost ends with suicide, we see a masterful example of an impressionistic sequence that puts us into the skin of a character so we may feel as they do.
We shall not dwell on the fundamentals of subject-objective impressionism here as, having read previous posts, I'm sure you can see where this analysis develops. Instead, we will now attempt to classify further objective and subjective impression. The main point of development that I then want to work on in this post is a clarification of the process of impressionism.
Just because a filmmaker attempts to make an impressionistic film, or a film with great characters constructed via subjective impressionism, no one is guaranteed success. Moreover, filmmakers will often take various approaches dependent on their taste, aims and abilities to build characters or symbols. We then have to accept that some characters and symbols will be better than others. However, better doesn't imply complex. You can, for example, get an array of great characters that are constructed very simply - consider the caricatures of the Marx brothers or even Chaplin's iconic Tramp. Thus, we have to judge quality ourselves as an aside to this theory and instead distinguish the approaches to objective and subjective impressionism on the grounds of simplicity and complexity. As a result, we are forced to break objective and subjective impressionism down in accordance to the x and y axis above.
Here we find the needed step of complexification to begin to fill out the objective-subjective theory. There are three kinds of subjective impressionism and three kinds of objective impressionism that form a spectrum of story construction techniques upon the four axis of object-subjective and simple-complex. To start at the top with simple objective impressionism, we come to a form of symbolism that is, at its heart, very basic.
Simple symbols in movies are often called MacGuffins and they essentially engage a plot, but don't really matter so much. The best MacGuffins are, however, constructed with objective impressionism and they not only effect a narrative, but impact its rules and space. In Pulp Fiction, for example, we have the suitcase as a device that does nothing, but means everything. This is more than a throw-away symbol - a poorly constructed MacGuffin - as it in fact facilitates important character decisions: Sam Jackson's character deciding to walk away from the business. The MacGuffin is, in many ways, a sacrificial symbol that gives itself up to a space and engages an audience. We could then argue that the wheelchair from Rust and Bone is a MacGuffin as it does bear some of these traits. Let us return to this later though.
One of the most iconic and meaningful MacGuffins that is deeply embedded in objective impressionism is the sled from Citizen Kane: rosebud. Like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction, this means everything and nothing; it is a means for us to get to know a man, but symbolises a little more than a frame. With rosebud it is then made obvious that a well constructed MacGuffin emotes and has a powerful, albeit brief and transient, presence in a narrative.
In some respects, we can see the sled from Citizen Kane to be an archetypal symbol, an object-archetype, as it is, in many respects, just a artefact of childhood. Because it is so loosely embedded into the plot and not used for catharsis or a moment of character design, I would feel confident in leaving rosebud a MacGuffin. We can, however, look to the balloons in both Up and The Red Balloon to find a highly recurrent artefact of childhood: an object-archetype. And there are a vast abundance of these kind of symbols - everything from apples, to crowns, to jewelry, to swords, etc. Object-archetypes can then be abstracted from a story, unlike rosebud, and so are inherently understandable. Thus, the mere evocation of an object-archetype is often enough in a story - and such is the case with the likes of The Red Balloon and Up.
The object-archetype is both complex and simple in that it holds deep emotional and subtextual weight, but is a general symbol; it holds no individual weight, but is bound to the collective unconscious. These symbols then come to be incredibly central to a narrative, but feel like a somewhat distant or unexplained presence. As with the balloons in both of the films touched on, there is emotional reasoning as to why they are part of the narrative, but they do not have much of a causal reason to be there in the first place: the kid just finds a balloon in The Red Balloon and the balloons of Up just come with Carl's job in the zoo. Thus, we can only truly understand object-archetypes through intertextual reference; we have seen balloons in other movies and already have a sense of what they mean and so must map such subtext onto Up and The Red Balloon instead of deriving subtext directly from their content. As a result, the kind of objective-impressionism that occurs here is bound to legend, mythology, folklore, story tropes and personal experiences most people have; we are made to tap into grander modes of narrative via the evocation of trope.
Moving on, we come to the most complex objects: symbols. It is harder to identify unique or individual symbols as they are often just important objects that are central to a very specific narrative. We find this to be true with Rust and Bone. The wheelchair and aluminium legs are not entirely original symbols. We see both the wheelchair and metal legs in Forrest Gump, for example...
However, whilst these symbols are somewhat recurrent, they function in accordance to the specific details of a film; they may be somewhat paradigmatic, but nowhere near as much as, for example, the sword or apple are. As a result, whilst the wheelchair is a slight MacGuffin as it doesn't have much presence in Rust and Bone, and whilst it is a general, almost archetypal symbol, of debilitation, it is only so affective in moments such as the swimming scene because it is bound to a unique character who walks a unique path. So, more than they are MacGuffins or archetypes, the important objects of Rust and Bone are symbols.
Before moving on to a discussion of the spectrum of complex and simple subjects, it has to be noted that many objects--and subjects for that matter--will not fit into categories so cleanly. This is why there is a spectrum. Referring to the chart again, we can then understand that the symbols of Rust and Bone are somewhat recurrent and so may sit at about 7 O'clock and be somewhere closer to the centre of the chart as it they not completely complex, but a little simple. This itself inspires an even more complex diagram that would map onto a far more detailed colour wheel such as this:
However, let us save this complexity for another time and stay with our current mechanism to briefly investigate its subjective side.
Starting with the top, we have caricatures. We have already mentioned a few examples of these - the Marx Brothers and Chaplin's Tramp - and they are essentially characters that are simple, but, because of high quality subjective-impressionism, can be incredibly affective.
Figures such as the Tramp (which is almost an archetype because of fame) force us to question what we mean by subjective impressionism. After all, all I have so far implied is that subjective impressionism leads to great characters. The fact is, however, that subjective impressionism of any kind (the kind that creates caricatures, archetypes or individual characters) can be done well or badly. What determines quality is not the kind of subject created, but how well we are put into their shoes and how much we feel for them. So, whilst subjective impressionism implies that it is the illusion of a conscious subject that makes for a great characters, the truth is far more nuanced than this; you can parody a great character as Chaplin does with the Tramp, you can infer character through archetypes such as a king or evil step mother, or, you can build one from scratch, and still create a strong figure. Jumping past the archetype (its description mirrors that of the object-archetype) and to the individual character, we then come to Rust and Bone again.
Whilst there are some elements of Stéphanie that we understand via archetype - for instance, she is somewhat nihilistic in the beginning - the only way to judge her character is an as individual. And through the fact that we are not only convinced that she is a real person by the character designers (writers, directors, Marion Cotillard), but that she also resonates with us, we find an answer to the question that the Tramp poses: What makes a good character?
Developing harmony. This is our answer. A great MucGuffin, caricature, object-archetype, subject-archetype, symbol or character builds a resonant cinematic space. This means that we are brought into the conventions of the world and are lost in it. However, transcendent characters - objects too - do more than this: we are not just lost in the cinematic space, but can reflect upon it with them as an anchor. This reflection can itself be harmonious with our sensation of watching a film, and can even further enhance it.
The reason why I have then chosen Rust and Bone to talk about today is that I both love being lost in this movie and can step outside of it and analyse it to find out that I love it even more. As we have done minimally already with the symbol of the wheelchair and aluminum legs, investigating the meaning of the film has us realise that it is not just entertaining, but meaningful and fulfilling. And this is the source of the film's harmony; I don't just love the characters, direction, aesthetic and plot unconsciously, but consciously love the themes of resilience, growth and fallibility that give rise to an abstract sensation of tainted success whose scratches and bruises make the journey towards it worthwhile; and all of this harmonises further to imply that this narrative explores rust - the burdens we carry within ourselves - coexisting with the bones that we use to carry them.
The sensation that all of this breeds within me is, in short, the reason why I love this movie, and it is all to do with the mapping of subject and objective impressionism onto a cinematic space. And it is by understanding this final point that we can assimilate a greater understanding of these symbiotic theories.
As we watch, for example, the depicted depression sequence, we are bombarded with information about Stéphanie via subjective impressionism. This information gives the impression that she is a real human being, and is one who exists in a space of moral and ethical value: the dramatic space. Whilst we are engaged in this space, however, we can reflect upon it and so engage with the information and emotional evocation by attempting to further nestle within Stéphanie's skin; Jean Epstein, as we have touched on before, would call this photogénie. It is the harmony of emotions and thoughts - which we have represented in the diagrams through colour - that turn a movie into a kind of music. Whilst all art forms function in this manner, music does this most obviously: music implies emotion and causes a physical reaction within you that catalyses emotion and behaviour; for example, we feel great and want to dance. Within a harmonious, developing and singing cinematic space, a very similar thing is occurring. The key difference between cinema and music, however, is the visual importance of cinema as an art form that further utilises other arts (music, writing, etc.). Nonetheless, our final point is that, to love a movie is to feel this harmony.
Having gone through much today, I will end things around here having hopefully given reason for what I mean when I say I love the movie Rust and Bone. There is so much more to be said about our objective-subjective cinematic space theory, however. For instance, we have already loosely implied that there are different kinds of cinematic spaces attached to genres. Just as important as this, a major point of development that this theory requires concerns conventions and modes of representation. In such, whilst we have so far talked about impressionism, we also need to talk about expressionism, realism and surrealism. And this means that we need to talk about objective and subjective expressionism, realism, etc. So, there is certainly far more to discover in the future. But, whilst I hope you look forward to that, what are your thoughts on all we have so far covered?
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Monsieur Hire - The Pallid Introvert
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