J.D. Hansel

Articles and Essays

150 Movies in a Year

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I’m curious about something: I wonder what the ratio of the number of movies someone watches to the number of ideas for movies that person has would be on average (per year).  For me, that ratio is about 1:3 – I’ve watched about 52 movies within the past year, not including movies I re-watched, and in that time I’ve had 150 ideas for movies.  I’ve been keeping track of all the movies that I’d really like to see, if they only existed.  The odd thing is that this wasn’t a goal of mine.  I never decided that I needed to think of at least 150 movies by the time one year had passed; it just happened, even though I’d never had so many ideas in such a short time before.

In autumn of 2014, I took a class on how to write for television, film, and radio.  One of the required readings for the class was a book called How to Get Ideas.  This book explains that an idea is “nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements.”  At the time, I had been focused on ideas I was having for films I could write, and I was pleased to see that, after reading a bit of the book, the number of ideas started increasing.  It was very enlightening to learn to be on the lookout for elements I could combine.  At a certain point, I had to write a list to keep track of all these ideas.

The fascinating thing is that the list actually helped increase the number of my ideas even more than the book did.  Why?  Basically, I developed a new instinct.  Apparently, when I keep a list, there is some part of the back of my mind that is always scanning my thoughts for possible additions to the list, and it notifies me when something matches the list’s criteria.  (I have seen this happen with my list of my favorite movies, because I usually can’t think of any movie at all without getting a notification from my subconscious that reads, “Should that be added to the list?”)  I have become intuitively, constantly, and inevitably alert for elements that can be combined into new ideas.

It’s funny how it started so simply: exactly one year ago today (well, not at this time of day, since I think it was just before my 11am class) I noticed that I was forgetting the ideas I’d thought of earlier that month, and I decided to take a couple little notes on my iPhone.  Once I had done that, the switch in my brain was flipped, and it was a Movie Idea Factory.  The iPhone notes eventually had to be moved to Google Docs because it became too hard to navigate through the list once I had over 30.  Once I reached 100 ideas, I made a separate document (in Microsoft Word) for the second 100.  I also added a list for the ideas I’d had before I started keeping a list, which has less than 30, revealing just how unfruitful that part of my brain had been throughout my lifetime until a year ago today.

However, the factory’s rapidity has slowed down over the past few months (with only one movie idea in all of October), which is to be expected.  I have spent most of my time over the past year with the same people, in the same places, enjoying the same entertainment, and walking the same streets.  This means I have already used up all of the elements that surround me regularly, and if I want to have a lot more ideas again, I need to change my environment.  I don’t think the decrease is a bad thing though, partly because I could never actually get 150 screenplays produced, and partly because I have been getting several ideas for songs this month (to an extent I’ve never seen before).  I do look forward to changing jobs and locations soon, because I really think that would spark my imagination, but for now, I’m content with the number of ideas for movies I’ve already had.

Oh, wait, I just had #151 . . . .

Movie ideas 101-151.
Movie ideas 101-151.

A Year of Tumblr Movie Reviews

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One year ago today, I finally decided to accept my own challenge.  After having finished film history course that required me to write movie reviews, I was looking for a good outlet for my thoughts on movies, and for a good place on social media to rate them.  I was bothered by the lack of freedom offered by Facebook in terms of movie ratings, and I have never been entirely satisfied with the Rotten Tomatoes website, but Tumblr seemed like a nice platform.  So, I challenged myself to review every movie I watched from then on, at least for a year, and now I don’t think I want to stop.

I think I’ve learned a good bit from doing this, and my writing is better for it.  Since my review of Play It Again, Sam, I’ve gotten a better sense for how to really put my finger on what exactly a movie did right or wrong, and why I responded the way I did.  I find it fascinating to look at how my writings grew to be more lengthy, particular, and expressive over time.  I discovered what my least-favorite movie was, and I could explain exactly why in depth.  I’ve been getting better and better at finding my style, and writing something worth reading.  I changed style during this adventure, trying different looks for the images I chose, and going through a long phase of strictly limiting which movies received the illustrious Star #4.5.  I reviewed over 60 films.

So, what phase comes next?  Well, from now on, I’m doing the reviews on JDHansel.com.  I think this keeps things more professional, and gives me all the freedoms of WordPress, plus a higher chance of getting shared around the web.  I also wish to separate my movie-reviewing from the promotion of my Muppet Hub content.  I want to treat Tumblr as a way to share my work, rather than a place to officially present it.  It makes more sense to me.  (Hopefully I’ll get the Tumblr reviews moved over to this website as posts soon.)

I also want to start a new series of reviews called “Upon Further Consideration,” or at least that’s the working title, which would essentially be my way of reviewing movies I’ve already seen before.  No, I would not review every movie I’ve ever seen.  Rather, when I feel like talking about a movie I watched before I started doing Tumblr movie reviews, or even re-evaluating a movie I’ve already reviewed, this would be the form my thoughts take.  It would be much like my regular movie reviews, but nothing about them would be mandatory – even a star rating.  This is the new direction I plan to take soon, and hopefully there will be more great movie reviews to come in the future.

The Commenting Editor Technique

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While a film is by no means the sum of its parts, it is probably safe to say that a film is the edited union of its parts. The editing can determine the nature or genre of a film, the film’s pace, an actor’s performance, the order of the story, and much more. The editor is rarely noticed, however, for two main reasons. The first is that a film is very much seen by audiences today – especially by critics and movie buffs – as being the vision of the director. So, if the editor determines the essence of a film, people with naturally attribute the essence of the film to the director, thus ignoring the editor completely. Secondly, part of the editor’s job is to remain unnoticed, in much the same way that it is a puppeteer’s job to remain unseen as he/she performs. I expect, however, that we have reached a level of video literacy at which we can soon expect to see the film editors break a new kind of fourth wall and blatantly converse with the audience.

Along similar lines, it is traditionally bad form for the camerawork to be done in such a way that the audience is conscious of the camera, and the goal in film was, for many decades, to make the camera unnoticed. (This is comparable to the way that the lighting crew in a theatrical production is essential to making the performance visible/possible, but is seldom noticed unless it makes a big mistake.) In recent years, we have seen experiments in filmmaking in which the audience is supposed to be conscious of the camera, particularly in the genre of found footage horror films. This new direction is possible only because we are used to seeing the camera since the innovation of home video, in which awareness of the camera is nearly inevitable. It follows that one would expect an innovation to become popular that makes viewers aware of the editor, which will allow for movies that mimic the same techniques. I propose that this innovation does exist, and it is online video.

To best explain what online video means for the evolution of film editing, I should clarify what I do and do not mean in regards to an editor conversing with the audience. I am not merely talking about films in which the editing style is unique, drawing attention to itself. Films such as the 2008 Speed Racer film or the works of Robert Rodriguez are not necessarily conversational in nature. Annie Hall comes much closer to a talkative editor in the scene in which Woody Allen and Diane Keaton have one conversation while subtitles show what they truly want to say, but this still comes across as the voice of writer/director Woody Allen. Television has come close by using frequent cutaways in shows such as Family Guy, but these feel very much like they are a part of the pre-production and animation/production phases, and they are not primarily editing. The Colbert Report used a regular segment called “The Wørd” to provide a sort of visual commentary on what Colbert said, and while this may be a little too involved in the pre-production and production (a.k.a. principal photography) phases, this does succeed in providing a form of “editor’s commentary,” which is what has become a big part of online video.

Online, it is common to see a video or YouTube channel that has a host-to-viewer format, such as the PBS Idea Channel, using little pictures, GIFs, and other brief visuals to not only depict what the host is saying, but to comment on it. This takes the type of commenting common on social media, in which a the Ben Stiller “post for ants” meme might be used to comment on a post that’s not legible, and makes it a part of the post itself. On YouTube it’s common to see a picture flash on screen for half a second just to make a joke, even though the picture is not necessary for the speaker to make his/her point, or for the story to be told. Rather, these very brief visual gags are comments on the video more than they are a part of it, since they are not usually diegetic in nature. This is actually very similar to a director’s audio commentary on a film, except an editor’s commentary is generally not continuous throughout, and is a part of the video instead of being a bonus feature.

If I must give specific criteria, an editor’s commentary is:

  1. post-production-driven,
  2. non-diegetic,
  3. not a part of telling the work’s main story,
  4. nonessential to the clarity of the work,
  5. not long enough to be its own scene.

For example, when a character in a movie notes that everyone is freezing, a picture of Elsa might flash on screen for a split second. When characters discuss their favorite science fiction films, the scene might conclude with a Star Wars-esque wipe transition. When a scene begins with lots of text to read on screen, the CinemaSins “ding” sound might be heard. When an actor flubs a line, the mistake can be left in and just corrected later by cutting to a frame with a title joking about what he meant to say (which is pretty much what they did for a little documentary about Star Trek IV when one of the interviewees mixed up his words a little). There are plenty of ways to do it creatively and in a style unique to the editor and director making the film.

While the possibilities are theoretically endless, the concept of the Commenting Editor is limited in a few ways. First of all, it should probably be used sparingly and carefully so it doesn’t become gimmicky. Secondly, there is great difficulty in doing this in such a way that the commentary is nearly exclusively created in the realm of post-production where the editor is king. If it is not very exclusive to this realm, the other areas (where the writer and director are supposedly the rulers) will receive the attribution. Whenever clever text is put up on screen, it is assumed to be clever writing, and the goal is to create the sense that the editing is clever, even if the editor’s comments are written into the script. The main limitation, however, is that the Commenting Editor is comedic in nature, and I don’t see it working well for anything but comedy.

The comedy in the Commenting Editor concept comes from both the fact that the viewers must quickly make connections, causing their brains to trip over themselves, as is the case with most jokes, and the fact that the editor has broken the unspoken rules. Since everyone knows that no one is supposed to talk during the movie, there is something chaotic and comedic about the editor himself (or herself) stepping out of the film to talk about the movie the whole time. While this concept could add to the aesthetic distance by reminding the viewers that they are watching an edited production, it could also decrease aesthetic distance by putting the editor in the audience, joining the viewers in the experience. This would make for a fascinating and important development in film because it creates a kind of movie that is self-aware, but not just by breaking the fourth wall. If a movie is essentially the editing, the movie can become a character of its own by talking to the audience about itself, and the viewers will not only enjoy the experience of relating to the characters in the film, but also the experience of conversing with the film itself.

Campfire Art

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Upon reading the critically acclaimed short story “Sleep-over” by Bonnie Jo Campbell, I started pondering the duality between the concrete and the amorphous that seems to tear apart the enthusiasts of artistic works.  This story, like much of the amorphous literature that appears in many textbooks and highbrow publications, lightly touches on the elements that make up a traditionally story, without making them the focus.  There are people with names, but very little is established about them, making them seem to be empty characters.  There is a series of events, and there is a little bit of a conflict at one point in this series of events, but there is little in the way of story building (by which I mean a conflict-driven escalation from one event to another with “but” or “therefore” transitions).  The story offers some little facts and ideas, in this case suggesting a connection between Frankenstein’s monster and the sexual desire to piece together the perfect woman, but it artistically leaves the meaning of the story up to the viewer.  While intellectuals naturally cling to amorphous art because it requires thinking, this type of work tends to lack substance to the same degree as that which is entirely concrete.

To clarify what I mean by concrete, I am not simply referring to work that is physical.  Work that is concrete is structured, based upon guidelines that have been previously established, and its meaning is perfectly visible.  Pop music, for example, is generally concrete in that the structure is standard and predictable, and one does not have to think deeply to understand the meaning of the song.  The concrete art is easier to sell, in much the same way that processed foods are more accessible to the public than filet mignon, but is also easier to criticize.  Concrete art is cliché, lacks depth, and requires no thought.  For this reason, lovers of music that is abstract and rule-breaking have a great excuse to enjoy scoffing at Beliebers and Directioners.  The concrete art, to the thinking person, tends to sit in the mind rotting like a useless, dull log.

The amorphous art, however, is harder to criticize, although it too frequently lacks substance.  It refuses to take the form of its predecessors in its medium, flowing and expanding in any direction the mind takes it.  Modern poetry very often – although certainly not always – strives to defy guidelines and let the language run wild, without conveying any particular meaning, but instead vaguely suggests potential meanings.  The meaning comes from the interpretation, not from what the writer infused into the work.  The potential problem here is that, by leaving meaning up to the interpreter, the work lacks intrinsic meaning, and can therefore be said to be meaningless.  This is dangerous because, without a defined meaning or purpose at the core of the work, there is no gravity to keep the interpretations (which may be foolish if the interpreter happens to be an unintelligent person) from flying out to idiocy and beyond.  The boundless nature can allow the art’s supposed, projected, or imagined meanings to spread like wildfire.

In the Web 2.0 age, fanfiction is blossoming like never before.  While the best television series are developing clearly defined characters dealing with blatant conflicts, they are also gesturing towards possible alterations in the story, and new ideas that could be explored with many of the shows’ core elements.  Since fanfiction is so enjoyable for so many people, it would be fascinating for a television series to suggest possible character traits and storylines, and then leave the rest to the viewer to determine.  This would, of course, not be a television show, but rather a prompt for creating one.  It is the established structure upon which an infinite number of ideas can be built that seems to make media great.  This allows fans to have more fun building things in the sandbox than they could in a bottomless pit.

That being said, it should be obvious that not all artwork that has depth or mental malleability is necessarily bad.  Science fiction series such as The Twilight Zone and Star Trek may be mostly remembered for the concrete elements, such as spaceships, robots, and scary aliens, but they have had a lasting impact because of the concepts they explored and the ideas they proposed for us to ponder.  The works of Robert Frost have been analyzed to the extreme due to their vast interpretability, although the non-thinker can see the stories and concepts that he made apparent.  Once, after saying his poem “Stopping by Woods,” Frost asked his audience about the meaning of its repeated last line, with a tone that scoffed the critics and commentators who had assumed great and deep meanings.  While some might suggest it meant “bringing his off-balance terza rima to closure,” but Frost informed them that it simply meant he wanted to go to bed.  Perhaps we ought to join Frost in mocking the sophists who attribute to artwork meanings that are not apparent, since seeking deep meaning in that which lacks it is more superstitious behavior than intellectual behavior.  Instead, we should appreciate a work’s interpretability, if it has depth allowing for such (as Frost’s works certainly do), but at the same time appreciate what the apparent, intrinsic meaning is just as much.

Imagine, then, a Brubeck world in which works are strong both concretely and amorphously.  Ideally, this creates a concrete-amorphous balance, with great weight and power on each side of the scale.  There is great danger in going too far either way, although it is not necessarily completely unacceptable.  The deep thinker is certainly free to sit happily on one side of the see-saw enjoying 2001: A Space Odyssey, so long as he/she does not despise the fellow on the other side enjoying Transformers 17: Age of Explosions.  It is best, however, to create works that limit the extent to which they lean to either side – Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” leans towards the boundless while still maintaining a hummable tune, and The Lego Movie is formulaic while still suggesting ideas about theology and society.  Rather than creating works that are dull as a log or run rampant as a fire, try building a campfire that uses both elements to their maximum amount of enjoyment, with the log and the fire each giving meaning and purpose to the other.  In other words, when people criticize films, songs, or any similar works for being too simple, shallow, and formulaic, what they are truly criticizing is a lack of balance in the concrete-amorphous duality.

The Eidome Theory

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This is a sequel of sorts to my theory of Functional Illusions.  I wanted to expound on the topic because I think we start asking some big and important questions when we wonder about what things around us may be Functional Illusions.  The biggest and most important of these questions is: “Is God a Functional Illusion?”  The answer to this is hard to tell because the term Functional Illusion implies that everyone is aware that the notion of God is a lie, and obviously many, many people truly believe in a god, with logical reasons for doing so.  However, the idea is not out of the question.

Upon further pondering of the “Idea America” concept I presented in my Functional Illusions essay, I found that there are many things in our culture that we think of this way.  For example, I’ve read that Hitler loved the circus, and I’ve heard that he really liked children.  However, we don’t think of Hitler of having a human side at all.  The Idea Hitler is just a monster, with no human side, so that we may use him as an example of what pure evil is like.  Think about it – we refer to Hitler and/or Nazis multiple times a week because the Idea Nazis are so useful as an example.  This is remarkably similar to the Idea America, consisting of the American dream, equality, liberty and justice for all, etc.  There is a good purpose behind believing in it, and we want to believe in it because of its purpose, so it becomes a very strong Functional Illusion that may distort our view of reality.

I eventually decided that putting the word “idea” in front of something does not clarify this, so I instead have decided to make up the word Eidome (eye-du-mee) to express this concept.  I might change the word I use for this concept later, but for now, I like Eidome because its structure implies its meaning; Eidos means “idea or form,” and Epitome essentially refers to a prime example, so Eidome implies the idea or image that best exemplifies.  To be more specific, Eidome means a concept (or simulacrum) of a thing that embodies what a culture or community wants to believe is reality because the belief serves a purpose.  When one sees how the Idea America, or Eidome America, fits this description, it becomes clear that the Eidome is one of the strongest Functional Illusions, if not the chief of them all.

Lawyers are a good example.  Everyone hates lawyers, except that everyone needs lawyers.  The average middle class American might claim to hate lawyers because they take all of our money and are a huge pain, but he/she actually hates the lawyer Eidome.  The lawyer Eidome is a conniving rat that’s out to rob everyone, and is therefore easy to hate, in spite of the fact that one could easily befriend a lawyer that does not meet this description.  Hating the lawyer Eidome really only serves a few small functions: expressing annoyance with the court system, making funny lawyer jokes, warning others of the danger of sneaky lawyers, etc.  Frankly, even if every lawyer on the planet suddenly became nice and generous, we would still want to hold onto the Eidome because it’s too fun.

Another good example might be little children.  We all have met someone who claimed she loved children, but after working/living with them, she’s discovered that she only loves children “in theory.”  This means she loves the child Eidome.  She loves children making Valentines out of construction paper, children running into the bedroom during a thunderstorm, children gleefully giggling as they lose a tickle fight, and so on.  The reality of children is that they’re noisy, the ask too many questions, they make big messes, and they never listen, but the child Eidome serves the purpose of making sure people still want to have children.  With only truth and no Eidome, the species might die out.

Now it is possible to discuss the God question again.  It would certainly seem that every western religion or church has a God Eidome.  The god in the holy book may be wrathful, unjust, or deceptive, but this is all seen as irrelevant.  Instead, the God Eidome – the one that wants what’s best for everyone and offers a message of hope –  is worshiped because it’s more comforting to believe in him than it is to believe in the true god of the book.  Saturday Night Live once did a sketch in which Jesus enters a football locker-room wearing athletic socks, and he appears to be a big fan of Tim Tebow.  Religious people who saw this as a parody of Jesus were naturally offended, whereas religious people who saw it as a parody of the sports-fan’s Jesus Eidome – a Jesus who really cares about sports – knew the intent wasn’t to mock God.  SNL mocked an idea of Jesus, not a reality, as plenty of Christians have done before.  While we do not have to totally abolish Eidomes (since they do have purposes), we do need to recognize and question them in order to find truth, even if it means taking a stab at the Eidome we worship.

So, regardless of whether there is a god or not, the god that a given church worships is still probably a Functional Illusion, just as there are both a real America and an America Eidome.  Being such an important Functional Illusion, the Eidome scares people, or at least the idea of exposing Eidomes scares people.  Much like most other Functional Illusions, they are not necessarily evil, they just need to be addressed.  The reason we allow the illusions to continue should be the fact that the purposes they serve are good, and it should by no means merely be wishful thinking.  The challenge, therefore, is for each person to consider how his or her belief is merely and Eidome, because that is how we can dispel our fantasies and embrace the truth.

My Theory of Functional Illusions

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About a year ago, I coined a term called “Functional Illusions.”  A Functional Illusion is an understood lie that the people of a certain culture generally accept or allow because it serves a purpose that the culture sees as important.  A simple example is a mirror, although this is a very weak Functional Illusion (as I explain in the following paragraph).  The mirror deceives the eyes by creating the appearance of another person who isn’t really there, but we don’t really think of mirrors as “lies” because we are all well aware that this illusion isn’t reality, but it is very helpful.  A slightly stronger example would be puppetry.  We know that puppets aren’t real, but we allow ourselves to act as if they are so we can enjoy the stories they tell, and sometimes we tell children that the puppets are real, which is essentially lying.  Therein lies the danger of the Functional Illusion.

A strong Functional Illusion is one that people really, really want to believe is a reality, and a weak FI is one that everyone is perfectly fine dismissing as a meaningless illusion, such as the mirror.  Some FIs are strong for some people, but weak for others.  To an adult, Santa Claus is a very weak FI, but to a child, discovering that his/her parents lied all those years can be devastating, and in extreme, rare cases, lead to bad trust issues.  The discovery that an FI isn’t real can be handled well by taking an interest in how the illusion is created.  It can be handled badly by hating either the illusion, or those who reveal it to be only an illusion.  (In some cases, people hate puppets because they were so devastated to find out the characters on Sesame Street aren’t real, whereas others, such as myself, become fascinated with puppetry because of the discovery that it’s an illusion.)  Naturally, a very strong FI that many, many people want to believe is a reality can lead to intense fury throughout the culture.

America is essentially a Functional Illusion.  Well, okay, the nation that is the United States of America is real, and the landmass consisting of North, South, and Central America is real, but those are not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about the Idea America (yes, I thought that term up to, and I hope no one else has used it first).  The Idea America is the American Dream, the American Way, and freedom and justice for all.  There is clearly a big difference between the Idea America and the USA, but some people don’t see the gap, or at least try not to, because they are such a big fan of the Functional Illusion.  Essentially, everyone who claims that America is or was the greatest country in the world and the city on a hill is overly attached to the FI.  This is somewhat scary because FIs need to be understood in order to serve their proper purpose, and in order that we can make progress.  The best purpose of the Idea America is not for people to be proud to be American, but rather for people to see that which America must become.

The Functional Illusion is important.  Mirrors are helpful, Santa Claus is fun, makeup is an interesting form of expression, and auto-tune can be a great artistic tool if used appropriately.  However, there is a danger to encouraging faith in them.  People in the music industry may all be aware that the industry is to a large extent comprised of FIs, but people outside that culture may not be aware of this when they set out to make hits of their own.  Some FIs become a sort of dogma that is detrimental to intellectual progress.  The answer to problems that come from Functional Illusions seems to be better education, encouraging young people to use reason to question the illusions without assuming they are good or bad.  Like many human tools, Functional Illusions will only do harm if humankind is not yet smart enough to use them wisely.

UPDATE 4/8/15 – There is now a follow up essay on a specific type of Functional Illusion, available to read here.