> Of course you have to watch it, it's fucking television.
Then why are people refusing to engage the visuals if one has to watch television? What kind of defense is "well-written"? Is a poem well-drawn?
> I think the main thing that was great about it is you have
a large U.S. viewing audience watching a show that deals with
serious themes presented in a smart way.
Is that an aesthetic consideration? And if so, how so?
Also, why rebut an aesthetic critique by noting a sociological phenomenon?
> I think plot fetishism oversimplifies what was an interesting
cultural phenomenon that leaves me hopeful that other smart stuff
will become part of the larger popular culture.
But an "interesting cultural phenomenon" is not necessarily an aesthetic accomplishment.
Jerry:
> But you can't explain the dance; you must watch-it. You can't
just comment on the story you must experience it. This is as true
for the "auditor" as it is for the "author". I think I can agree
with Brian on this much, though he would use different concepts.)
Agreed. And it is Chase's incompetence with the visual that interferes with my experience of the narrative.
> It is visually "inept" in the way that Dostoevsky is "artistically"
inept... (read Nabokov on this and you will understand what I mean).
But the stories (Chase, Dostoevsky) taken as a whole defy the
aesthetic judgments of Brian and Nabokov.
Jerry and I have decided to publish our correspondence as the cinema equivalent of the Nabokov-Wilson letters. Of course, lbosters will receive a discount.
J.T.:
> Did nobody else see the sit-down scene in the finale held in the
frozen warehouse? This was visually astounding.
Jerry's analysis was superb. The scene started out so promisingly, and then incompetence flowed like beer at a frat party.
One nice scene was Paulie sunning himself as the breeze fluttered the tablecloth. Chase had the perfect distance, the correct focal length, and held the shot for just the right amount of time. The stillness of the actor played off the movement of the tablecloth. There was a delicious/plaintive sense of graceful poigancy.
> Also: Paulie and Tony on the boat, etc. It's not Antonioni meets
Wong Kar-Wai or anything, but they were very effective imo.
If you would, could you expand on what you mean by "very effective."
Jerry:
> Chase and company set a scene in a place that is like "found art" and
then they destroy the effect by lousy editing, cutting to the
characters at the wrong time. Just pay attention to how he reveals
the space and then ignores it for most of the rest of the scene. But
also pay attention to the subtle humor (and excruciating stupidity of
the characters) in this scene.
You could argue that the stupidity of the mise en scene was a correlative of the stupidity of the characters. But when the mise en scene is smart, the characters are still stupid.
> He created this jump-cut without intending to do so,
out of simple time necessity.
This is where the anti-style argument gets shaky for me since there were other ways to cut it just looking at the footage he did end up using.
> The offer of water and its refusal is ticklishly funny in a
way that is hard to define.
I would agree that the humor is there, but Chase's ineptitude interferes with my enjoyment of it. I guess it is the Russian emigre in me.
Doug:
> So?
As I keep asking, why use a visual medium to tell a story when you have no talent for it. That's like trying to talk to someone in French when you do not know the language.
> There are many ways to tell a story.
I never said there weren't.
> Maybe the reason I loved the show so much is that I'm a
words guy, not a pictures guy.
Exactly. You called it well-written. But you do not read a television show, you watch it. It is a visual experience. How can a visual art form be well-written? Is a painting well- written?
Also, you can have television without dialogue (Ernie Kovacs), but not without visuals which does argue for the supremacy of the visual in the medium.
> But in any case, why is one any better than the other?
Never said they were. What I said was that Chase's use of his chosen medium was incompetent. He fucked up the visuals. Those same actors could have read those same words on stage and there would have been no appreciable difference between the experiences since the visuals he composed added nothing to the experience. In fact, his visual incompetence was a distracting element.
Now, you can choose to ignore these fuck-ups and not let them interfere with your enjoyment of what Chase gets right, but I just find it odd to assess a work of visual art with an aesthetic that does not take into account the images presented.
Miles:
> "this medium" refers to the previous sentence--cable TV networks.
None of your examples are relevant, as far as I can tell.
Television is the medium. Whether or not the show is on cable, broadcast or public channels; whether it is comedy, drama or documentary; is episodic or self-contained brings about no change in the nature of the formal elements that come into play when making an aesthetic evaluation. Either the elements are handled with either competence or incompetence. Does one have a different standard for films produced at Warner Bros. as opposed to those produced by Paramount?
Because of the nature of varying production realities/pressures, one might be tempted to be an apologist for aesthetic fuck-ups, but bear in mind: Fassbinder had six months to write, cast, shoot, edit and score the 15 1/2 hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz. David Chase took three years to make the 21 hours of Season Six and produced a vastly inferior work of art.
Brian