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Thanks for another insightful video. You really HAVE to see Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1962). It would be a good film to write an essay on, and I believe it needs more recognition than it currently has.
It's another option: The director is lying. In some cases, that is. Some directors don't want to fix "explanations" in the mind of the audience since they believe in art as in challenging process where the audience must use his brain for arriving at some kind of analysis because that analysis implies also his own catharsis. Is not just finding "clues" or "keys", its the experience for himself the personal process to arrive at an x interpretation, because there play also the personal life and experience. So, talking about "meanings" in one reportage, for example, destroys the richest and most powerful process that real art implies. Ford, for example, has denied and despised interpretations of his work even when were evident, like in the case of the searchers. (curiously, the same Scorsese gives interpretations of that movie in his beautiful documentary about cinema, and he talks about his interpretation of the searchers, not like personal interpretation, but something evident that Ford has put in images.) If you like deep analysis of cinema and can read spanish, try to find the work of Angel Faretta (write many books). He have a theory of art and estethic very deep and amazing and since he focuses in cinema like the ultimate art form, can be interesting for you. No versions in english for now.
"I once asked Akira Kurosawa why he had chosen to frame a shot in Ran in a particular way. His answer was that if he’d panned the camera one inch to the left, the Sony factory would be sitting there exposed, and if he’d panned an inch to the right, we would see the airport-neither of which belonged in a period movie. Only the person who’s made the movie knows what goes into the decisions that result in any piece of work. They can be anything from budget requirements to divine inspiration." sidney lumet, making movies
I think of this quote almost weekly whenever I use a camera. It’s humbling, points to adaptability, and allows there to still be fun outside of all the pretentiousness.
Kurosawa's answer is of course not the complete answer. If the framing had not worked by obeying the mundane constraints, he would have rejected it. In other words, something can work on an artistic level even though the first impetus for the choice was something non-artistic. Good artists will keep the stuff that works and throw out everything else. The primary motivation for something is not important.
Bowie said it well also: "The piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation to it, and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle."
@@wobblywheeler6682 out of interest, why are you not a fan? I don't agree with all of his reviews, but he's someone I'll watch, after watching a film because I like seeing his take.
@@Pneumanon this is the very reason why David Lynch always insists on explaining so so little about what his films are about. As he explains it, people have this detrimental way of taking whatever the director says as gospel. It ruins the viewing experience because instead of people letting the art move them wherever it moves them, they turn their brains off with this belief that whatever the director claims the explanations and backstory were intended to be that that *must* be. In Lynch's mind, the fact that so many people may commune over different interpretations of the same piece IS the art almost more than the art itself.
Stanley Kubrick: “I think the best thing is when an audience looks at the film and wonders whether something that they see is an accident or whether the director or writer meant them to know it."
Could be a great description of so many of the Coen brothers movies, where I think a lot of the fun is in guessing whether something is meant seriously, meant satirically, or meant at all.
@@MattiaDeG. No Cuz Room 237 is not even film analysis, its dumbass conspiracy theories. Its rambling and bullcrap. Stanley Kubrick would not have loved some bland bs like that im quite sure. Just becuz of this quote doesn’t mean that he loves some random unfounded conspiracies with no good argumentation like that documentary
@@jvjjjvvv9157 . Ironically, the Coen brothers are the perfect directors to explain the meaning of their movies, they can each say they interpret them in a different way and get a record number of death threats.
This video reminds me of the concept of "Death of the Author", which legitimises the reader's interpretation even over that of the author, as the author's content is created to be read, not written. Thus, the reader's interpretation is paramount. Great video!
Agreed. Once a director releases something into the world it’s up to the audience to determine what it’s message/meaning is. The directors intent is almost irrelevant after the fact.
@@benmo6609 somewhat. Not entirely. It's more about the fact that the intent may inform the finished work, but the author's conclusions or rationalizations on how that intent or those ideas translate into the realm of interpretation is not to be seen as "proof" of that being the correct way of looking at it over any other. Still, doesn't mean that interpretations or perspectives that have literally nothing to do with the intent in any way can't be debated by bringing the author's point if view into it. If someone is crazy enough to think zoolander is a commentary on the korean war, there would be so little to even sensibly argue about that the only way to debate it would be to point at what is actually there in the work and what the intent behind it reasonably was. There is a difference between developing interpretations and simply making stuff up and sometimes people just flat out make stuff up
@@marcogianesello6083 this for sure. It isn’t as clear cut as “once it’s in the world it’s whatever we want” I mean. It was always that, but saying authorial intent is irrelevant seems silly. It informs the work. We can find our own meanings between them but there’s no singular best or right way of viewing a thing.
That will go down as the greatest film theory ever. When you watch the movie again, you can't unsee it. Like every single scene is a gay scene. It's too perfect of an explanation for it to be false.
You’re right. It’s a remake of the very first Academy Award Winning film for Best Picture - Wings. Which was a film about two WWI pilots who fall in love and they share their first kiss right before one of them dies.
Someone once suggested to me that 'Death of the Author' is a satirical essay and I got trapped in a paradox trying to figure out what Roland Barthes intent was
This reminds me of the time my cinematography teacher who worked on a very famous film shared his experiences on set with this renowned cinematographer. People like to decipher his decisions on making the shots look wobbly and stylistic in this one scene with handheld low shutter speed movements when in reality he just drank too much the day before the shoot and is hungover and sleepy. Best story I’ve heard in film school.
I often wondered this in english class when we had to interpret a poet or author's intent. The practice often felt like one's own projection/assumption and thought it was absurd to be graded poorly if your own interpretation wasn't aligned with the "accepted" interpretation. Thank you for the thoughtful take.
As a creative, I struggle so much with where the line is between when my creative works stop being “mine” and you’ve done an awesome job articulating that!!
Same boat, I think the best mindset to adopt is that the second, the very second, you show it to another human being in any capacity, it is no longer "mine" but now belongs to the world. That's how I cope.
@@ckellyedits I totally see where you’re coming from, but I would say that because every creative work is build on the foundation of those that came before it, it’s never really anyone’s to begin with. Alternatively, you could say that a work of art always belongs to the creator, and when the creator shares it, those who experience it now have their own version of the work. So you still own your original piece of art, but everyone else owns their own experiences and interpretations of it. Admittedly though, that doesn’t really stop you from feeling conflicted or confused when others’ view something you’ve made differently then you do. And ultimately, of course, no stance on who owns what tangibly changes anything-they’re just mindsets, all valid in their own respects.
9:13 is a great encapsulation of why many interpretations of a piece of art can still be valid. A director can say that a shot's implicit meaning does (or does not) mean something, sure...but every life experience the director has had informs their decisions around framing shots, etc. Great video. Keep up the good work.
Tolkien constantly denied almost all implicit meaning in his work, but it's impossible to deny the impact his life experiences had on his writing even if there is no intentional implicit meaning.
My brother is a song writer and one of his songs made me think about climate change. I told him about it and he told me it was about an accident but that he liked my interpretation. Art is not always understood in the same way and there is the beauty. It's like a conversation, sometimes the words have several meanings. Excellent work
Hah, that reminds me of the song A Certain Shade of Green by Incubus. There's lines about waiting on a person procrastinating and chastising them, and I used to interpret it as someone frustrated in a relationship that isn't moving forward. It was about being stuck behind someone at a green light. I still like my interpretation for myself.
The point you bring up at about 10:05 is a huge idea we see in music of all "levels." Pop music and improvised jazz or rock alike. I think it is most important in high level film and music to lean into familiar techniques/shots/passages because, you nailed it, it HIGHLIGHTS the difference between the two pieces more sharply. For instance, on the 1977 tour, David Gilmour would use a flanger effect on songs like "Wish You Were Here" to add an airy, wistful quality to his solos and lead fills. However, earlier in the show, he used the exact same sound to play the main chord progression on "Dogs" and the swirling timbre of his guitar heightened the claustrophobic, disorienting chromatic chord progression. In both songs the sound was used to establish an otherworldly, uncontrollable feeling: in WYWH it was too illustrate the reminiscing of times gone by and yearning to return to those times, places, or people; in Dogs it was to further heighten the tension and uncertainty of realizing how in over one's head and corrupted one has become as a result of an all powerful, oppressive, competitive capitalistic structure. Great video. Great channel. I have subscribed. Thank you. Please continue to make more content.
Thomas gets meta. I love it. Great analysis. I watch video essays not to get a definitive interpretation of a work of art but to learn how others derive meaning from art. I am often moved by a film or a novel or a painting but can't articulate why I had the reaction I did. Video essays open a gateway to develop my own analysis by illuminating details I missed or providing context I was unaware of. That's why I value them regardless of the artist's actual intent. I also like to think that part of what makes a work of art successful are the "happy accidents" that seem to find their way into so many works of true genius. An artist may not attribute meaning to a decision, or their intended meaning may be completely lost on an audience, but that decision can still have a tremendous impact on an audience's ability to resonate with a work of art.
If I could ask Kubrick two questions, they would be: "Do you read people's interpretations of your films?" and if so, "Is any or most of it intentional?" If most of us are right, and if he answered honestly, I think he'd say all of it was intentional.
Fascinating. I find this sort of discussion endlessly interesting, both as a critic and someone who works in narrative and film. It reminds me of a story I once heard of a poet who was told that a poem they wrote was being taught at a local community college and used as part of an exam. For fun, they asked if they could submit an exam paper anonymously, and when this was arranged, they failed the exam. The "correct" interpretation of the poem, as according to the examiners was that the piece (about a rose), represented the crucifixion, with the rose representing Christ. The poet was amazed as apparently it literally was just a poem about a rose.
Is it ever possible that an author's subconscious thoughts ever spill into the text? Of course, right? In your example it might be likely. Is it possible that when making a decision, perhaps having a character perform a certain action, there's some unknown force involved in that decision? Like, if an author were to choose a specific style and say his intent is that it simply looks cool, would it be wrong to say that there is some invisible momentum that drives that decision (i.e. something metaphysical)? As a more concrete example, take Martin Scorsese. He says that the shot was just to introduce the character and setting. But is it fair to say that, in the chance that he is unaware of it, he is mimicking his past films and in the conscious decision to just introduce everything he subconsciously relates his past films? Or Noah Bambauch with the juice box. Sure it symbolizes the child's presence but why is that important to HIM and to his film? That we can't know. Now let's take the poet. If he actually is a poet than he understands pretty well how it can be interpreted. But he CHOOSES to say that "oh, it's just a poem about a rose"; if he is truly unaware, then maybe he unknowingly mimicked or was inspired by something. You can write a poem about a rose but for a poet something has to drive him to do so in the manner he does it, something inexplicable. I guess what I'm trying to get at is an argument against Death of the Author and physicalism. An author or director should understand that they can't force their audience to watch a film a certain way but they can try to guide them. That's why introductions are so important because they are supposed to teach the viewer how to watch the movie. Mainly though, I think there is much more to be gained than just the literal text. Trying to understand what moves the author so passionately that they would create a work can be so much more enriching. It's impossible to fully understand but it definitely is tantalizing. Just wanted to give some thoughts on the video and what you said. I think what I said can be simplified but it wouldn't detract from what I think I'm saying (if that makes sense).
I think Oscar Wilde said it best that a work of art will never reveal the artist, it will only reveal the critic. Even the response to your post that the artist's subconscious is spilling out into the poem, is an example of the struggle people have with accepting the things that they don't know, and will never know. All we can say is if we enjoyed it or not. And not go "beneath the surface" as Mr Wilde suggested would lead to the destruction of the work itself.
@@dandybandals2667 as long as you accept it as your interpretation, based on your experience in life, then you won't destroy what someone has created. But you can't forget that the only thing you know for sure is how you feel about it based on your own experience. And not what the author intended while making it.
@@dandybandals2667 I thinks a lot of that is fair, but in the case of Scorsese and this long “oner”, it’s less likely as on a production like that it’s almost impossible that they would have gone through the planning, blocking, storyboarding etc and someone not have remarked on the similarity. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said.
Honestly, I think fan analysis can provide intriguing perspectives that enhance the consumption of art, even if such perspectives don’t align with authorial intent. In fact, such analysis can make the creator seem much cleverer than they really are, which can be very flattering. For example, I’m a writer. On one occasion, a reader thought a storm in one of my books was a metaphor for the inner turmoil in the minds of the characters. In truth, I just thought the storm provided atmosphere, but such a perspective was very enlightening.
This video is basically a discussion of the death of the author and "valid" interpretations of a text. I personally value the direct contributors of the "blueprints" of media (writers) more than the actors. The writers are the ones that imagine and construct a world mentally. The set designers and directors do that physically. The cinematographers capture that for the viewers. As mentioned in the video, it's a collaborative process in which the underlying message of a "text" can be altered as production goes on with or without the original creator's knowledge. There are undoubtedly more accurate and less accurate interpretations, but I think the discussions you can have with like-minded people can be thought-provoking, which is great! But I'm always going to be more right than my friend if I disagree 😆
It's said a story gets written three times. By the "writer" (although I'd include all the pre production roles in that including director) by the "actors" (although again I'd include all the cinematographers, camera ops, etc) and finally in the Edit. Something as simple as cutting a scene short by a second can change the whole feeling of the piece. So who is more valid? None of them. They all made their version of the script which is different than the original scrip writer's version too.
Is that cheating? Getting analysis from other people? Like I miss certain things in film which continually upsets me and fills me with self doubt but I can’t just take their analysis as my own.
@@gabrielidusogie9189 I wouldn't count it as cheating. There's nothing wrong with getting help or an extra explanation. If anyone tells you otherwise, it seems like they have a toxic "git gud" mentality. They're gatekeeping knowledge? That's kinda weird. I learn a lot and find out many details I missed from essays and video essays. It helps to have different perspectives and sometimes we just plain miss things. No big deal :)
Hey man, I've been following your channel since the beginning of 2019 when you had "only" 75k subscribers. Just wanted to say thanks for all the videos and that you've done a great job reaching almost the big 500k! Keep doing what you do!
Excellent video! As an aspiring filmmaker, I've learn to fully embrace HAPPY ACCIDENTS philosophy. Even during the creation process, something will randomly come to your mind and only an hour later or a few days later will you realize how well it works for what you were trying to do or in combination with something else, I don't see why it would be any different AFTER the movie or work of art is released. A quote that really stuck with me is one from Quentin Tarantino about Reservoir Dogs "The more I wrote, the more I realized the movie was a father/son story,". What do the muses or divine inspiration represent if not those moments when you have inspiration for something that you don't fully understand yourself? If I were in Scorcese's position I wouldn't look at it from the perspective of whether I consciously intended it or not, but whether that interpretation works for me, maybe for him it that aspect really doesn't do anything, but you can see in a famous clip with Spielberg and James Lipton how happy Spielberg was to uncover a new interpretation which meant something for him, even thought it's his own movie. ruclips.net/video/ZspOEa1CP4A/видео.html
The goal of all storytelling is to elicit an emotional response. The same can be said of any art form. From Mona Lisa’s smile to Jackson Pollock‘s paint-vomit what ultimately matters is how it’s perceived. The very meaning of art is that the person experiencing it is always right because they bring that final immutable component through their perception. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I think he nailed it when he said that filmmakers hope to find the “happy accident”. In the Orson Welles documentary from a few years ago Welles talked about why he shot so much film (unfortunately left so many of his efforts unfinished) because was “Searching for the magic.“ I think this is often the case with filmmakers. I had the unique pleasure of working on “Days of Heaven” and watching Terry Malik at work. He drove us all insane because he never knew what he wanted and therefore went weeks over schedule and millions over budget. The results of which was a film that is still highly regarded in deep in symbolism but I can tell you for sure that much of that was completely by accident and often not by intention. For example the huge fire towards the end of the film was all consuming and has been interpreted to have a great deal of meaning. I was there when we filmed that and I know the reason the fire was as big as it became is because the special effects guy stupidly sprayed the field with diesel fuel. As a result we had to chaotically capture all of the fire that one night when the original intention was to shoot sections of the field burning over a few successive nights but it all went up at once. The end result was an amazing sequence but it also nearly burned down the set and us with it. I also worked on the Robert Altman film, “Buffalo Bill and the Indians”. Robert Altman is another filmmaker who is endlessly analyzed. I can’t see what’s true of his other films but when we were making this one, my impression was he would just shoot and record everything in hopes of capturing a magic moment. It was evident that his idea of making a film was more in the editing room than it was on the set. I think that’s why both Robert Altman and Terry Malik have had such a mixed response from both critics and audiences because they rely too much on the “happy accident“ theory of filmmaking. I have been a screenwriter for movies and TV for 40 years now. One of the strangest experiences I had was when I wrote a particular character in a certain way and until I was literally watching the movie I didn’t realize I had been raving about my father. That was never my intention but on some unconscious level perhaps it was
Knowing interpretation of art belongs to the viewer makes work a lot easier. I do my part, now you do your part, and the job is complete. And with each viewer or interpretation it grows. Beautiful.
"I never said she stole it." This sentence can have six different interpretations based on which word you emphasize in your head while reading it. And each is valid, but the author only meant it one way - so I'd say the onus is on the author to provide that additional context which makes it clear how they wanted it read.
What I believe is that the tracking shot itself is not intended as a callback. Meaning that Scorsese isn't quoting himself. I don't think he's saying "remember that thing I did a long time ago? He's a reflection on that." However, the tracking shot is a tool in his hand. One that he has perfected all along his career. When he needed to convey a particular meaning, one that reflects on the mafia mythos he's been known for making, it definetly comes up as a tired, self-reflecting version of the other tracking shot. I think its valid linking the two as parts of a whole narrative Scorsese's been working on his career.
I think one potential difference in the interpretations of the connections between the irishman and goodfellas, and the other examples that you give (e.g., the parasite example), is that the former makes an interpretation about a scene in a film that is based off a scene in another film. In essence we're establishing a shared cinematic meta-universe required for interpreting aspects of the film. Contrast this with the parasite example - the interpretation regarding the basement is made entirely through the scope of the film and what we assume the director wanted for that film specifically (i.e., we didn't come to that conclusion by looking at the directors other works like snowpiercer). I'm not entirely sure on this argument though because the counter argument is easy - if you're already considering what the director intended then you're already going beyond the scope of the movie. At that point jumping to another movie is not a large step.
For anyone who interested in this idea of whether the artist or the observer creates meaning, Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author" essay (1967) and Wimsatt and Beardsley's "The Intentional Fallacy" article (1946) are the definitive academic texts on the topic.
I could write a book explaining how wrong and stupid and idiotic the "death of the author" theory is. Undeniably the most damaging theory to come out of culture studies in the past century. It rendered films meaningless blobs of nothing, rendered the reader/viewer as an arrogant, all consuming god, neutered judgement, dissolved the boundaries of good and bad art, killed the capacity for discussion, and paved the way for the ultimate commodifucation of art,turning them into products to be "chosen" by empowered, indivudalistic, rational consumers, failing to realise that most people are stupid. Especially so in art, where most peoples cultural and artistic literacy is almost anhilated by the effects of the culture industry (of which Barthes postmodernism was its flimsy pseduo-intellectual justification).
Yes I was waiting for you to say it and then you did. A director's decision can be completely unconcious, a stream of thought from the ID. And a viewer can some times see that more clearly and impartally than a director who is so attached to the material and his predetermined perspective.
That video reminded me of the story of Bruce McAllister. In 1963, at 16, he wrote to 150 authors asking about symbolism in their work to settle a dispute with his English teacher. Half of them replied, and some answers were really fascinating. The Marginalian did a great piece about it a while ago. It compiles some of the best answers.
I've always felt that most of the time great artists just do their work without thinking intensively. Their works are great because they have great vision, and people like us try to find the reason behind each of their dicisions. That being said, great job at the analysis as always.
Working with creative writing for a while now, and something very important in this discussion is that the author not always says what he wanted to say. And, in literature, we often found authors who dismiss certain interpretations just to make things more fun....like...the whole thing is on the noose and the guy "no no thats wrong" ahaha
I love this. The differences in interpretations/experiences with art (and movies specifically) is one of my favorite topics. I don’t think anyone can “own” a piece of art or dictate its meaning. There are always multiple valid ways to experience it
in my uni we have a directing exercise where you make short films and have them discussed by your peers in class, it taught me a lot on the craft of film-making but it also re-defined my idea of authorial intent, i had to sit in silence as a bunch of different people all found their meaning in my work, and a lot of the times their takes were wildly different then my intention, sometimes they just didnt get it, but a lot of times they explained themselves in a way i couldn't invalidate and sometimes i was even convinced to change my mind. the authorial vision got changed retro-actively because some dude was just too clever.
Will happily show this to creative writing students down the road. A lot of people who are in the process of learning to make and interpret get wrapped up rather easily in the author's intention being the only correct reading of any work because the idea of losing control over that work is unbearable. I'm with you here on Scorsese: he can say what his intention was but I think anyone who had seen the two shots would immediately tie them together and whether that is "accidental" matters, but not as much as our own subjective experience and, increasingly, the collective experience we had. Anyways, stellar video. Will report back :)
I think the important point is that everyone is able to see and feel things in their own way. There is no "right" or "wrong". The other thing to keep in mind is that people are not always able to articulate how they feel about something, or why they feel that. That doesn't make their view any less important.
I'll admit that when I got the Nebula notification, I was excited, but boy was I surprised by the whole take. I could watch this kind of video all day long, it's just so enriching and puts everything into a different perspective.
Movies are artifacts. The ‘text,’ as they say in academia, exists! It’s all very well if you as a director didn’t mean to say a particular thing; but you made the movie you made - it has the frames and shots in it that it has, so there are assonances and resonances and references and similarities present in it, whether or not they were intentional.
I dunno if you'll read this Thomas but thanks for this video, I'm struggling with a masters thesis about how emotional meaning that comes through from the author beyond the explicit words and this helped give me some new thoughts on how to tackle the issue. Love the work, keep being right and wrong!
I have one big beef with all this interpertation: When I make things with intent that doesn't come through I am the problem, but when I don't get other people's intent I am also the problem. That makes no sense to me.
When someone from your target audience does not get it, you as the creator are the problem. You are not the problem as a creator if someone outside the target audience does not get it. Conversely, if you as a recipient are expected to get it because you are in the target audience, then you are the problem (for failing to meet the reasonable expectations). That's how both sides can be "at fault" but not necessarily always are.
I'm not much of a film maker, i only made music videos for my friends bands. Some of them we made up while going or decided going against the original idea during shooting, or editing. And i'm always stunned how things which were not planned, or even noticed while shooting just come together and fall in place, sometimes even unnoticed until after the release. Filmmaking is complex and have to work on so many levels and filmmakers are not always aware of everything of what is happening with the elements they work with. Even if Scorsese is denying that there is a meaning behind the parrallelities, he was even aware of it while shooting. So there is a link and he is making unwillingly a homage to himself.
My least favorite book I had to read in grade school was “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway. The silliest thing about it is our teachers made us write all these essays breaking down the symbolisms of the story, when Ernest Hemingway himself said “There’s no symbolism I just wrote a book about an old man going fishing lmao.”
wonderful wonderful wonderful video. one of my favorites of yours, probably because this is a topic that i’ve always been thinking about since i started getting more into film and your take on said topic is the most interesting one i’ve heard so far. you also made me want to rewatch the irishman so there’s that too lol. good stuff
Of course the box was placed in the Marriage Story scene intentionally by the director. But that doesn't mean the juice box "represents" or is a metaphor for or "symbolizes" their child - it's simply meant to subtly and subconsciously evoke the presence of the child in the minds of the audience without the child being in the scene. Evoking something in the audience consciously or subconsciously, through visual cues, is literally the *entire job* of the director. Even though it might seem like a minor difference to say something is on screen as a "symbol" for something versus something is there to "evoke" an idea, I believe, it's major in terms on how a film should be interpreted by the audience.
Ha! I have to give you props for having the humility to make this. We’re all trying to make our misassumptions obsolete anyway IMO the true essays on movies are other movies, so it’s inevitably a losing game. Show rather than tell
This reminds me of Tarantino and his "Reservoir Dogs" title that ultimately meant nothing and he thought was just a cool sounding name, but he enjoys how many different theories he's heard over the years of why is it a "Reservoir" of dogs.
Damn, I haven’t left a comment on a RUclips video in a while, but this really changed the way I’ve felt about this debate before. You worded it incredibly eloquently, and gave a really compelling case.
The beauty of art is no one (or everyone?) gets to decide what something means, "definitively". Art is up for interpretation. Once the movie/song/game/novel/whatever is out, the author can't control what the audience perceives of it and how it receives it, regardless of how much they try or want to. Once it out, its out. This also veers very close to the canon/non-canon discussions, authorial intent is canon while everything not confirmed/stated by the author is non-canon, but both are still interesting and worth discussing/exploring. Sometimes its all part of a big vision, sometimes the curtains are just blue. That shouldn't stop us from exploring what it means and/or might mean, to the general world around us or to us personally. Art is great *because* it means different things to different people. Great video 👍
Ah yes, meaning is irrelevent. Schilndlers list cam be pro or anti holocaust. Bertollucini's films could could pro or anti socialist. Nothing matters, truth is an irrelevance, and all standards of judgement and theory can put on the great big postmodernist bonfire of cultural relativism.
@ThePsycoDolphin saying something is open to interpretation or that no single person gets to decide what something is definitively is NOT the same as saying meaning is irrelevant. Please understand nuance.
I've always fallen on the side of trying not to make possibly false attributions. Making up intent, without real evidence of it, feels like putting words in people's mouths and with how art functions, that kind of seems like the worst possible thing to do. I think that it's better to note where it's unknown, but plausible that it could've been intentional, rather than to assert some kind of authority one doesn't have. I can imagine that kind of misinformation being incredibly annoying, which is probably why Scorsese mentioned it.
I hear where you're coming from but there's nothing at all false about someone's interpretation and how a film makes them feel. That's a reality of how their life experiences and soul manages to engage with the material, regardless of how the filmmaker intended for it to feel. You're right that no one can steamroll a filmmaker with the notion that the filmmaker is wrong about what they were saying or trying to say, but there is literally no other person on this planet that can tell you what you heard. What you think and feel is on your authority and your authority alone.
this reminds me of when Kurosawa was asked about why he had framed a certain shot in 'The Seven Samurai' in a particular way, and what it meant for the plot -- he replied that if the frame had been a tiny bit to the left or right, a Sony factory / airport would have been in the shot lol
0:45 “And I *knew* people would say well that reminds me of the shot in the Copacabana” I think this reveals that there’s an extra layer or middle case here compared to the David Sandberg and Noah Baumbach cases. If Scorsese *knew* there would be this connection in the audiences mind and then chooses not to take another approach to the scene (a more traditional series of shots to establish the location before introducing the character) is there not *some* intention that remains by shooting the scene in a way he knows will create the comparison in people’s minds? Or maybe it’s another issue: if as a director your films have become definitive or emblematic of an entire genre (Scorsese and the gangster picture) and even your use of shots has become emblematic of auteur cinema and statement choices of shot (the POV-ish tracking shot) are you more susceptible to creating overlapping meanings even when you genuinely don’t want to? Either way, I love the film and your criticism 😎 Edit: Also, excellent thumbnail. 😂
My god, this video. Literally, whenever I analyze a film, especially in terms of filmmaking, I always have this thought back in my mind that what I am writing is really the objective answer or meaning to this shot, or it's just my interpretation. Sometimes, I am so sure that I write in a way that feels very objective, very definite, and other times, when I am not feeling that much confidence, I write objective analysis in a very subjective way. So yeah, as you said, it's very complicated, and it depends on so many factors. In the end, I see films as very subjective if you're seeing them from the filmmaker's point of view. But it can be reasonably objective if you're seeing them from a viewer's point of view (not just any viewer, a viewer who knows one or two things about film language), and a very different type of objective, an objective in which there is no single definite answer, rather than there are many different interpretations, different perspectives and all of them can be true, I mean that's the definition of art. It is the kind of video I only expect from you; good work.
11:01 "I'd rather accidentally attribute it to being intentional than say something was a happy accident..." Or just not explain motive... You can say "this scene gives the impression (blah, blah, blah)" and that doesn't require a motive.
I had this experience from the filmmaker's side when I was in college. I made several 16mm shorts for film prod 101 and on every single one of them, the professor or the class came away with an interpretation I had never considered, and yet they thought was so obvious that it must have been intentional. Unlike Scorcese, however, I kept my big mouth shut and let them think they had caught onto my genius ;)
The duality of the alternating lines on Thomas' shirt represent his struggle to decipher the deeper inherent meaning of literalism against symbolism (or vice versa).
This is the beauty of Cinema. A film maker may choose a particular method out of convenience but film lovers can find a meaning in it. There is simple solution to this: from directors point of view, he clears the matter surrounding of the interpretation and the film lover gets the information, registers it as the public meaning but can choose to keep his initial meaning along side it as well.
Thomas, you're probably my favourite youtuber. It's rare that I find someone in every day life that gives a shit about my passion for film like you. This video is amazing, its self aware. But bro, you don't need to be academic all the time. Your content is incredible, but its hard to disseminate. Also hey Vaati
This is why I much prefer video essays that have a touch of nuance and subtlety to the analysis. It's always much, much better to leave some open-endedness to assessments since we never really were there during the production of any art we're assessing down the line.
This was a really excellent video. I think the funny part is that by acknowledging there can be a comparison between the shots from The Irishman and Goodfellas, Scorsese reveals that there was a consideration, conscious or subconscious, about the shot from the latter film while making the former.
I fall into meaning without realizing it in my creative work. Some parallel or allegory I don’t consciously try to create. Then I inevitably see it and rework the piece to embrace what my unconscious mind left for me. Feels spiritual.
This is incredible, and so well put. There's a theory that a lot of art is informed by the subconsciousness. It's impossible to validate this theory, but I think it speaks to so much of what you're saying.
I have watched many of your videos, and every time have gone "that was very good". So sorry it took me so long, but you definitely deserve me clicking that subscribe button.
I know for a fact im over analyzing things but thats part of the enjoyment I get out of films - sometimes I dont even care what the filmmakers original intent was, and I also often prefer to not even know so I can have my own head canon.
I think the simple answer is it's good to find your own interpretations and to hear the creators and BOTH are valuable for film discussions. Both can influence how we view, enjoy, and maybe produce film.
As someone who makes videos myself, I'm limited in my own ability to exactly express what I want to express. I made a video about how Jean and Conny have grown in AoT and I don't know if that comes across as well as a video essay would have, ergo saying it outright, but I'm also not a good enough writer to make that point in a bigger and more meaningful way. So my video only uses footage from the show and I did my best to convey my intent to the viewer through the show and not my words. We are cogs in our own machines and a creators intent isn't law, it's another perspective.
I wrote these two comments at the 3rd and halfway points. I'm near the end and seeing you cover everything I said so.... I guess I could have just said "Same bro."
This was great! I had a conversation with Spike Lee about intent behind his shots. He agreed that he had intent for shots but that doesn’t invalidate the way you interpreted it. So if that helps at all.
I loooved this essay because it's a thought that's usually in my mind every time I watch an essay or an interpretation or I'm reflecting about a film. Very much needed conversation. Also, fan request, I need you to show us that bookshelf behind you, mostly the books, I can't stop trying to get the titles and getting distracted.
Everyone gets to decide what something means. when your argument for meaning beats others, you grow and they grow, just like when the opposite happens. That is art.
this subject has already been talked about and questioned before in the brilliant 1966 essay by Susan Sontag, called "Against Interpretation", which questions the very search for meaning in any given piece of art. I see that you divided the video into two chapters called "against objectivism" and "against relativism", so I'm assuming maybe you took inspiration from that material. ever since I've read that book I just can't see film analysis the same anymore, it's like you realise that getting obsessed with trying to interpret every decision is ultimately pointless. I recommend everyone to read it!
He uses this shot in Raging Bull as well. It's actually more dynamic. It's the scene where Jake Lamata is in the locker room just before the big fight. The camera never cuts. As it follows him out of the locker, down the corridor and into the stadium crowd, it then LIFTS over the crowd and heads above the ring. No one ever mentions this shot. It's probably the fist time he used it. I could never get over how smoothly the operator was able to sit on a crane chair and transition into a soaring shot. Absolutely incredible.
I blogged the last season of Mad Men and a friend did accuse me of a sort of pareidolia or apophenia - seeing patterns that weren't 'really' there, i.e. intended by the authors. Ironically, the first time I really spotted the kind of stuff I ended up analysing was in the S4 Mad Men episode 'Waldorf Stories,' reading it partly as a riff on Roland Barthes' Death of the Author essay, which argues that meaning resides not in the author's or authors' intent but in the text alone. As the author of a few scraps of fiction that seem to me to have worked, I do think writing a story can be a discovery of meaning rather than a way of expressing a meaning you intended from the start. Sometimes you don't even see it right away once you've written it - and someone else might see it before you. My rule, for the most part, by the way, in analysing Mad Men episodes was to find stuff that was there a lot, not just one scene: themes, essentially. The authorship question was in every scene and plotline of Waldorf Stories. Intended or not - I tend to think it had to have been intended - there was too much to ignore. I didn't spot the irony at the time - or, in fact, until now.
This reminds me of, "The Shining" and how so many people read into the symbology (that isn't there). Same with the Rush song, "The Trees". Everyone reads (their) interpretation into it. Humans have an excellent evolutionary ability to see patterns, even when they're not there :)
If you read something about Kubrick studies and the working process on Eyes Wide Shut, it’s hard not to see the symbology of Shining, even avoiding over analysis
Directors are called film makers for a reason. Everything in a film needs to be analysed to understand their point of view. The reason for that is very simple - THEY MADE IT!
Directors aren't the only people responsible for making a film. Writers, actors, set decorators, costume designers, cinematographers, and etc. may have different interpretations. Just look at Blade Runner
This was certainly an interesting listen. As someone who’s made a few shorts and had them discussed. I’ve been open to hearing what they’ve interpreted my medium as. Majority of the time it’s not what they’ve thought but I value the thought that’s gone into their analysis. One that stuck out for me was, we shot a short wrestling doc in a dark grimey venue and one portion of feedback was saying we should’ve made it brighter, look more polished, clearly in my opinion that was a nonsense piece of feedback and doesn’t fit the overall view. Sorry had a little thought in my head, great work you are doing with these videos and the podcast; really enjoying it
I can honestly say that certain things in props and an art department, coming from somebody who has only done five or six films are random. I have yet to work with the Director that is that Obsessed with each detail that is in the frame. However, I feel like every Director should be obsessed with everything that is in the frame. the mise en scène is at the end of the day everything. As a prop’s master, and an onset dresser, Albeit only a couple of times, I’ve been the one picking the chocolates or the flowers that are in the scene without any interference or suggestion from the Director. I’m a fan, Thomas and this was a great video essay.
This is really great! I find myself frequently arguing with people with film interpretations across the spectrum of objectivism/relativism. Whenever I find myself in another argument, I'll just send them a link to this video, cause I couldn't possible articulate these ideas better.
It is like the song "Visiting Hours" by Ed Sheeran in which he sings about loss of his friend but never explicitly mentions it and when I first listened to that I thought it was a fictional song about someone losing his spouse. And then after some more listening I can see people listening to it and remembering their parents or other people who they've lost, specially during the pandemic. And all those interpretation and feelings are valid because isn't that what good art's about.
I think that as soon the author releases the piece (movie, song, book...) it doesn't belong to him anymore, it belongs to the viewer and his personal, individual experience
This is a good example of that "the author intended this" vs "I did it because this". Such is the process between Death of the Author and Auteur Theory. Never stop looking for meaning in film, because more often it's it's a meaning that matters to you
I think part of the problem in the analysis can be framing/semantics. Speaking in a way that says "this is what they are doing" rather than "this evokes such" or "could be interpreted as such" - one claims intent and definitive objective truth that the more couched language does not. Similarly, calling the tracking shot in The Irishman "a callback" implies intention, but to say it "evokes the tracking shot of Goodfellas" is accurate, and allows a more solid basis for the analysis (even if it is on less definitive ground, it establishes that this is interpretive analysis rather than objective truth).
This reminds me of when I was briefly at the AFI studying screenwriting. One of the students had made a short film that featured a character carrying a bag of groceries with a baguette sticking out of the bag. One of the first questions was about the bread's MEANING. There was no great meaning - it was just a prop choice.
In the end, I think, meaning has two main purposes in art. First of all, artists have to have at least a little intention with certain creative choices, otherwise their creations would fall apart. Second of all, the reciever automatically has some sort of interpretation about a piece of art, because that's just how our brains work. If you find meaning in something unintentional, good for you, you found something in the piece that you enjoy.
I find it very interesting here that you've done a whole nearly 15 minute video about _la mort de l'auteur_ without ever once mentioning it (or "death of the author").
This reminds me of the Sopranos. There's a lot of last minute decisions that turned out to be smart improvisations becasue David Chase's original idea couldn't work (scheduling conflicts etc.) Chase also keeps info from the viewer on purpose to leave ambiguity and forces people to discuss theories about the show. If David revealed what happened at the end, among other mysteries. The show probably wouldn't be discussed so much. It probably would've been worse if David got to use all of his initial ideas for his characters and plot.
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I worked as an AD (and editor assistant) on a short film a long time ago. One night we were all waiting for an actor to arrive and there was a beautiful Moon in the sky. The DP was bored and decided to film it. Later on we were editing the film and we had to cut to something, anything, to bridge two shots. "What about that Moon?", I asked. "Hmmm... ok", said the director. When we premiered the short, a LOT of people came to talk to us about the beautiful symbolism of that Moon, how poetic it was, and so on, and we were just thinking about a bored cameraman and a problem in the editing.
This also depends on the TYPE of director. Some directors are extremely specific about every single detail in every single shot, while others only care about their actors' performances and the emotions they show on screen and leave the shot selection, editing, lighting, costuming, and scoring up to their collaborators who they hire specifically for their expertise in that regard. See: Ryan Coogler with Black Panther vs SS Rajamouli with RRR.
This is specially rampant in MCU films. Whenever a plot hole pops up, the director just comes out on an interview and give a statement on why it's not and fans are just expected to ignore what actually happens on the film.
Personally, as an aspiring writer and director, I love the idea that people can and will read into every little detail of my work, making their own conclusions and analysis. Whether it was intended or not, it makes me look clever and I'm all for that!
As a an independent filmmaker who’s only been doing this for a little over a year now, I can say that in my experience both approaches are right. A lot of times we shoot something because it’s a cool shot and aren’t thinking of what it symbolizes and other times we know the symbolism behind the shot months in advance. I’m directing a scene next weekend with a split second moment that has a lot of symbolism. The characters an alcoholic and there are empty bottles laying around his bedroom. He was also an absent father to his teenage son as he was growing up. When he wakes up to answer his phone on the nightstand which also has empty bottles on it, he accidentally knocks over a picture of his son. It’s gonna be 3-4 seconds max but it symbolizes that the character has chosen alcohol over his son. But alot of times we don’t think of that, like in the case of the film I just finished shooting. Throughout it I framed a certain character in mirror shots at certain points of the film, simply because they made for Interesting shots. But it was only after wrapping production that I realized the symbolism that those shots carried for that character. He’s playing two roles throughout the whole the film, he’s lying to the main character basically. And last time we see him in a mirror is when he stops playing two roles and the truth comes out. None of that was intended but the film spoke for itself. So I believe that a film can say something apart from the directors original intention. So with your example of the Irish man, you were trying to see what Scorsese was saying about the character by using a parallel to goodfellas, which he wasn’t saying anything, but that doesn’t mean the film itself isn’t saying it without his permission.
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Thanks for another insightful video. You really HAVE to see Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1962). It would be a good film to write an essay on, and I believe it needs more recognition than it currently has.
It would be possible to make an analysis under the psychological aspects in showtime's Homeland series????
longest ''i'm wrong but not really'' i ever seen
It's another option: The director is lying. In some cases, that is. Some directors don't want to fix "explanations" in the mind of the audience since they believe in art as in challenging process where the audience must use his brain for arriving at some kind of analysis because that analysis implies also his own catharsis. Is not just finding "clues" or "keys", its the experience for himself the personal process to arrive at an x interpretation, because there play also the personal life and experience. So, talking about "meanings" in one reportage, for example, destroys the richest and most powerful process that real art implies. Ford, for example, has denied and despised interpretations of his work even when were evident, like in the case of the searchers. (curiously, the same Scorsese gives interpretations of that movie in his beautiful documentary about cinema, and he talks about his interpretation of the searchers, not like personal interpretation, but something evident that Ford has put in images.) If you like deep analysis of cinema and can read spanish, try to find the work of Angel Faretta (write many books). He have a theory of art and estethic very deep and amazing and since he focuses in cinema like the ultimate art form, can be interesting for you. No versions in english for now.
"I once asked Akira Kurosawa why he had chosen to frame a shot in Ran in a particular way. His answer was that if he’d panned the camera one inch to the left, the Sony factory would be sitting there exposed, and if he’d panned an inch to the right, we would see the airport-neither of which belonged in a period movie. Only the person who’s made the movie knows what goes into the decisions that result in any piece of work. They can be anything from budget requirements to divine inspiration."
sidney lumet, making movies
Thanks for leaving this! Love this
Just finished this book last week!
I think of this quote almost weekly whenever I use a camera. It’s humbling, points to adaptability, and allows there to still be fun outside of all the pretentiousness.
This anecdote is precious
Thanks for sharing it
Kurosawa's answer is of course not the complete answer. If the framing had not worked by obeying the mundane constraints, he would have rejected it. In other words, something can work on an artistic level even though the first impetus for the choice was something non-artistic. Good artists will keep the stuff that works and throw out everything else. The primary motivation for something is not important.
Thomas is so good at film analysis, that he's moved on to analyzing his film analysis. He's really out here playing chess.
Metacriticism is the new criticism.
Meta meta
@@ThomasFlight honestly you’re not wrong
@@ThomasFlight Meta-thinking is really help- and insightful, because you unravel your own thinking processes
@@victori4027 Evil Troy and Evil Abed!
Mark Kermode has a great line: “what does he know? He only _made_ the movie, I _watched_ it.”
Bowie said it well also: "The piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation to it, and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle."
Hahahahaha! That’s good
Wtf is Mark Toilet?
@@wobblywheeler6682 out of interest, why are you not a fan? I don't agree with all of his reviews, but he's someone I'll watch, after watching a film because I like seeing his take.
@@Pneumanon this is the very reason why David Lynch always insists on explaining so so little about what his films are about. As he explains it, people have this detrimental way of taking whatever the director says as gospel. It ruins the viewing experience because instead of people letting the art move them wherever it moves them, they turn their brains off with this belief that whatever the director claims the explanations and backstory were intended to be that that *must* be. In Lynch's mind, the fact that so many people may commune over different interpretations of the same piece IS the art almost more than the art itself.
Stanley Kubrick: “I think the best thing is when an audience looks at the film and wonders whether something that they see is an accident or whether the director or writer meant them to know it."
Damn, he probably would have loved that awful pile of shit called Room 237
Could be a great description of so many of the Coen brothers movies, where I think a lot of the fun is in guessing whether something is meant seriously, meant satirically, or meant at all.
@@MattiaDeG. No Cuz Room 237 is not even film analysis, its dumbass conspiracy theories. Its rambling and bullcrap. Stanley Kubrick would not have loved some bland bs like that im quite sure. Just becuz of this quote doesn’t mean that he loves some random unfounded conspiracies with no good argumentation like that documentary
@@MattiaDeG That movie is awesome.
@@jvjjjvvv9157 . Ironically, the Coen brothers are the perfect directors to explain the meaning of their movies, they can each say they interpret them in a different way and get a record number of death threats.
This video reminds me of the concept of "Death of the Author", which legitimises the reader's interpretation even over that of the author, as the author's content is created to be read, not written. Thus, the reader's interpretation is paramount. Great video!
didn't know you dabbled in film analysis vaati, 'sup😗
Agreed. Once a director releases something into the world it’s up to the audience to determine what it’s message/meaning is. The directors intent is almost irrelevant after the fact.
@@benmo6609 somewhat. Not entirely. It's more about the fact that the intent may inform the finished work, but the author's conclusions or rationalizations on how that intent or those ideas translate into the realm of interpretation is not to be seen as "proof" of that being the correct way of looking at it over any other. Still, doesn't mean that interpretations or perspectives that have literally nothing to do with the intent in any way can't be debated by bringing the author's point if view into it. If someone is crazy enough to think zoolander is a commentary on the korean war, there would be so little to even sensibly argue about that the only way to debate it would be to point at what is actually there in the work and what the intent behind it reasonably was. There is a difference between developing interpretations and simply making stuff up and sometimes people just flat out make stuff up
@@marcogianesello6083 this for sure. It isn’t as clear cut as “once it’s in the world it’s whatever we want”
I mean. It was always that, but saying authorial intent is irrelevant seems silly. It informs the work. We can find our own meanings between them but there’s no singular best or right way of viewing a thing.
Vaati lets fight. Queen street mall Brisbane. Also I love you
my dads fav movie is Top Gun but when i say to him my interpretation is that it is a gay romance movie he calls me a commie
That’s pretty funny
Commie. ;)
That will go down as the greatest film theory ever. When you watch the movie again, you can't unsee it. Like every single scene is a gay scene. It's too perfect of an explanation for it to be false.
Another one for me is Ocean’s Eleven. The sexual tension between Clooney and Pitt was off the charts
You’re right. It’s a remake of the very first Academy Award Winning film for Best Picture - Wings. Which was a film about two WWI pilots who fall in love and they share their first kiss right before one of them dies.
Someone once suggested to me that 'Death of the Author' is a satirical essay and I got trapped in a paradox trying to figure out what Roland Barthes intent was
🤣
lol this broke my brain
To prove his point ironically
good comment, made me laugh
This reminds me of the time my cinematography teacher who worked on a very famous film shared his experiences on set with this renowned cinematographer. People like to decipher his decisions on making the shots look wobbly and stylistic in this one scene with handheld low shutter speed movements when in reality he just drank too much the day before the shoot and is hungover and sleepy. Best story I’ve heard in film school.
Your cinematography teacher is absolutely iconic lmao 🤣
I often wondered this in english class when we had to interpret a poet or author's intent. The practice often felt like one's own projection/assumption and thought it was absurd to be graded poorly if your own interpretation wasn't aligned with the "accepted" interpretation. Thank you for the thoughtful take.
The focus should be on interpreting the meaning of the text itself rather than speculating on the authors intent.
100%!! Thank you!!
As a creative, I struggle so much with where the line is between when my creative works stop being “mine” and you’ve done an awesome job articulating that!!
Same boat, I think the best mindset to adopt is that the second, the very second, you show it to another human being in any capacity, it is no longer "mine" but now belongs to the world. That's how I cope.
@@ckellyedits I totally see where you’re coming from, but I would say that because every creative work is build on the foundation of those that came before it, it’s never really anyone’s to begin with. Alternatively, you could say that a work of art always belongs to the creator, and when the creator shares it, those who experience it now have their own version of the work. So you still own your original piece of art, but everyone else owns their own experiences and interpretations of it. Admittedly though, that doesn’t really stop you from feeling conflicted or confused when others’ view something you’ve made differently then you do. And ultimately, of course, no stance on who owns what tangibly changes anything-they’re just mindsets, all valid in their own respects.
oh wow... what a struggle 🙄
9:13 is a great encapsulation of why many interpretations of a piece of art can still be valid. A director can say that a shot's implicit meaning does (or does not) mean something, sure...but every life experience the director has had informs their decisions around framing shots, etc. Great video. Keep up the good work.
Tolkien constantly denied almost all implicit meaning in his work, but it's impossible to deny the impact his life experiences had on his writing even if there is no intentional implicit meaning.
My brother is a song writer and one of his songs made me think about climate change. I told him about it and he told me it was about an accident but that he liked my interpretation.
Art is not always understood in the same way and there is the beauty. It's like a conversation, sometimes the words have several meanings. Excellent work
Hah, that reminds me of the song A Certain Shade of Green by Incubus. There's lines about waiting on a person procrastinating and chastising them, and I used to interpret it as someone frustrated in a relationship that isn't moving forward.
It was about being stuck behind someone at a green light. I still like my interpretation for myself.
The point you bring up at about 10:05 is a huge idea we see in music of all "levels." Pop music and improvised jazz or rock alike. I think it is most important in high level film and music to lean into familiar techniques/shots/passages because, you nailed it, it HIGHLIGHTS the difference between the two pieces more sharply.
For instance, on the 1977 tour, David Gilmour would use a flanger effect on songs like "Wish You Were Here" to add an airy, wistful quality to his solos and lead fills. However, earlier in the show, he used the exact same sound to play the main chord progression on "Dogs" and the swirling timbre of his guitar heightened the claustrophobic, disorienting chromatic chord progression. In both songs the sound was used to establish an otherworldly, uncontrollable feeling: in WYWH it was too illustrate the reminiscing of times gone by and yearning to return to those times, places, or people; in Dogs it was to further heighten the tension and uncertainty of realizing how in over one's head and corrupted one has become as a result of an all powerful, oppressive, competitive capitalistic structure.
Great video. Great channel. I have subscribed. Thank you. Please continue to make more content.
Thomas gets meta. I love it. Great analysis. I watch video essays not to get a definitive interpretation of a work of art but to learn how others derive meaning from art. I am often moved by a film or a novel or a painting but can't articulate why I had the reaction I did. Video essays open a gateway to develop my own analysis by illuminating details I missed or providing context I was unaware of. That's why I value them regardless of the artist's actual intent. I also like to think that part of what makes a work of art successful are the "happy accidents" that seem to find their way into so many works of true genius. An artist may not attribute meaning to a decision, or their intended meaning may be completely lost on an audience, but that decision can still have a tremendous impact on an audience's ability to resonate with a work of art.
If I could ask Kubrick two questions, they would be: "Do you read people's interpretations of your films?" and if so, "Is any or most of it intentional?" If most of us are right, and if he answered honestly, I think he'd say all of it was intentional.
Fascinating.
I find this sort of discussion endlessly interesting, both as a critic and someone who works in narrative and film.
It reminds me of a story I once heard of a poet who was told that a poem they wrote was being taught at a local community college and used as part of an exam.
For fun, they asked if they could submit an exam paper anonymously, and when this was arranged, they failed the exam.
The "correct" interpretation of the poem, as according to the examiners was that the piece (about a rose), represented the crucifixion, with the rose representing Christ.
The poet was amazed as apparently it literally was just a poem about a rose.
Is it ever possible that an author's subconscious thoughts ever spill into the text? Of course, right? In your example it might be likely. Is it possible that when making a decision, perhaps having a character perform a certain action, there's some unknown force involved in that decision? Like, if an author were to choose a specific style and say his intent is that it simply looks cool, would it be wrong to say that there is some invisible momentum that drives that decision (i.e. something metaphysical)? As a more concrete example, take Martin Scorsese. He says that the shot was just to introduce the character and setting. But is it fair to say that, in the chance that he is unaware of it, he is mimicking his past films and in the conscious decision to just introduce everything he subconsciously relates his past films? Or Noah Bambauch with the juice box. Sure it symbolizes the child's presence but why is that important to HIM and to his film? That we can't know.
Now let's take the poet. If he actually is a poet than he understands pretty well how it can be interpreted. But he CHOOSES to say that "oh, it's just a poem about a rose"; if he is truly unaware, then maybe he unknowingly mimicked or was inspired by something. You can write a poem about a rose but for a poet something has to drive him to do so in the manner he does it, something inexplicable. I guess what I'm trying to get at is an argument against Death of the Author and physicalism. An author or director should understand that they can't force their audience to watch a film a certain way but they can try to guide them. That's why introductions are so important because they are supposed to teach the viewer how to watch the movie. Mainly though, I think there is much more to be gained than just the literal text. Trying to understand what moves the author so passionately that they would create a work can be so much more enriching. It's impossible to fully understand but it definitely is tantalizing.
Just wanted to give some thoughts on the video and what you said. I think what I said can be simplified but it wouldn't detract from what I think I'm saying (if that makes sense).
I think Oscar Wilde said it best that a work of art will never reveal the artist, it will only reveal the critic. Even the response to your post that the artist's subconscious is spilling out into the poem, is an example of the struggle people have with accepting the things that they don't know, and will never know. All we can say is if we enjoyed it or not. And not go "beneath the surface" as Mr Wilde suggested would lead to the destruction of the work itself.
@@VonJay That’s a good point. I guess I am kind of reflecting. But does it always lead to destruction of a work?
@@dandybandals2667 as long as you accept it as your interpretation, based on your experience in life, then you won't destroy what someone has created. But you can't forget that the only thing you know for sure is how you feel about it based on your own experience. And not what the author intended while making it.
@@dandybandals2667 I thinks a lot of that is fair, but in the case of Scorsese and this long “oner”, it’s less likely as on a production like that it’s almost impossible that they would have gone through the planning, blocking, storyboarding etc and someone not have remarked on the similarity.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said.
Honestly, I think fan analysis can provide intriguing perspectives that enhance the consumption of art, even if such perspectives don’t align with authorial intent. In fact, such analysis can make the creator seem much cleverer than they really are, which can be very flattering. For example, I’m a writer. On one occasion, a reader thought a storm in one of my books was a metaphor for the inner turmoil in the minds of the characters. In truth, I just thought the storm provided atmosphere, but such a perspective was very enlightening.
This video is basically a discussion of the death of the author and "valid" interpretations of a text.
I personally value the direct contributors of the "blueprints" of media (writers) more than the actors. The writers are the ones that imagine and construct a world mentally. The set designers and directors do that physically. The cinematographers capture that for the viewers. As mentioned in the video, it's a collaborative process in which the underlying message of a "text" can be altered as production goes on with or without the original creator's knowledge.
There are undoubtedly more accurate and less accurate interpretations, but I think the discussions you can have with like-minded people can be thought-provoking, which is great! But I'm always going to be more right than my friend if I disagree 😆
It's said a story gets written three times. By the "writer" (although I'd include all the pre production roles in that including director) by the "actors" (although again I'd include all the cinematographers, camera ops, etc) and finally in the Edit. Something as simple as cutting a scene short by a second can change the whole feeling of the piece.
So who is more valid? None of them. They all made their version of the script which is different than the original scrip writer's version too.
Is that cheating? Getting analysis from other people? Like I miss certain things in film which continually upsets me and fills me with self doubt but I can’t just take their analysis as my own.
@@gabrielidusogie9189 I wouldn't count it as cheating. There's nothing wrong with getting help or an extra explanation.
If anyone tells you otherwise, it seems like they have a toxic "git gud" mentality. They're gatekeeping knowledge? That's kinda weird.
I learn a lot and find out many details I missed from essays and video essays. It helps to have different perspectives and sometimes we just plain miss things.
No big deal :)
@@iamdanielyoon I suppose that’s why directors have commentary and bts features then huh. Education. Thanks for the words of advice and encouragement
@@gabrielidusogie9189 exactly. np
Hey man,
I've been following your channel since the beginning of 2019 when you had "only" 75k subscribers. Just wanted to say thanks for all the videos and that you've done a great job reaching almost the big 500k!
Keep doing what you do!
Excellent video! As an aspiring filmmaker, I've learn to fully embrace HAPPY ACCIDENTS philosophy. Even during the creation process, something will randomly come to your mind and only an hour later or a few days later will you realize how well it works for what you were trying to do or in combination with something else, I don't see why it would be any different AFTER the movie or work of art is released. A quote that really stuck with me is one from Quentin Tarantino about Reservoir Dogs "The more I wrote, the more I realized the movie was a father/son story,". What do the muses or divine inspiration represent if not those moments when you have inspiration for something that you don't fully understand yourself?
If I were in Scorcese's position I wouldn't look at it from the perspective of whether I consciously intended it or not, but whether that interpretation works for me, maybe for him it that aspect really doesn't do anything, but you can see in a famous clip with Spielberg and James Lipton how happy Spielberg was to uncover a new interpretation which meant something for him, even thought it's his own movie.
ruclips.net/video/ZspOEa1CP4A/видео.html
The goal of all storytelling is to elicit an emotional response. The same can be said of any art form. From Mona Lisa’s smile to Jackson Pollock‘s paint-vomit what ultimately matters is how it’s perceived. The very meaning of art is that the person experiencing it is always right because they bring that final immutable component through their perception.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
I think he nailed it when he said that filmmakers hope to find the “happy accident”. In the Orson Welles documentary from a few years ago Welles talked about why he shot so much film (unfortunately left so many of his efforts unfinished) because was “Searching for the magic.“ I think this is often the case with filmmakers.
I had the unique pleasure of working on “Days of Heaven” and watching Terry Malik at work. He drove us all insane because he never knew what he wanted and therefore went weeks over schedule and millions over budget. The results of which was a film that is still highly regarded in deep in symbolism but I can tell you for sure that much of that was completely by accident and often not by intention. For example the huge fire towards the end of the film was all consuming and has been interpreted to have a great deal of meaning. I was there when we filmed that and I know the reason the fire was as big as it became is because the special effects guy stupidly sprayed the field with diesel fuel. As a result we had to chaotically capture all of the fire that one night when the original intention was to shoot sections of the field burning over a few successive nights but it all went up at once. The end result was an amazing sequence but it also nearly burned down the set and us with it.
I also worked on the Robert Altman film, “Buffalo Bill and the Indians”. Robert Altman is another filmmaker who is endlessly analyzed. I can’t see what’s true of his other films but when we were making this one, my impression was he would just shoot and record everything in hopes of capturing a magic moment. It was evident that his idea of making a film was more in the editing room than it was on the set. I think that’s why both Robert Altman and Terry Malik have had such a mixed response from both critics and audiences because they rely too much on the “happy accident“ theory of filmmaking.
I have been a screenwriter for movies and TV for 40 years now. One of the strangest experiences I had was when I wrote a particular character in a certain way and until I was literally watching the movie I didn’t realize I had been raving about my father. That was never my intention but on some unconscious level perhaps it was
Fascinating comment. Thank you.
i really love this video
Knowing interpretation of art belongs to the viewer makes work a lot easier. I do my part, now you do your part, and the job is complete. And with each viewer or interpretation it grows. Beautiful.
"I never said she stole it."
This sentence can have six different interpretations based on which word you emphasize in your head while reading it. And each is valid, but the author only meant it one way - so I'd say the onus is on the author to provide that additional context which makes it clear how they wanted it read.
How would emphasizing "never" change the meaning? Seems like you always have to emphasize that particular word yo some degree when you use it
What I believe is that the tracking shot itself is not intended as a callback. Meaning that Scorsese isn't quoting himself. I don't think he's saying "remember that thing I did a long time ago? He's a reflection on that." However, the tracking shot is a tool in his hand. One that he has perfected all along his career. When he needed to convey a particular meaning, one that reflects on the mafia mythos he's been known for making, it definetly comes up as a tired, self-reflecting version of the other tracking shot. I think its valid linking the two as parts of a whole narrative Scorsese's been working on his career.
I think one potential difference in the interpretations of the connections between the irishman and goodfellas, and the other examples that you give (e.g., the parasite example), is that the former makes an interpretation about a scene in a film that is based off a scene in another film. In essence we're establishing a shared cinematic meta-universe required for interpreting aspects of the film. Contrast this with the parasite example - the interpretation regarding the basement is made entirely through the scope of the film and what we assume the director wanted for that film specifically (i.e., we didn't come to that conclusion by looking at the directors other works like snowpiercer).
I'm not entirely sure on this argument though because the counter argument is easy - if you're already considering what the director intended then you're already going beyond the scope of the movie. At that point jumping to another movie is not a large step.
For anyone who interested in this idea of whether the artist or the observer creates meaning, Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author" essay (1967) and Wimsatt and Beardsley's "The Intentional Fallacy" article (1946) are the definitive academic texts on the topic.
I could write a book explaining how wrong and stupid and idiotic the "death of the author" theory is. Undeniably the most damaging theory to come out of culture studies in the past century. It rendered films meaningless blobs of nothing, rendered the reader/viewer as an arrogant, all consuming god, neutered judgement, dissolved the boundaries of good and bad art, killed the capacity for discussion, and paved the way for the ultimate commodifucation of art,turning them into products to be "chosen" by empowered, indivudalistic, rational consumers, failing to realise that most people are stupid. Especially so in art, where most peoples cultural and artistic literacy is almost anhilated by the effects of the culture industry (of which Barthes postmodernism was its flimsy pseduo-intellectual justification).
Yes I was waiting for you to say it and then you did. A director's decision can be completely unconcious, a stream of thought from the ID. And a viewer can some times see that more clearly and impartally than a director who is so attached to the material and his predetermined perspective.
That video reminded me of the story of Bruce McAllister. In 1963, at 16, he wrote to 150 authors asking about symbolism in their work to settle a dispute with his English teacher. Half of them replied, and some answers were really fascinating. The Marginalian did a great piece about it a while ago. It compiles some of the best answers.
I've always felt that most of the time great artists just do their work without thinking intensively. Their works are great because they have great vision, and people like us try to find the reason behind each of their dicisions. That being said, great job at the analysis as always.
Working with creative writing for a while now, and something very important in this discussion is that the author not always says what he wanted to say. And, in literature, we often found authors who dismiss certain interpretations just to make things more fun....like...the whole thing is on the noose and the guy "no no thats wrong" ahaha
I love this. The differences in interpretations/experiences with art (and movies specifically) is one of my favorite topics. I don’t think anyone can “own” a piece of art or dictate its meaning. There are always multiple valid ways to experience it
The author is dead, I agree. Though that can be a surprisingly contravertial stance.
in my uni we have a directing exercise where you make short films and have them discussed by your peers in class, it taught me a lot on the craft of film-making but it also re-defined my idea of authorial intent, i had to sit in silence as a bunch of different people all found their meaning in my work, and a lot of the times their takes were wildly different then my intention, sometimes they just didnt get it, but a lot of times they explained themselves in a way i couldn't invalidate and sometimes i was even convinced to change my mind. the authorial vision got changed retro-actively because some dude was just too clever.
Will happily show this to creative writing students down the road. A lot of people who are in the process of learning to make and interpret get wrapped up rather easily in the author's intention being the only correct reading of any work because the idea of losing control over that work is unbearable. I'm with you here on Scorsese: he can say what his intention was but I think anyone who had seen the two shots would immediately tie them together and whether that is "accidental" matters, but not as much as our own subjective experience and, increasingly, the collective experience we had. Anyways, stellar video. Will report back :)
I think the important point is that everyone is able to see and feel things in their own way. There is no "right" or "wrong".
The other thing to keep in mind is that people are not always able to articulate how they feel about something, or why they feel that. That doesn't make their view any less important.
I'll admit that when I got the Nebula notification, I was excited, but boy was I surprised by the whole take. I could watch this kind of video all day long, it's just so enriching and puts everything into a different perspective.
Movies are artifacts. The ‘text,’ as they say in academia, exists! It’s all very well if you as a director didn’t mean to say a particular thing; but you made the movie you made - it has the frames and shots in it that it has, so there are assonances and resonances and references and similarities present in it, whether or not they were intentional.
I dunno if you'll read this Thomas but thanks for this video, I'm struggling with a masters thesis about how emotional meaning that comes through from the author beyond the explicit words and this helped give me some new thoughts on how to tackle the issue. Love the work, keep being right and wrong!
Hey, I am currently writing my final undergrad paper on film analysis. If you want to chat, I'm open :)
I have one big beef with all this interpertation: When I make things with intent that doesn't come through I am the problem, but when I don't get other people's intent I am also the problem. That makes no sense to me.
When someone from your target audience does not get it, you as the creator are the problem. You are not the problem as a creator if someone outside the target audience does not get it. Conversely, if you as a recipient are expected to get it because you are in the target audience, then you are the problem (for failing to meet the reasonable expectations). That's how both sides can be "at fault" but not necessarily always are.
I'm not much of a film maker, i only made music videos for my friends bands. Some of them we made up while going or decided going against the original idea during shooting, or editing.
And i'm always stunned how things which were not planned, or even noticed while shooting just come together and fall in place, sometimes even unnoticed until after the release.
Filmmaking is complex and have to work on so many levels and filmmakers are not always aware of everything of what is happening with the elements they work with.
Even if Scorsese is denying that there is a meaning behind the parrallelities, he was even aware of it while shooting.
So there is a link and he is making unwillingly a homage to himself.
My least favorite book I had to read in grade school was “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway. The silliest thing about it is our teachers made us write all these essays breaking down the symbolisms of the story, when Ernest Hemingway himself said “There’s no symbolism I just wrote a book about an old man going fishing lmao.”
I genuinely think this may be one of the best video essays I have ever seen... Well Done!
wonderful wonderful wonderful video. one of my favorites of yours, probably because this is a topic that i’ve always been thinking about since i started getting more into film and your take on said topic is the most interesting one i’ve heard so far. you also made me want to rewatch the irishman so there’s that too lol. good stuff
Of course the box was placed in the Marriage Story scene intentionally by the director.
But that doesn't mean the juice box "represents" or is a metaphor for or "symbolizes" their child - it's simply meant to subtly and subconsciously evoke the presence of the child in the minds of the audience without the child being in the scene.
Evoking something in the audience consciously or subconsciously, through visual cues, is literally the *entire job* of the director.
Even though it might seem like a minor difference to say something is on screen as a "symbol" for something versus something is there to "evoke" an idea, I believe, it's major in terms on how a film should be interpreted by the audience.
Ha! I have to give you props for having the humility to make this. We’re all trying to make our misassumptions obsolete anyway
IMO the true essays on movies are other movies, so it’s inevitably a losing game. Show rather than tell
This reminds me of Tarantino and his "Reservoir Dogs" title that ultimately meant nothing and he thought was just a cool sounding name, but he enjoys how many different theories he's heard over the years of why is it a "Reservoir" of dogs.
Damn, I haven’t left a comment on a RUclips video in a while, but this really changed the way I’ve felt about this debate before. You worded it incredibly eloquently, and gave a really compelling case.
The beauty of art is no one (or everyone?) gets to decide what something means, "definitively". Art is up for interpretation.
Once the movie/song/game/novel/whatever is out, the author can't control what the audience perceives of it and how it receives it, regardless of how much they try or want to. Once it out, its out.
This also veers very close to the canon/non-canon discussions, authorial intent is canon while everything not confirmed/stated by the author is non-canon, but both are still interesting and worth discussing/exploring.
Sometimes its all part of a big vision, sometimes the curtains are just blue. That shouldn't stop us from exploring what it means and/or might mean, to the general world around us or to us personally. Art is great *because* it means different things to different people.
Great video 👍
Ah yes, meaning is irrelevent. Schilndlers list cam be pro or anti holocaust. Bertollucini's films could could pro or anti socialist. Nothing matters, truth is an irrelevance, and all standards of judgement and theory can put on the great big postmodernist bonfire of cultural relativism.
@ThePsycoDolphin saying something is open to interpretation or that no single person gets to decide what something is definitively is NOT the same as saying meaning is irrelevant. Please understand nuance.
I've always fallen on the side of trying not to make possibly false attributions. Making up intent, without real evidence of it, feels like putting words in people's mouths and with how art functions, that kind of seems like the worst possible thing to do. I think that it's better to note where it's unknown, but plausible that it could've been intentional, rather than to assert some kind of authority one doesn't have. I can imagine that kind of misinformation being incredibly annoying, which is probably why Scorsese mentioned it.
I hear where you're coming from but there's nothing at all false about someone's interpretation and how a film makes them feel. That's a reality of how their life experiences and soul manages to engage with the material, regardless of how the filmmaker intended for it to feel.
You're right that no one can steamroll a filmmaker with the notion that the filmmaker is wrong about what they were saying or trying to say, but there is literally no other person on this planet that can tell you what you heard. What you think and feel is on your authority and your authority alone.
this reminds me of when Kurosawa was asked about why he had framed a certain shot in 'The Seven Samurai' in a particular way, and what it meant for the plot -- he replied that if the frame had been a tiny bit to the left or right, a Sony factory / airport would have been in the shot lol
Great video. And good job on the title. It's "clickbaity", but honest and not offensive.
0:45 “And I *knew* people would say well that reminds me of the shot in the Copacabana”
I think this reveals that there’s an extra layer or middle case here compared to the David Sandberg and Noah Baumbach cases. If Scorsese *knew* there would be this connection in the audiences mind and then chooses not to take another approach to the scene (a more traditional series of shots to establish the location before introducing the character) is there not *some* intention that remains by shooting the scene in a way he knows will create the comparison in people’s minds?
Or maybe it’s another issue: if as a director your films have become definitive or emblematic of an entire genre (Scorsese and the gangster picture) and even your use of shots has become emblematic of auteur cinema and statement choices of shot (the POV-ish tracking shot) are you more susceptible to creating overlapping meanings even when you genuinely don’t want to?
Either way, I love the film and your criticism 😎
Edit: Also, excellent thumbnail. 😂
My god, this video. Literally, whenever I analyze a film, especially in terms of filmmaking, I always have this thought back in my mind that what I am writing is really the objective answer or meaning to this shot, or it's just my interpretation. Sometimes, I am so sure that I write in a way that feels very objective, very definite, and other times, when I am not feeling that much confidence, I write objective analysis in a very subjective way. So yeah, as you said, it's very complicated, and it depends on so many factors. In the end, I see films as very subjective if you're seeing them from the filmmaker's point of view. But it can be reasonably objective if you're seeing them from a viewer's point of view (not just any viewer, a viewer who knows one or two things about film language), and a very different type of objective, an objective in which there is no single definite answer, rather than there are many different interpretations, different perspectives and all of them can be true, I mean that's the definition of art.
It is the kind of video I only expect from you; good work.
I think that this realization and subsequently self-critique is making your videos even better. Thanks for sharing this with us.
11:01 "I'd rather accidentally attribute it to being intentional than say something was a happy accident..."
Or just not explain motive... You can say "this scene gives the impression (blah, blah, blah)" and that doesn't require a motive.
"meaning appears in things even when people aren't trying to put it there" no one coulda said it better
I had this experience from the filmmaker's side when I was in college. I made several 16mm shorts for film prod 101 and on every single one of them, the professor or the class came away with an interpretation I had never considered, and yet they thought was so obvious that it must have been intentional.
Unlike Scorcese, however, I kept my big mouth shut and let them think they had caught onto my genius ;)
I have felt this way for so very long about media/art analysis and I'm so glad to see you present it so eloquently.
The duality of the alternating lines on Thomas' shirt represent his struggle to decipher the deeper inherent meaning of literalism against symbolism (or vice versa).
This is the beauty of Cinema. A film maker may choose a particular method out of convenience but film lovers can find a meaning in it. There is simple solution to this: from directors point of view, he clears the matter surrounding of the interpretation and the film lover gets the information, registers it as the public meaning but can choose to keep his initial meaning along side it as well.
This was a really smart made video well done mate
Thomas, you're probably my favourite youtuber. It's rare that I find someone in every day life that gives a shit about my passion for film like you. This video is amazing, its self aware. But bro, you don't need to be academic all the time. Your content is incredible, but its hard to disseminate. Also hey Vaati
This is why I much prefer video essays that have a touch of nuance and subtlety to the analysis. It's always much, much better to leave some open-endedness to assessments since we never really were there during the production of any art we're assessing down the line.
This was a really excellent video. I think the funny part is that by acknowledging there can be a comparison between the shots from The Irishman and Goodfellas, Scorsese reveals that there was a consideration, conscious or subconscious, about the shot from the latter film while making the former.
I fall into meaning without realizing it in my creative work. Some parallel or allegory I don’t consciously try to create. Then I inevitably see it and rework the piece to embrace what my unconscious mind left for me. Feels spiritual.
This is incredible, and so well put. There's a theory that a lot of art is informed by the subconsciousness. It's impossible to validate this theory, but I think it speaks to so much of what you're saying.
I have watched many of your videos, and every time have gone "that was very good". So sorry it took me so long, but you definitely deserve me clicking that subscribe button.
I know for a fact im over analyzing things but thats part of the enjoyment I get out of films - sometimes I dont even care what the filmmakers original intent was, and I also often prefer to not even know so I can have my own head canon.
I think the simple answer is it's good to find your own interpretations and to hear the creators and BOTH are valuable for film discussions.
Both can influence how we view, enjoy, and maybe produce film.
As someone who makes videos myself, I'm limited in my own ability to exactly express what I want to express.
I made a video about how Jean and Conny have grown in AoT and I don't know if that comes across as well as a video essay would have, ergo saying it outright, but I'm also not a good enough writer to make that point in a bigger and more meaningful way. So my video only uses footage from the show and I did my best to convey my intent to the viewer through the show and not my words.
We are cogs in our own machines and a creators intent isn't law, it's another perspective.
I wrote these two comments at the 3rd and halfway points. I'm near the end and seeing you cover everything I said so....
I guess I could have just said "Same bro."
This was great! I had a conversation with Spike Lee about intent behind his shots. He agreed that he had intent for shots but that doesn’t invalidate the way you interpreted it. So if that helps at all.
I loooved this essay because it's a thought that's usually in my mind every time I watch an essay or an interpretation or I'm reflecting about a film. Very much needed conversation. Also, fan request, I need you to show us that bookshelf behind you, mostly the books, I can't stop trying to get the titles and getting distracted.
Everyone gets to decide what something means. when your argument for meaning beats others, you grow and they grow, just like when the opposite happens. That is art.
this subject has already been talked about and questioned before in the brilliant 1966 essay by Susan Sontag, called "Against Interpretation", which questions the very search for meaning in any given piece of art. I see that you divided the video into two chapters called "against objectivism" and "against relativism", so I'm assuming maybe you took inspiration from that material.
ever since I've read that book I just can't see film analysis the same anymore, it's like you realise that getting obsessed with trying to interpret every decision is ultimately pointless. I recommend everyone to read it!
He uses this shot in Raging Bull as well. It's actually more dynamic. It's the scene where Jake Lamata is in the locker room just before the big fight. The camera never cuts. As it follows him out of the locker, down the corridor and into the stadium crowd, it then LIFTS over the crowd and heads above the ring. No one ever mentions this shot. It's probably the fist time he used it. I could never get over how smoothly the operator was able to sit on a crane chair and transition into a soaring shot. Absolutely incredible.
I blogged the last season of Mad Men and a friend did accuse me of a sort of pareidolia or apophenia - seeing patterns that weren't 'really' there, i.e. intended by the authors. Ironically, the first time I really spotted the kind of stuff I ended up analysing was in the S4 Mad Men episode 'Waldorf Stories,' reading it partly as a riff on Roland Barthes' Death of the Author essay, which argues that meaning resides not in the author's or authors' intent but in the text alone.
As the author of a few scraps of fiction that seem to me to have worked, I do think writing a story can be a discovery of meaning rather than a way of expressing a meaning you intended from the start. Sometimes you don't even see it right away once you've written it - and someone else might see it before you.
My rule, for the most part, by the way, in analysing Mad Men episodes was to find stuff that was there a lot, not just one scene: themes, essentially. The authorship question was in every scene and plotline of Waldorf Stories. Intended or not - I tend to think it had to have been intended - there was too much to ignore. I didn't spot the irony at the time - or, in fact, until now.
You've articulated this really well. I'm not going to name names, but there's some RUclips film critics who could learn a lot from this.
"Film Critics"
Movies are up to interpretation, that's what I got this from this video, what did you?
This reminds me of, "The Shining" and how so many people read into the symbology (that isn't there). Same with the Rush song, "The Trees". Everyone reads (their) interpretation into it.
Humans have an excellent evolutionary ability to see patterns, even when they're not there :)
If you read something about Kubrick studies and the working process on Eyes Wide Shut, it’s hard not to see the symbology of Shining, even avoiding over analysis
Directors are called film makers for a reason. Everything in a film needs to be analysed to understand their point of view. The reason for that is very simple - THEY MADE IT!
Directors aren't the only people responsible for making a film. Writers, actors, set decorators, costume designers, cinematographers, and etc. may have different interpretations. Just look at Blade Runner
I love being subscribed to channels as good as this..
This was certainly an interesting listen. As someone who’s made a few shorts and had them discussed. I’ve been open to hearing what they’ve interpreted my medium as. Majority of the time it’s not what they’ve thought but I value the thought that’s gone into their analysis. One that stuck out for me was, we shot a short wrestling doc in a dark grimey venue and one portion of feedback was saying we should’ve made it brighter, look more polished, clearly in my opinion that was a nonsense piece of feedback and doesn’t fit the overall view. Sorry had a little thought in my head, great work you are doing with these videos and the podcast; really enjoying it
I can honestly say that certain things in props and an art department, coming from somebody who has only done five or six films are random. I have yet to work with the Director that is that Obsessed with each detail that is in the frame. However, I feel like every Director should be obsessed with everything that is in the frame. the mise en scène is at the end of the day everything. As a prop’s master, and an onset dresser, Albeit only a couple of times, I’ve been the one picking the chocolates or the flowers that are in the scene without any interference or suggestion from the Director. I’m a fan, Thomas and this was a great video essay.
This is really great! I find myself frequently arguing with people with film interpretations across the spectrum of objectivism/relativism. Whenever I find myself in another argument, I'll just send them a link to this video, cause I couldn't possible articulate these ideas better.
It is like the song "Visiting Hours" by Ed Sheeran in which he sings about loss of his friend but never explicitly mentions it and when I first listened to that I thought it was a fictional song about someone losing his spouse. And then after some more listening I can see people listening to it and remembering their parents or other people who they've lost, specially during the pandemic. And all those interpretation and feelings are valid because isn't that what good art's about.
I think that as soon the author releases the piece (movie, song, book...) it doesn't belong to him anymore, it belongs to the viewer and his personal, individual experience
This is a good example of that "the author intended this" vs "I did it because this". Such is the process between Death of the Author and Auteur Theory. Never stop looking for meaning in film, because more often it's it's a meaning that matters to you
I think part of the problem in the analysis can be framing/semantics. Speaking in a way that says "this is what they are doing" rather than "this evokes such" or "could be interpreted as such" - one claims intent and definitive objective truth that the more couched language does not. Similarly, calling the tracking shot in The Irishman "a callback" implies intention, but to say it "evokes the tracking shot of Goodfellas" is accurate, and allows a more solid basis for the analysis (even if it is on less definitive ground, it establishes that this is interpretive analysis rather than objective truth).
This reminds me of when I was briefly at the AFI studying screenwriting. One of the students had made a short film that featured a character carrying a bag of groceries with a baguette sticking out of the bag. One of the first questions was about the bread's MEANING. There was no great meaning - it was just a prop choice.
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In the end, I think, meaning has two main purposes in art. First of all, artists have to have at least a little intention with certain creative choices, otherwise their creations would fall apart.
Second of all, the reciever automatically has some sort of interpretation about a piece of art, because that's just how our brains work. If you find meaning in something unintentional, good for you, you found something in the piece that you enjoy.
I find it very interesting here that you've done a whole nearly 15 minute video about _la mort de l'auteur_ without ever once mentioning it (or "death of the author").
This reminds me of the Sopranos. There's a lot of last minute decisions that turned out to be smart improvisations becasue David Chase's original idea couldn't work (scheduling conflicts etc.) Chase also keeps info from the viewer on purpose to leave ambiguity and forces people to discuss theories about the show. If David revealed what happened at the end, among other mysteries. The show probably wouldn't be discussed so much. It probably would've been worse if David got to use all of his initial ideas for his characters and plot.
I worked as an AD (and editor assistant) on a short film a long time ago. One night we were all waiting for an actor to arrive and there was a beautiful Moon in the sky. The DP was bored and decided to film it. Later on we were editing the film and we had to cut to something, anything, to bridge two shots. "What about that Moon?", I asked. "Hmmm... ok", said the director. When we premiered the short, a LOT of people came to talk to us about the beautiful symbolism of that Moon, how poetic it was, and so on, and we were just thinking about a bored cameraman and a problem in the editing.
This also depends on the TYPE of director. Some directors are extremely specific about every single detail in every single shot, while others only care about their actors' performances and the emotions they show on screen and leave the shot selection, editing, lighting, costuming, and scoring up to their collaborators who they hire specifically for their expertise in that regard. See: Ryan Coogler with Black Panther vs SS Rajamouli with RRR.
This is specially rampant in MCU films. Whenever a plot hole pops up, the director just comes out on an interview and give a statement on why it's not and fans are just expected to ignore what actually happens on the film.
Personally, as an aspiring writer and director, I love the idea that people can and will read into every little detail of my work, making their own conclusions and analysis. Whether it was intended or not, it makes me look clever and I'm all for that!
As a an independent filmmaker who’s only been doing this for a little over a year now, I can say that in my experience both approaches are right. A lot of times we shoot something because it’s a cool shot and aren’t thinking of what it symbolizes and other times we know the symbolism behind the shot months in advance. I’m directing a scene next weekend with a split second moment that has a lot of symbolism. The characters an alcoholic and there are empty bottles laying around his bedroom. He was also an absent father to his teenage son as he was growing up. When he wakes up to answer his phone on the nightstand which also has empty bottles on it, he accidentally knocks over a picture of his son. It’s gonna be 3-4 seconds max but it symbolizes that the character has chosen alcohol over his son. But alot of times we don’t think of that, like in the case of the film I just finished shooting. Throughout it I framed a certain character in mirror shots at certain points of the film, simply because they made for Interesting shots. But it was only after wrapping production that I realized the symbolism that those shots carried for that character. He’s playing two roles throughout the whole the film, he’s lying to the main character basically. And last time we see him in a mirror is when he stops playing two roles and the truth comes out. None of that was intended but the film spoke for itself. So I believe that a film can say something apart from the directors original intention. So with your example of the Irish man, you were trying to see what Scorsese was saying about the character by using a parallel to goodfellas, which he wasn’t saying anything, but that doesn’t mean the film itself isn’t saying it without his permission.
This is a discussion I have with myself every day lol. Its a very interesting topic.
Man the video everyone wanted to make but Thomas finally did.
I think tarkovsky put it best when he said “A book read by a thousand different people is a thousand different books.”