Initially, applying methods of creative writing to an avant-garde film appears senseless, a little impossible, or at least a little exhausting. It even seems expendable, maybe. How can one connect literature and writing, which are heavily structured things, with the avant-garde, which strives to break out of that structure, strives to move forward, and moves away from conventions in the process? Perhaps, instead of being an attempt to write about writing, this can evolve into an attempt to analyze and describe the process that goes into the writing of an avant-garde film and the reception of this style of film in comparison to that of a short story, novel, or screenplay. Although different in the sense that one – creative writing – is highly structured and unsuccessful without structure and the other – avant-garde filmmaking – is an attempt to deviate from conventional structures in order produce a film successfully, the two share one very important objective: communication.
Creative writing requires a close, maybe tedious, observation of and analysis of human behavior and even human nature; the actions and words (which are the communicators, symbols, and embodiments of thoughts) are under the microscope here. For example, questions such as the following are questions an English or creative writing major would ask when listening to someone speak: Why did he or she say that as opposed to all the other things he or she could have said and why now as opposed to all the other times he or she could have said it? Why did he or she use this word as opposed to all other words which could replace it? Why were the sentences arranged in the way that they were instead of all the other ways they could have been arranged? All of these speculations – and more which can be asked about actions, movements, gestures, expressions, and even inflections – aid in the development of a story, characters, plots, and motives. How so?
In an argument about having to prove one’s self and portraying a certain image, a friend stated that he only wore what he loved to wear, not in effort to make any sort of impression upon anyone. He stated that when he heard, “I love Urban Outfitters,” he would respond in excitement, “Me too!” He continued to say that when hearing, “I love Conway,” he would respond with, “I’ve been there,” in a passive voice. Hearing this, one can assume that he, in fact, is proud of the fact that he shops at Urban Outfitters – which identifies him as a part of a certain group of people, but will not announce with the same amount of pride that he shops at Conway –which also identifies him as a part of a certain but quite different group of people. Because of his word choice in using this example in an effort to prove that he did not care to make any sort of impression upon anyone, he instead revealed that he actually does make an effort.
There is a motive behind everything a writer writes and what his or her characters say and do just like there is a motive behind everything an individual says and does. This motive is never revealed bluntly in creative writing; instead it is revealed through implications in the form of literary devices and elements. Similarly, in an avant-garde film, which might not even have a plot or characters, implications in the form of images, sounds, and other techniques reveal a message.
One thing that is true and makes this all compatible is the shared purpose of literature and the avant-garde. Both the literature and writer, and the avant-garde and filmmaker attempt to convey a message through subtleties, implications, innuendoes, and with tact. It is left up to the reader and viewer to “read between the lines”, for what the intentions of the writer or filmmaker are never clear; their (that is, the writer’s or filmmaker’s) motives are never certain or explicit, even if said writer or filmmaker addresses and articulates all the steps that were essectial in the making of the final product. The intelligible – that is the aware, observant, and detail-oriented – receiver the recognizes implications, whether they were intended or not, to understand and maybe even exaggerate or underplay what is being conveyed. Because the intentionality of the maker is never known, the receiver might be processes the text or film in a way that attributes and applies meaning to certain things perhaps “making something out of nothing” while ignoring other aspects that he or she dubs irrelevant to the overall meaning of the film.
The goal of creative writing – like the goal of filmmaking – is to convey a message, reach the masses (or even just a handful of individuals), and stimulate the human mind. Most often, a writer will turn a deeply personal message, ideal, or experience – what is “good,” which is relative to the individual – into a work that might attempt or succeed at revealing universal truths. However, because universal truths don’t seem to be as universal as they might initially appear, these truths, like all truths, are all too relative. All that a writer can do is present in particulars, which perhaps do or come to appear familiar to the audience. Familiarity – or de-familiarity – are absolutely essential in how influential a work is and in what way it is influential.
Dialogue, something very present in everyday life, is replicated and highly relevant in written work as well as cinematic avant-garde, which rely on it to convey these personal truths, and is what will be examined here because it is Critical Mass. Written work, whether it be a short story or screenplay or novel – is a replica or representation of life. The goals of this dialogue in life are to convey messages, to resolve problems, and to get an understanding of what the other participant(s) in the conversation want(s) or need(s). Rather, these are the results that are expected from effective communications between two individuals. Almost always, in real life, communication is ineffective – a huge concept in Critical Mass – and doesn’t achieve these goals or achieves the exact opposite of them. To support this, on might refer to Gertrude Stein, who said:
Clarity is of no importance because nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean no matter what you mean, nor how clearly you mean what you mean. But if you have vitality enough of knowing enough of what you mean, somebody and sometime and sometimes a great many will have to realize that you know what you mean and so they will agree that you mean what you know, what you know you mean, which is as near as anybody can come to understanding anyone.
This very human tendency towards failure at communication is not exactly present in writing or film, being that the maker’s intentions are not ever truly known. However, it is possible to convey something through work; some sort of message gets through. Absolute transparency is never really established in writing or avant-garde filmmaking, but these mediums use that to their advantage – to say what they have to say. Communication in written work or film is significantly more effective because the previously mentioned goals of communication are not trying to be achieved in a correspondence between two individuals or characters. They do not rely on person-to-person communication. They, instead, rely on implication inserted in the work and interpretation of the work.
Like reality, this communication between work and audience is meant to arouse emotions of all kinds. Conversely, these goals become the goals of communication between the work and the audience, excluding the maker and his or her intentions. This is where implication becomes important. The message, the resolution, and the understanding is to be experienced by the reader or the viewer, and it always is because it doesn’t have to be an understanding of the maker’s intentions, but an understanding of implications, which are relative.
Similar to life, in which humans are constantly intercommunicating with themselves and their environment, Hollis Frampton’s Critical Mass is made up of constant dialogue. The communication in the film itself is highly ineffective. In fact, it leads absolutely nowhere, being that neither character picks up on any implications given by the other. For example, the female character is trying to convey to the male character that not contacting her for two days was especially frustrating and anxiety inducing for her, implying that the amount of time was significant for her. He, who does not attribute any significance to the amount of time or even to the fact that he didn’t contact her, doesn’t receive this implication at all. Throughout the entire conversation, neither individual actually hears what the other is saying. No problem is resolved. No mutual understanding is reached. This is a parallel to Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” where the problem of the unborn child is never resolved, along with what seems to be a wealth of previously neglected problems, is never resolved. In fact, it’s never even directly addressed or mentioned. The couple fails at resolution, coming together, and mutual understandings, which is symbolized by their silent but understood figurative parting at the end of the story. It’s hard to tell if they’re even talking to each other throughout the story or just talking to themselves or talking just to talk. Although there is a great amount of tension and discomfort depicted in and experienced by the characters in both works, the receiver finds comfort or discomfort in the familiarity of these situations. The depiction or coming to life of this dialogue and situation results in reflection – on self and humanity. It results in an enhanced, modified, or new understanding. It evokes emotions and may even result in closure. The other similarity between Critical Mass and “Hills Like White Elephants” is that the audience is able to identify the implications of each character while the opposite characters involved never do, possibly because they are highly self-involved and concerned.
The effectiveness of dialogue and story in Critical Mass and “Hills Like White Elephants” depends on implications embedded in body language, setting, reference to the past, repetition, diction, and other literary elements and devices. Implication is what makes the story or film interesting even though – or perhaps especially because – the perception of what is implied or what is not is extremely relative.
The representation of Critical Mass is quite unique in the sense that is filmed in black and white, the picture is highly contrasted, sirens and beeps blare in and out of the background, and certain parts of the dialogue loop. This representation is what makes the implication in the dialogue so effective and strong, fueling it even. There is no setting and there are no props. At times, the screen goes completely black or completely white and only audio is heard; sometimes this audio is just grunts, moans, or breaths, which implies sexual overtones. Appearances and clothing aren’t integral in the film and therefore do not make an impression upon the receiver causing no race (although one can argue that an ethnicity is implied through the accents), religion, class, or other stereotypical associations. The faces of the actors aren’t shown clearly, almost always in full body profile, leaving us to wonder what they actually look like even though there are times where you can see the face from a frontal view at times. Their features are hidden and perhaps distorted by the high contrast effect applied on the visual aesthetic, hiding all flaws – perhaps making the characters less human and more symbolic than just having them be very individual, particular characters. This offers raw dialogue, relationship, man woman, emotion, and attitude. This is contrasted by the fact that the sexual overtones previously mentioned are always hidden by a black or white screen, which seems to suggest either censorship or that sex should be a private thing or even that Frampton wanted these moments to be left to the imagination of the viewer.
Conversely, setting and props are present in Hemingway’s short story. The appearance of the characters is never revealed, but their character and a past is through implications. The American, who seems to be a kind of mobile womanizer or at least irresponsible and lustful individual, is accompanied by his much younger girlfriend, who is impressionable and seems to have been drawn to the American who introduces her to new liquors. “Hills Like White Elephants,” though sparse, does paint a picture of some sort, as opposed to Critical Mass’s total darkness at times and obscurity. The latter is just a visual presentation of a dialogue – an opportunity to sit in on and overhear an otherwise private, personal argument. However, just like Hemingway, Hollis Frampton uses implication above all to deliver his intended messages; it is the means of communication although the characters are oblivious to it.
The very title of the movie is an implication. A “critical mass” is defined as the amount of fissile material needed to sustain fission. This is ironic, metaphorical, and even foreshadowing because the entire film is about sustaining a healthy, stable, and unified relationship and how two individuals in said relationship seem to utterly fail at this. This goes back to the issue of communication in real life situations and Gertrude Stein’s claim that “nobody listens and nobody knows what you mean.”
The movie begins with blackness and audio of the two actors, inducing speculation in the receiver’s mind about what the characters are doing. At first, the viewer is unsure of what he or she will be present with after the blackness. Imagery is created by the way the actors are faded out of blackness and into view, almost creating the effect of the viewer having opened a door, wearing an invisibility cloak which enables him or her to eavesdrop on this couple. This is very much like a well-written introduction to a good story or screenplay: vague and insinuating. It almost teases the receiver, grabs his or her attention so that he or she continues to read in order to indulge in what the story is truly about. This is what the first shot and few seconds of Critical Mass do.
Later on, the audio of the spoken words between the character becomes clearer and louder, and the looping becomes apparent. Phrases that are looped include: “very spontaneous thing” with her very sarcastic tone accompanied by disbelief; “honestly!” in a high pitched voice which suggests his attempt to be convincing and seem genuine to his partner; “you’re already accusing me with your attitude” in his defensive tone; “yeah,” which is his sarcastic or mocking agreement to her claims; and “two days,” which is very important to her but unfortunately for her, means nothing to him.
The implications, however, could very well be missed because of all the distracting effects that Frampton uses. For example, there’s a beeping, dial-tone-like sound in the background that begins. Roughly around the same time, the screen begins to flash spots of white. Perhaps these too are implications. Or are they simply distractions? Sometimes writers will include details or characters that are not integral to the plot but help to carry the story forward. However, what we could be dismissing as simple carriers or distractions could actually be implications. An example of this is Hemingway’s use of the absinthe as a metaphor, even though it appears to simply be what the characters are drinking, because it is sweet “like licorice” yet contains a percentage of alcohol high enough to kill a person. Frampton’s “distractions” could simply be there for aesthetic purposes, which seems odd since didn’t include setting, scenery, or props to distract from the implications in dialogue and indicates against any appearances that suggests anything about the relationship in the scene or the situation. There is also a point where the screen turns white. The association of white with purity, calmness or resolution is somewhat ironic in this because as the screen begins to turn white, the argument elevates. It seems like the flashes of white and its growing presence can be tied in with the idea of “critical mass.” As the dialogue intensifies, the “nuclear reactor” that is their relationship grows white hot – nuclear blasts and the like are usually pretty bright affairs.
The film also plays with synchronization, having the audio and mouth movements out of sync at times, which could also suggest that they’re saying is not what they’re actually saying – what they mean is not coming out or being received. Each partner is receiving the message late and responding with something completely irrelevant because he or she is only focused on his or her own desires and points. Though, this could be another pure aesthetic distraction knowing Frampton’s love of messing with his audience’s heads, as apparent in his film Nostalgia.
Repetition in writing is meant to emphasize – to show importance of that which is being repeated. Perhaps, Frampton’s looping is meant to repeat all that is important; the consequence of this can be that through repetition, that which is repeated becomes less and less significant, which somewhat happens by the end of Critical Mass. What is looped is what each character is trying to convince each other of, what each one is trying to prove to the other. If a narrator of a story repeated certain things over and over again in paragraphs of reflection, he or she is trying himself, the reader, and his audience of the very thing he is repeating. The looping could also represent the fact that this continues to occur, time and time again, in the couple’s relationship (and in all relationships). A clearer example of this is Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which repeats the beginning scene (which is actually the end of the story) to suggest that the characters – Clementine and Joel – always meet each other, erase each other from each other’s memories, and end up meeting each other all over again. The following is an excerpt from the first draft of an old short story of mine, “Last Chance to Lose Your Keys” – a part of a collection of short stories called Tobacco Peppermint, in an effort to demonstrate this concept of repetition for the sake of persuasion:
I walked by Pulitzer every day on the way home from work. She was always there, usually wearing a dress and reading some book that she probably regarded as the Bible at the point which she was reading it. In retrospect, I don’t know why I even noticed her. It would seem to me as if she would have become part of the scenery eventually. When something is always there, it loses its intrigue. It becomes routine. Does it not? Shouldn’t she have? Lost her intrigue, become routine? Bored me, even? I suppose she should have and she could have. Perhaps it was timing. Timing is my scapegoat, my excuse for being this pathetic excuse for a man. In retrospect, she wasn’t even the most beautiful girl in the area. There were plenty of tall, blonde, thin models in the vicinity. There were plenty of whores whose legs I’d have liked wrapped around me at the clubs every night. But I wanted her not-too-tall-but-tall-enough body. I wanted her long, plain brown hair. I wanted her long legs. In retrospect, she was unattractive while sitting down. She didn’t even sit upright and looked wider when she sat. The only attractive thing about it was the glimpse you’d catch of her thick thighs. She carried herself with very little confidence, yet she was probably the most arrogant creature I’ve ever encountered. Only in retrospect, though.
Sometimes, in literature, it is best to show and not tell. This requires description of an action or event that reveals a quality such as deep insecurities resulting from certain childhood experiences. Action in film does this by showing motions, gestures, and expressions that say more than any words could. Body language is key in implying the feelings of each character and the nature of the situation in film, especially, in Critical Mass. The female character’s gestures are accusatory and authoritative whereas his are defensive, childlike (picture a child being scolded by his mother), and he seems to be shying away. Her gestures are aggressive and suggestive of paranoia while his are passive and suggestive of secrecy. The use of the word “account” goes back to the point about diction. He says something about having to give an “account to her” suggesting a mother-son type of relationship, which is confirmed later on in the film when he does compare her to his mother.
In stories, there are unreliable narrators – narrators whose perception may be skewed or biased and thus provide a telling of a story that is incorrect. In this film, there is an unreliable editor. The sequence is vague because there are cuts in the film which suggest that the “replies” aren’t actually replies to what was just said. This is an extreme use of flashback, foreshadowing, and change of setting. It could suggest that the cuts leave out parts of the current argument to go onto another argument while the previous argument is still going on. This could also simply imply that the characters weren’t listening to each other and just talking at each other instead of responding. But is the unreliable editor truly unreliable? Is this use of cutting essential to the story and the point that the maker is trying to send to the receiver?
The overall theme of the film seems to be miscommunication – the fact that these two people don’t seem to be able to even effectively describe their problems, never mind resolve them. The looping, which is the most apparent and potent element of the movie, implies a theme of being stuck in this eternal state of frustration with each other because of the failure of communication, creating the sensation of Hell or Limbo where these two people are eternally suffering. They’re trapped, stuck in this state of struggle, perhaps fluctuating between anger and sex. The parallel to this in Eternal Sunshine is the ending credits showing the couple at Montauk while it’s snowing, which suggests the eternal repetition of the process of Joel’s and Clementine’s meeting, erasing of each other, meeting once again, realizing they erased each other, and erasing each other again, etc.
Of course, all these implications could just be the receiver reading too much into absolutely everything. Again, intentionality of the maker is not known. Thus, the meaning, structure, and interpretation of certain techniques or dialogue in the overall film are relative to the receiver in his or her own circumstances. Implication, an integral part of dialogue and overall use of language in any situation, is used similarly in avant-garde film and creative writing.
phantasmagoria 