quinta-feira, 27 de julho de 2017

Poetics of Cinema: On Filmmaker's Method


The direction of a film implies not a specialization, but a poly-functionality (Morin, 2005, p. 346), that is, a multifaceted view of the integral and copulating interrelations in and through whose the poetics of the cinema is immersed. This means that the author deals with the subsystems – art direction, cinematography, acting, editing, visual effects etc., knowing how to trigger them in the way that he/she wants, not being a specialist of one of these, but having the ability to sew them, to envelop them, and especially to connect them.
Therefore, its virtue is to establish and develop a systemic connectivity, that is, immersed in diversity, to be able to explore, to foresee and to articulate the links between these subsystems, promoting complementarities and associations that are built and consolidated in and by the whole, the film. Thus, the history of the system – the making of the film – becomes supported, determined or biased in accordance with the director (see VIEIRA, 2007, p.110). As François Truffaut (2004, p. 27) observes:
"Cinema is an art especially difficult to master because of the multiplicity of gifts – sometimes contradictory – it demands. If so many very intelligent people or many artists failed as directors, it was because they did not possess at the same time the analytical spirit and the synthetic spirit, the only ones that, simultaneously kept on alert, allow to avoid the numerous traps created by the fragmentation of the shooting film and edition of the shots. In fact, the most serious danger a director faces is losing control of his/her movie in the middle of the road, which happens more often than you think".
The role of the method becomes crucial, because to this are associated two important concepts: strategy and program (see MORIN, 2008, 250-252). An eco-organization, such as that found in filmmaking, demands a command that provides both a program to control the production and execution of the film, and strategy that deals with uncertainties and unforeseen obstacles. Thus, the program deals with the planning, schedule and scales stipulated to each stage of the filmmaking. Therefore, it is responsible for establishing a vigilant control of the progress of the film. It can be said that the program is always linked to the figure of the executive producer and the producer, those responsible to maintaining the control of the production itself (see RABIGER, 2007, p. 246-248).
In fact, a good production, while protecting and providing the resources – human, financial and logistical – necessary for the filmmaker to develop his films, also takes on the role of following exactly what was previously determined. Those guidelines, taken as rules (MORIN, ibid., p. 253), guide the terms of each stage of production: pre-production-production-post-production. Because they are general, they often do not anticipate eventualities, adversities and accidents, only operations and sequences stipulated. Thus, the program is a predetermined organization of action (MORIN, ibid., P.252), because the film, whatever its source of funding, has an end, a premiere, an economic return etc.
On the other hand, the strategy involves improvisation and innovations, therefore, it removes from the risks, obstacles and errors, its own improvement. While the program, with deadlines and guidelines, gives little scope to unforeseen and uncertainties, the strategy takes advantage of eventualities and makes from those things its art. As Morin explains, "Strategy presupposes the ability to undertake action on uncertainty and to integrate uncertainty into the conduct of action. It means that the strategy needs competence and initiative "(MORIN, 2005, P.250).
However zealous and judicious a film production is, there is always the risk of unexpected events occurring, whether with an actor, with a team member, with locations, with scenarios, with equipment, with pre-established shots that do not work when these are put into practice, with the way the material is being edited, or even the need to re-create an unforeseen scene, even after the filming has been completed. Thus, it is through the entropic processes that escape from the planning that the filmmaker has to demonstrate his/her competence and inventiveness by reversing and inverting in the direction of his/her action(MORIN, 2008, p.254) those eventualities.
The strategy does not eliminate the program, because whenever it is necessary, the strategy re-uses the automated nature of the program. In terms of economy and reliability, it would be wise not to travel at all times for uncertainty, when you have public and / or private money at stake in the film. In this way, both processes are important to the film eco-organization and are part of what François Truffaut sees as the ability to have at the same time an "analytical spirit" and a "synthetic spirit" in action.
Morin is emphatic in saying that the challenge of adversity stimulates intelligence, learning, and knowledge, not merely an adjustment to circumstances but, above all, a transformation of circumstances (see MORIN, ibid., 256 and 257). Thus, under the axis of the development of intelligence and learning, and not of the pure answer to adversity, Morin (ibid., 255) coined the concept of cognitive strategy:
"It is toward the outside world that neuro-cerebral appliances exert their strategic aptitude. Action strategy needs a cognitive strategy. Action requires, at every instant, of discernment and discrimination, to review / correct the knowledge of a situation that is transformed. The two strategies are in constant interaction".
This role of mediator, made by the cognitive strategy between program - rational purpose - and the circumstances that reality often presents in reverse of what is expected and that demand inventiveness and reformulations - strategy - is what Peirce will call Pragmatism. In fact, Peirce (2000, p.237) clarifies that the function of pragmatism: "(...) first of all we should get rid of all the essentially obscure ideas. Secondly, it should support, and help make distinct, essentially clear ideas, but whose apprehension is more or less difficult (...) ".
The reflections of the two authors coincide on that, and they both perceive that between rational program / purpose and strategy / abduction there is a need for a method that allows the mediation between the two poles, having reality - the facts and eventualities - as the pivot of this process. This is evident in Morin's (ibid .: 257-258) explanation of the need for a flexible and ready method of self-correction:
"When the program tends to command, diminish, suppress strategies, mechanical and myopic obedience becomes a model of behavior. At the human level, the strategy needs lucidity in the elaboration and conduct, play of initiatives and responsibilities, full employment of the individual competences, that is, full employment of the qualities of the subject. That is why the Method sought here will never be a program, that is, a pre-established recipe, but an invitation and an incitement to the strategy of thought".
In fact, a filmmaker is an experimentalist who learns from every film he/she makes and launches himself/herself into a new challenge every time that a work is finished. It is through this process that this complex authorship will develop dominance before the cinematographic language. Such domain - knowledge - implies managing, promoting and directing the connections between the subsystems that compose the filmic sign.
Thus, giving concreteness to a film demands a mental effort, a reasoning conductor, whose discerns every choice, decision, mistake and success. This reasoning conductor is the responsible to forging and polishing his/her method. In fact, such mental effort - mediator between program and strategy - becomes the process that leads the filmmaker to the concretization of his/her film, and, above all, to the consolidation of his/her discourse and style.
References
MORIN, Edgar. O Método 1 – a natureza da natureza. Porto Alegre: Editora Sulina, 2008.
_____________ O Método 2 – a vida da vida. Porto Alegre: Editora Sulina, 2005.
VIEIRA, Jorge de Albuquerque. Ciência – Formas de Conhecimento: Arte e Ciência uma visão a partir da complexidade. Fortaleza: Gráfica e Editora, 2007.
__________________________ Teoria do conhecimento e arte – Formas de Conhecimento: Arte e Ciência uma visão a partir da complexidade. 2° edição. Fortaleza: Gráfica e Editora,, 2008.
__________________________ Ontologia – Formas de Conhecimento: Arte e Ciência uma visão a partir da complexidade. Fortaleza: Expressão Gráfica e Editora, 2008. 

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