Exaggeration and Authenticity

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<p>Sometimes, the artistic authorship and personal vision of a filmmaker is not at all exclusive to being very successful with the large public : more recently, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight for example.<br /> I think that Christopher Nolan is very authentic to his vision when not succumbing to the popular ( easy money ) 3D with his next Batman film ( he had to convince the studio not too ), and instead keeps with the way he shot his previous two Batman movies ( with some scenes shot for I-max ).</p>

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<p>I forgot of course James Cameron with Avatar, as an example in film, and in which the use of 3D is an integration, a part that makes up the whole. Which isn't always the case when the use of this technology is slapped on afterwards as an almost mindless use of unneeded exaggeration.</p>

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<p>In unorientation, the Earth remains there, beneath your feet. You know that you are "at home" in the least specific sense. Going from unoriented to oriented is about finding out in what way you are on/in the world (on that Earth; using Earth in a non-literal sense of one's being "grounded").</p>

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<p>Sounds a bit like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization">depersonalization</a>.</p>

<p>Julie, helpful clarification even in a hurry. Thanks.</p>

<p>There's almost nothing I like better than those first few minutes of darkness in a warm movie theater on a rainy afternoon, as I slowly get into the rhythm of the movie, have a new sense of where I am (place, aha!), and people stop unwrapping their candy and start paying more attention. Your unorientation seems a little similar to my in-between. In any case, that's often how I feel when I'm on a photo shoot that's starting to work. My best photos have probably come from a place born of at least some amount of unorientation.</p>

<p>Now, I'll have to think more about how that might relate to exaggeration. Because I tend to think of exaggeration, as I said, as more of a hyper-orientation. How about a baseball analogy? I'm watching a game at AT&T Park right on San Francisco Bay. Unorientation would be a surprise bunt, a squeeze play, an unexpected double steal. The opposing team would have to reorient themselves to what's going on and very quickly find their new groove, adapt. Exaggeration, for me, would be Barry Bonds not just hitting a home run, but hitting one into McCovey Cove (splash!) and then running the bases really slowly and taking a big jump and landing on home plate with a bit of a thud. I find that exaggeration doesn't usually take me from home, rather it drives the point home.</p>

<p>Fred, I'm thinking that unorientation has to come before -- in the interval, however brief, between orientation and either re-orientation or hyperorientation, etc. The bump or skip (think of an old record player that hits a scratch and jumps a few tracks or a hand on the record, slowing or speeding it; there's a cognitive gap, then the the taking up of whatever tune the needle resumed on) that shakes you "into" a different place.</p>

<p>If you can remember it off the top of your head, how would you describe the experience of the introduction to Mozart's String Quartet in C Major, K. 465 (the so-called "Dissonant" Quartet)? Unorienting, then ... ? Or can you explain it to me in terms of hyper-orientation (genuine question, not an I-dare-you challenge; I want to understand your perspective)?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Julie, I didn't mean to talk about hyper-orientation as something instead of unorientation. I agree with you about unorientation followed by reorientation. I perfectly understood your movie scenario and agree with the unorientation followed by reorientation scenario. Same for photographing <em>per se</em>.</p>

<p>I introduced hyper-orientation only in regard to exaggeration. With exaggeration, I don't necessarily go through a process of unorientation and reorientation. I go from orientation to hyper-orientation. In other words, I simply go from being there to being more there. </p>

<p>For me, the Mozart you reference could work much like the movie you're talking about. There's an adagio introduction (unorientation) followed by a more traditional and rhythmic allegro reorientation. </p>

<p>Had Mozart started out with an allegro, a more traditional classical sonata form, and followed that with a movement in adagio which, at some point, kept slowing and slowing and . . . slowing . . . . . . and . . . . . . . . . . slow-w-w-w-w-ing, to me that would be exaggeration of the adagio and would not really unorient me so much as just stretch me out. It would draw me into adagio-ness just a little bit deeper (or a lot).</p>

<p>I think (?) you're saying that in order for my scenario of the adagio exaggeration to actually be exaggeration, it would have to unorient me. It's an interesting point and one I will think more about. But at this stage, I'm just not seeing that it necessarily would unorient me (as the original movie or Mozart setup would). Like I said, in many ways, it would make me feel MORE like I-am-where-I-should-be than like I'm-not-sure-where-I-am.</p>

<p>[Addition]</p>

<p>The Mozart is somewhat different than most movies. I think of the Mozart introduction in much the same way I think of a traditional classical coda. Remember the ending of <em>Carrie</em>. When you're all calm and think you're done and then the hand comes up out of the ground? That's a more extreme example at the end of something of what Mozart did at the beginning of his quartet. So, to me there's a <em>suddenness</em> to the move from unorientation to reorientation of the Mozart and the move from orientation to unorientation in <em>Carrie</em>. </p>

<p>Most movies, on the other hand, and most music I go to hear, has less of a noticeable move from unorientation to reorientation. It's not like you can always pick the spot when you moved from the one to the other. Whereas the spots in this Mozart and <em>Carrie</em> are very noticeable. What I like about my experience with regard to most movies and to photographing is that the process of going from unorientation to orienation is usually pretty seamless. You just kind of pass through it. There may even be some overlapping and backing and forthing. </p>

<p>So, in a sense the Mozart and <em>Carrie</em> each exaggerates that process of unorienation/reorientation or vice versa. </p>

<p>Thanks, Fred. Both of your posts are very helpful. Very, very helpful (I can't help repeating it; I get such a rush out of understanding, communicating ... )</p>

<p>One last question: I've been thinking that you meant hyper-oriented as sort of from the viewer at or to the picture or event. Viewer >>> picture or event. I didn't notice this because ...</p>

<p>... my thinking has been the reverse: that the force, the push to re-orient is coming from the picture or event at or to the viewer. Picture or event >>> viewer. Therefore a lot of my not understanding you. My feeling is that exaggeration forces or at least narrows the range of re-orientation that the picture or event encourages or allows. It's more aggressively assertive in displacing what the viewer brings to the picture or event.</p>

<p>Think about the hand on the record on the turntable. You're listening, you've got the rhythm, the melody, the form of the music and then its bumped to (greater or lesser degree of) slower or (greater or lesser degree of) faster. There's an few moments of unorientation as you spot that somethings happened and work to find the (new) rhythm and resume the melody in its somewhat different form. Like your movie variations, maybe?</p>

<p>[Technical note that I've left unspoken. Unorientation >> re-orientation assumes that the viewer starts from a state of comfortable orientation. You entering the theater, you who know baseball entering the stadium, you who know and are comfortably oriented. As opposed to someone, say, who has been knocked unconscious and returns to consciousness with a movie going on, or someone who has no knowledge of baseball or stadiums, etc.]</p>

<p><em>"you meant hyper-oriented as sort of from the viewer at or to the picture or event."</em></p>

<p>No. I think we understand it the same way, as the piece of music, photograph, or movie acting on the viewer.</p>

<p><em>"There's an few moments of unorientation as you spot that somethings happened and work to find the (new) rhythm and resume the melody in its somewhat different form."</em></p>

<p>What you're describing is sort of present throughout a piece of music, exaggeration or no exaggeration, and throughout a movie. I am constantly going back and forth between stages of orientation and unorientation. The anticipation inherent in any classical piece of music keeps me on that unoriented footing throughout. To me, the experience of art (much wrapped up in transcendence) is often about ungroundedness.</p>

<p>For me, exaggeration is something else. Yes, it can be a mechanism through which the photograph, movie, or musical piece further unorients me, but it doesn't have to be. It can also be a stronger grounding.</p>

<p>Of course, there is a sense in which ANY change (and exaggeration is a change from an un-exaggerated state) is unorienting. So, on that level, sure, any exaggeration is unorienting. But I don't experience anything more inherently unorienting about exaggeration than any other change that happens. I mean every musical resolution from discord to harmony, every move from major to minor, every change of tempo can be unorienting, but none of those have to be exaggerations. The very act of looking at a photo is unorienting without exaggeration. A slightly out of focus background can be unorienting without there being an exaggeration within the photo. An unexpected element included in a symmetrical scene can be unorienting without being an exaggeration. (I've been skeptical of Arthur's example of that being an example of exaggeration.)</p>

<p>I think orientation/unorientation has more to do with context and anticipation than with exaggeration.</p>

<p>Good and more good (so much to chew on ... !). I'm thinking that the "Of course... " paragraph describes the crossroads at which much of this thread has buzzed about. I think its where my feeling that emphasis and exaggeration are qualititatively different comes from.</p>

<p>A probably-too-disconnected analogy would be that if what we are looking at (movie, photo, game) is a fabric, it can billow and flutter and crumple and float. An exaggeration would be ... ? A resistance? A fulcrum? A magnet? For some reason, I keep thinking of exaggerations as ways to jimmy the lock; to break in, to get through ...</p>

<p>... or, (thinking about the billowing cloth) ... if orientation means we have accounted for the forces acting on that cloth (causing the behavior of the cloth, whether it be people shaking it or handling it; or winds blowing on it), an exaggeration would be a manifestation of some hitherto unsuspected force (as evidenced by unexpected shape or behavior). Exaggeration feels to me like something slightly (but not totally) alien. There is a swerve.</p>

<p>A fold comes to mind.</p>

<p>Phylo, thanks. I'll look for JCVD...preview looks like innocent fun :-)</p>

<p>Yes, "Un Profete" was, as you say, "hauntingly good." I wasn't aware it was Belgian, but some of my favorite guitar players are, so why not actors? And of course there's "In Bruges" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/ , which if not Belgian was at least shot there.</p>

<p>As well, there's Poirot...</p>

 

<p>Julie: emphasis . . . exaggeration.</p>

<p>I think (haven't made a study of it, but just thinking out loud) I usually emphasize by the use of other elements. Emphasize a particular element by shining light on it. Emphasize a light color by darkening the colors around it. Emphasize a hand gesture by isolating it from the rest of the body or the background. Emphasize the subject by drawing down the background.</p>

<p>And I usually exaggerate by working with the element itself. Exaggerate a color by mixing in other colors, saturating or de-saturating it. Exaggerate a particular element by raising its levels, dodging it strongly. Exaggerate a hand gesture by asking the person to really stretch it or contort it. Exaggerate the subject him or herself by asking the subject to be more obvious, more overt, over-the-top, or somehow doing that in post processing.</p>

<p>I'm not saying this is inherent to emphasis or exaggeration, but I do notice this trend in the way I often approach the two.</p>

<p>So, thinking just a little more. That might mean I take emphasis to be about relationship to surroundings, context, other things, the world, etc., and exaggeration to be more about the thing itself: exaggeration as an extreme, a contortion, etc. and emphasis as a focusing, an isolating, etc.</p>

<p>If you make a statistical bell curve of the features, descriptors, degrees, extents, range of what a phenomenon (object, event, whatever) comprises, then emphasis trends (pushes) to the peak, the central rise of that bell curve. Exaggeration trends (pushes, pulls, blows away ...) the toe or the tail (to the extremity! ... and beyond!).</p>

<p>For me, exaggeration has to have some degree of the ab-normal. For me, emphasis wants to proclaim its normalcy (or appropriateness/properness).</p>

<p>Julie, so are you reasoning that normalcy (or properness) is the main aspect of importance in art? I admit I haven't read all your previous comments and am taking what you said recently as it is written. Why should something we are not normally accustomed to seeing (exaggeration) be excluded from art, as ab-normal?</p>

<p>Fred, you are describing known techniques in photography that can be used to symbolize or effect exaggeration, without stating why you want to exaggerate (other than in some physically noteable visual sense). The why for me is the important consideration. Great art is I think where exaggeration is emphasised in a non literal sense, to make the viewer think about what he is seeing, or not seeing.</p>

<p>Yes, Arthur, I was purposely talking about the way I deal visually with exaggeration and emphasis at this point.</p>

<p>Agreed, Fred, I do see some elements of the why in your comments, as well as the technique. Although the postulates on exaggeration and authenticity have been presented in previous posts of each of us in the forum, I think the subject of exaggeration as a communicative element (the why) is more fascinating than the techniques of doing it. </p>

<p>Arthur, that's good to know.</p>

<p>Fred, I hope so.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/03/kinetic-wave-sculptures.html">http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/03/kinetic-wave-sculptures.html</a></p>

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<p>Do you find yourself exaggerating or, let's say, veering from actual accuracy in order to be more accurate in your photographic portrayal of something? What are some different ways you do that, if you do that? If you don't think you do it, why not? What's your alternative to that?</p>

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<p>You bring up a provocative point, Fred. Everything I shoot is rife with stagecraft, and I seem to avoid "accurate" at all costs. My goal was never to be more faithful in my portrayals, just "prettier." As far as the women I choose in my life, yes, I'm often just as "shallow." I'll have to catch up on the other contributions in this thread to see how easily I've just glossed over this interesting topic.</p>

<p>Ralph, thanks for stopping by. This forum has been dormant for over a week, but if you have more to say once you've read various posts, I'm all ears!</p>

<p>As far as your shallowness, it's not always easy to admit that to ourselves and I can be (and can be proud to be) as shallow as the next guy. I even find my own shallowness sometimes motivating my own work, which I don't usually see as shallow.</p>