Critical Analysis of the Work A Family Finds Entertainment of Ryan Trecartin - Essay Example

Critic Kevin McGarry describes the work "A Family Finds Entertainment" of Ryan Trecartin as "a singular video practice that in form and in function advances understandings of post-millennial technology, narrative and identity” Discuss how such ideas (paper topic) are investigated/narrated in this movie.  Trecatin’s rendering and narration of the movie A Family Finds Entertainment is unorthodox. It is a departure from the typical structure of a film that is linear with clearly defined character bearing methodically developed plot. Rather, the movie is a muddle of frantic characterization of overdrawn expressions, compressed into frames which are seemingly incoherent with characters that are atrociously painted that forms into a coherent movie when all its elements are taken together to form a language that are distinctly Trecatin’s. The genius of the film is not in the plot. The story is generally reflective of a teenager’s life in a highly urbanized environment whose sense of self is driven by consumerism and mass media. It is about a suicidal teenage character named Skippy whose gender is quite difficult to define but easily recognized to be Trecatin (being such, Skippy will be addressed as a boy) being clod in an outlandish costume who started in the film hidden in the second floor bathroom of their home. Skippy was asked and pleaded to come out by family and friends but instead of coming out, indulged in a surreal self assessment in the character of Kafka that drove him to cut himself. The irony was presented with the partying and singing downstairs while Skippy is in a self-mortification mood ready to cut himself/herself up. Strangely, a seashell told him to stop and stop he did. He left home and met a filmmaker but later hit by a car. A band played in electric frenzy followed by fireworks and festivity. The idea of the movie was not to conform but rather to challenge which is the genius of the film. Transcending beyond the impression of the characters, digging beneath the outlandish costume, heavy make-up, gay lingo, digitally altered speeches and outrageous sequences, it actually speaks a coherent language when all elements in the film are considered. The outlandish characters served a purpose and Trecatin playing a role of female makes a statement that narration should be gender neutral and characterization should depend on the personality of the characters. This explains the over emphasized dialogues of the characters with Trecatin playing as Skippy and another female character. The construction of the character is not based on physiology but rather on the articulation of its mind. The way it investigate the circumstances and progression of the life of Skippy demonstrates that narration and story-telling can be done in non linear and even unrealistic way. The speech also does not have to taken literally just like Skippy’s seeming existentialist articulation when he was contemplating of suicide. There, it requires the consideration of not just the dialogue of the character but also the accompanying juxtaposition of the character’s body and its facial expression to finally get what the character is saying. This explains why the characters are outlandish because they complement the seemingly curt verbiages to complete a full dialogue. To illustrate, one can feel the gravity of the proposition that confounds Skippy when he was attempting to kill himself. Yet, the narration was only a serious of short talk, with series of impressions that were cut short by editing, but we are able to get it when we factored in the facial expression, the altered speech, the unorthodox lingo and body language of Skippy. The message that was delivered by shell or snail for Skippy not to take his life seems Kafkaesque in surrealism, but we get the message clear. Taking the whole context and narration of the film, Trecatin only illustrates that there are other ways of investigating certain phenomena whose story-telling is more contemporary albeit absurd in its presentation but the audience can relate because it subconsciously reflects their own lives. Describe Trecartin's camerawork and his editing Initially, one may observe that Trecatin used a low tech camera that could even be just a cellphone camera or a plain camcorder. It could even be categorized as a home-made low budget film absent of the special effects that is present in mainstream movies. The editing may seem reckless with scenes too short to form coherence but they all have a purpose: on how to reflect life in contemporary art form using accessible technology. Trecatin’s film underwent heavy electronic editing that ranged from the general motif, to digitally altered speeches that seemed to slur and over emphasize certain words. Tones of the dialogues are gender mixed or even gay-ish because female roles were played by men with accents and body language that goes in between male and female. There are characters which are really female such as that of Pharengina (or phalengina) who is a female but there is something in her that makes us squirm to be a male. Trecatin’s camerawork and his editing created the world of the movie more than its plot or narrative. Almost every scene was digitally altered and modified particularly the multiple montages that provide the temporal and spatial element of the film. Scenes were short and compressed, even chaotic, illogical and non-linear particularly the band that played, the fireworks and festivity that ensued after Skippy was hit by a car. The dialogues on which the news that was to be delivered took a long route whose voices were either distorted or amplified. The point of the seeming distortion in the movie was not the story itself (it was loosely knitted) but to emphasize how to narrate a story and how to portray a character in a contemporary sense. The camerawork was deliberately low end because it served the purpose of rendering a life that is everyday among the audiences. Had the camerawork been sophisticated such as those used by the mainstream movie, it would have defeated the motif and genre of the film. Its seeming “rawness” adds flavor to the temporal and spatial environment of the film where the audience can connect as it was shot on their level. The editing, which did not only make the frames “cleaner” but also digitally emphasized the already outlandish characters that helped fill the void that the curtness of the editing created and thus making each scene complete. The editing of the speeches and dialogues are intentional. Considering the entire context of the film, the alteration of the voices were necessary and not just a random digital manipulation of Trecatin to demonstrate his digital editing aptitude. Those trains of irrational mutterings and seemingly incomprehensible short phrases were carefully constructed not only in terms of words, tone and accent, but also intentionally elongated and amplified speeches to emphasize the plight of these characters. This is particularly obvious during Skippy’s existentialist episode in the bathroom whether to take his life or not, because the dialogues were too short to the point of mumblings, but the impression it left to its audience is more than what a full blown, well expressed soliloquy could ever achieve. Conclusion Had the director of the movie, Ryan Trecatin not an accomplished artist nor trained in the formalities of film making, the genius of the film may have been overlooked because the initial impression that the audience may have with the film would be disquieting that may impel them to abandon or ignore the film. Because of his background and credential, the audience would take a second watch and only then that the genius of the film can be seen and appreciated and perhaps to a certain degree understood why movie critic Kevin McGarry McGarry describes the work "A Family Finds Entertainment" as "a singular video practice that in form and in function advances understandings of post-millennial technology, narrative and identity. Trecatin proved that even with the utter simplicity of camerawork without the elaborate multi-angled and multi shots of mainstream movie, a film can still be effective in its story telling. In fact, it can even add flavor to the film evident with Trecatin’s A Family Finds Entertainment because the singular video practice provided a ”raw” flavor to the film that enabled the audience to connect with the film. Also, technology itself can be pushed further to help complement and fill the void in the dialogues that made the audience understand in its entirety through it. The montages, alteration of the voices, either by elongating, remixing or amplifying them helped in emphasizing the plight of the character whose nuances can never be achieved by a simple narration. To a certain degree, it is even more effective and emphatic than an expressed dialogue. The digital processing of the multiple montages also stretched the story for it to tell more in a very compressed format. The narratives and identity of the story and the characters also embodied the post modernist ideals which was made more emphatic through the use of abovementioned technology. Trecatin playing the role of a female in the movie was not out of budgetary constraint as one may easily judge, but alludes to certain message about characterization. This is to remove the concept of stereotype of gender typecasting of male and female by a male (Trecatin) playing the role of a female. This brings forth the greater understanding that roles or characters are out to be defined by their personality and articulation rather than by their stereotypes. Read More