Friday, April 18, 2008

Reality TV, Reality Effects, and Realism

Justin at Songs About Buildings and Food hates this New Yorker article because it hates The Hills. I agree that the tone is a bit nasty, but the analysis is not too far off:
“The Hills” isn’t aiming to stimulate or inspire; I think people watch it mostly to figure out why they’re watching it.
Close, but I actually think people watch it mostly to figure out what they're watching, not why. Both questions are very difficult to answer, though, and either way this is more self-awareness than you get with most other shows.

So here's an example of a tendency on The Hills that I mentioned last week, when a character enters a scene with their face obscured even though the entrance is staged. This is Audrina closing the door behind her as she comes home:












There's no logistical reason why the camera can't be moved a few feet in order to catch her face. This is a location that appears in every episode, and I guarantee that the producers know how to shoot here. So the question is, why obscure her face? What purpose does this serve?

I suggested last week that it has something to do with the "reality effect," a concept developed by literary theorist Roland Barthes. If there's a descriptive detail in a novel that serves no narrative or symbolic purpose, then its very meaninglessness is used to signify that the novel takes place in "reality." This is one way of pointing out that the "realism" of any artwork is not a result of how faithfully it reproduces the outside world, but how much it signals to the reader or viewer "this is real." But since TV and movies (leaving aside animation and special effects) are already constructed out of accurate pictures of the outside world, adding more details doesn't actually reinforce the realistic effect. The principle that "lack of meaning = reality" still holds, though, except that the lack of meaning comes not from extraneous details in content, but from unmotivated camera choices, in this case framing. So one reason this shot is included could be to signal to the audience that this is reality. "If this shot were planned, don't you think we would have planned it better? Therefore, it's obviously real."

But in the stylistic history of film, this has not been the usual way of signaling reality. Usually, you use long takes to better show a natural dialogue between characters, including things like awkward pauses and people talking over each other. You show scenes where very little happens in terms of plot. The Bicycle Thief is a classic example the realist school, or for something more recent try Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days. This is precisely the opposite of what The Hills does, following Hollywood convention. Dialogue is chopped up into alternating shot/reverse-shot angles in order to 1) encourage spectators to identify with one of the characters and 2) streamline the conversation and make it flow. (1) And the weird thing is that The Hills is actually less streamlined than most Hollywood entertainment: after a conversation is broken down into its constituent parts, The Hills puts it back together with the awkward pauses either still there or possibly even deliberately edited in.

My point is that camera placement and editing in The Hills turn out to work against interpreting the show as "real"--instead, they highlight the show's constructedness. The show is purposely trying to look as much as possible like a Hollywood film, to the point of taking the Hollywood editing style to such extremes that the way it's constructed is blatantly obvious. And that includes the obscured faces, which are part of the currently popular "run-and-gun" style of filmmaking, where the best example is the Bourne films. This is also the reason the show is shot in widescreen.

1. By the way, this is basically the film-editing version of Taylorism, where actions taken by factory workers are broken down into the smallest possible pieces and then analyzed for efficiency--actually one word for this editing style is analytic. I'll say more about work on The Hills in a future post, to expand on my comments last time about industrial vs. information economies.

Dissertation progress yesterday: Finished Staging Fascism, which was excellent. Did about 40 pages of indexing/notetaking. Wrote about half a page, still on Nanook/primitivism.
Last movie watched: Crazed Fruit (1956), which is apparently the best of the Taiyozoku films. Based on an Ishihara Shintaro story, it was an influence on the French New Wave. Truffaut loved it. There's a lot to be said about the post-Occupation rejection/imitation of America by the Japanese counter-culture (if you can call it that).

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Justin at Songs About Buildings and Food hates this New Yorker article because it hates The Hills."

um, a little simplistic, i am not quite the teenage girl on the forum going "OMG HEIDI IS SCH A BITCH OMG." not yet, anyway. what i hate about the article is the lack of an attempt to understand the show or to offer any you know, critical insight. the sentence you quote is one of the very few times in the 1500+ word review that she goes anywhere near actively engaging with the show in a serious way. most of the thing when she gets to reviewing the show itself, after that extended introduction to the reality genre, is her smarmily dicking around and making jokes. after some cutting-edge musings on isn't it funny how young people look ("But I’m still trying to figure out why teen-agers want their bra straps to show and how it came to pass that crooked hair parts are considered chic and not a pathetic sign that you didn’t have proper mothering.") she says, "So I have plenty to think about as it is." but this is an obviously sarcastic line: she doesn't have to think about it because it's beneath her. that's basically how i felt about the whole review, that it was a whole lot of not thinking about something. add in a fun logical fallacy ("last month, conveniently, nude photos of Audrina surfaced on the Web, which led to the following show’s getting the highest ratings of the series’ run.") rinse, repeat, finished!


goddamnit, i said i wasn't going to talk about it! karina offers another take.

very interesting post.

Anonymous said...

er, that link should be http://karinalongworth.tumblr.com/post/32086621

Anonymous said...

Posts on this blog are good, for Dating tips and links see best-dating-links.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

zeyaseofoex
IMVU Credits
aoc powerleveling
wow powerleveling
wow power level
world of warcraft gold
ffxi gil
lotro gold
cheap wow gold
power level
cheap ffxi gil
age of conan
Buy wow gold
IMVU Credits
Cheap WoW Gold
IMVU Credits
Buy wow gold
wow gold
Buy WOW Gold
Warcraft Gold
Lotro Gold
SilkRoad Gold
Power Leveling
Shaiya Gold
FFXI Gil
IMVU Credits
IMVU Credits
wow powerleveling
aoc gold
buy aoc gold
cheap aoc gold
cheap aoc gold
age of conan gold
buy age of conan gold
cheap age of conan gold
美国主机
SEO
搜索引擎优化
SEO服务
容灾
备份
数据库复制
扁桃体发炎怎么办
扁桃体发炎
燃气灶维修
热水器维修
万和热水器维修
燕山热水器维修
北京管道疏通
疏通管道
疏通马桶
疏通下水道
高压清洗管道
高压射流清洗管道
抽粪
化粪池清理
化粪池清掏
防水堵漏
管道疏通
北京疏通管道
高压清洗
清理化粪池
防水堵漏
防水工程
管道疏通
疏通管道
高压清洗
工程打孔
专业防水工程
清理化粪池抽粪

Anonymous said...

驾校
北京驾校
加拿大留学
留学加拿大
货架
代孕
代孕网
代孕妈妈
英国留学
留学美国
留学英国
美国留学
婚庆
货架
搬家公司
北京搬家公司
北京搬家
搬家
企业文化咨询

肺癌
肝癌
食道癌
胃癌
乳腺癌
直肠癌
结肠癌
乳腺癌
珍香胶囊
清肺散结丸
翻译公司
北京翻译公司
Google排名
FAG轴承
FAG进口轴承
NTN轴承
NSK轴承
写字楼出租
写字楼
猎头
管道疏通
北京管道疏通
北京疏通管道
北京疏通下水道
北京高压清洗
北京崇文区管道疏通
清洗管道
清理化粪池
捐卵
Led显示屏
礼品
礼品公司

Anonymous said...

term life insurance
life insurance
life insurance quotes

Anonymous said...

lgx112358sss26
lgx112358sss
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
item4sale
item4sale
item4sale
item4sale
item4sale
干洗连锁店
干洗连锁店
连锁加盟洗衣店
连锁加盟洗衣店
干洗设备价格
干洗设备价格
连锁店
连锁店
CAD软件下载
CAD软件下载
CAD软件
CAD软件
开干洗店
开干洗店
干洗设备
干洗设备
干洗
干洗
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold
wow gold

Anonymous said...

xajhlqc111
货架
企业展厅设计
北京展览公司
无线上网卡
北京翻译公司
北京印刷
剪板机
卷板机
弯管机
折边机
铣边机
涂层测厚仪
粗糙度仪
超声波测厚仪
红外线测温仪
超声波探伤仪
股骨头坏死
画册印刷
航空箱
北京航空箱
设备箱
PDU
机柜插座

北京塑料制品
pvc管
hdpe波纹管
pvc板
效果图
北京效果图
效果图设计
效果图制作
效果图公司
澳洲旅游
海岛游
国旅
自由行
出境游
婚纱摄影
婚纱摄影


科技馆设计
博物馆设计
规划展厅设计
北京展厅设计

线号机
展厅设计
翻译公司
包装盒
塑料袋
纸袋
北京翻译公司
液晶监视器
四合院


英语翻译
翻译公司
DID拼接墙
分水器
北京SEO


涂层测厚仪
粗糙度仪
超声波测厚仪
红外线测温仪
超声波探伤仪
分水器


不干胶印刷
手提袋印刷
画册印刷
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门
伸缩门



卷帘门
卷帘门
卷帘门
卷帘门
车库门
车库门
旋转门
旋转门
旋转门
旋转门
自动门
卷帘门
卷帘门
卷帘门
卷帘门

自动门
自动门
车库门
车库门
车库门
车库门
自动门
电动门
车库门
车库门
车库门

Anonymous said...

台灣的偶像劇越來越多人看,連韓國都瘋迷,台灣最近無敵珊寶妹的偶像劇很火紅,籃球火也展現出不錯的籃球絕技,帶點KUSO的內容的黑糖群俠傳也有對中國功夫的傳承,比笑話還好笑!台灣政治討論區中,總統府裡面的馬英九最受大家討論,因為浮動油價機制還沒結束,所以最近發現有不少人用免費空間網路打工的兼差抵抗現在的通膨,為了不讓電腦中木馬都會裝防木馬軟體以及防毒軟體,甚至還有人會去買大樂透微風論壇討論如何中獎,真的很誇張...

Anonymous said...

金九银十中秋国庆佳节来临,商家掀起降价优惠,三星液晶显示器94NW,19寸价格仅售1149元,不过网上骂声一片,质量真的不好吗?网络时代电脑等同电视,到底是买个三星等离子显器,还是三星等离子电视呢?Thinking……
日立液晶电视领域又推出了3款液晶电视产品,其中UT42-HHV700、UT37-HV700分别为全高清产品,而UT32-HV700为高清液晶电视。而且两款全高清产品应用了120Hz技术,日立液晶电视在动态画面的呈现上比较突出。
建议挑选低功耗的等离子电视。比如松下旗下的松下等离子电视,松下等离子显示器品牌质量较好,在购买的时候,消费者应首先需要多考虑性价比。

Anonymous said...

qswd012
wow gold
wow power leveling
oofay.us
wowmine
隔膜泵
隔膜泵
隔膜泵
磁力泵
磁力泵
磁力泵
胶体磨
胶体磨
胶体磨
上海展览公司
上海展览公司
上海展览公司
阀门
阀门
阀门
空调
空调
空调
油泵
油泵
油泵
Cosmetic surgery
Cosmetic surgery
菲律宾留学
菲律宾留学
菲律宾留学
东方医院
东方医院
东方医院
隔膜泵
油泵
上海展览公司
阀门
qswd00