"UNBEARABLE OR GREAT, YOU GOTTA LOVE EVERY HOUR": MIMESIS and CATHARSIS in VANILLA SKY (2001), AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), and ALMOST FAMOUS (1999)

NOTE: I had a lot of trouble formatting images and videos in this post. The examples of each technique in image/video form appear after the paragraph in which they're referenced. I placed a (1) (2) or (3) after the description of the example, which directly correlates with the order of one of the three images or videos at the end of the paragraph. Also, nothing would center :(. 

From hallucinogenic drugs to fantasy novels, the human obsession with distorting reality is a thread that runs deep throughout our psychology. As much as art often tries to reflect reality, something will always end up a little bit wrong-- that's the nature of perception and creation. Famous diarists Sylvia Plath and Joan Didion have mused heavily about the flaws in storytelling from real life events. As soon as something is written down, both famous writers have surmised, something is changed about it-- tinted a different color than it was experienced, misrepresented in some imperceptible way. Because of this strange quality of creation, how we distort reality has become the main interest in creating effective art in lieu of never distorting it at all. Film in particular is a medium that allows a creator to completely build a scene and control how the world is represented, from set design to the editing room. In some films, another layer is added to the creator's mimesis ("representation or imitation of the real world in art and literature"): the character's perception of reality. Some of the greatest films and most enthralling blockbusters are often called "mind-bending" or "reality-twisting", and explore deeply what's going on in a character's mind as they build their mimetic version of the world. Three such films are Vanilla Sky (1999), American Beauty (2001), and Almost Famous (2001). Through the literal construction of a dream world, the role of unhealthy fantasy in one's life, and disillusionment with the true face of something loved; these three films have a deep thematic similarity. At first, the protagonist of each film is immersed in a glorification of real life: a dramatized and twisted mimesis that doesn't really reflect reality. Then, throughout the film, they travel on a journey towards accepting a more realistic representation of reality and accepting their place in the world. Each character's perception of reality at the end of the film is much more healthy and true than their perception at the beginning. This experience proves very cathartic for each character in the film, releasing their inner emotional tension and purging their toxic views from their life. Throughout the plotline, this journey is revealed using film techniques in photography, mise en scene, movement, editing, and sound to make the message of the journey clear. Through watching the story play out, a viewer can begin to examine how they see their own reality, and what their own personal mimesis entails. How do they distort the world around them? Does it keep them from embracing something valid and true about their existence? By the time the credits roll on each of these films, the viewer is overwhelmed with a similar catharsis felt by the characters as they face their life with new perspective on their world and the value of reality over fantasy.

"The chef prepares a special menu for your delight," Paul McCartney sings in the opening lines of his song "Vanilla Sky", the namesake of the 2001 psychological sci-fi thriller by Cameron Crowe. "Oh my, tonight you fly so high up in the vanilla sky/unbearable or great, you gotta love every hour/you must appreciate/this is your time, this is your day/you've got it all, don't blow it away." The entire story of Vanilla Sky describes a unique situation in which a character recreates his own mimesis, or representation of the world in which he lives; allowing for an in-depth exploration of reality vs. fantasy. When publishing superstar David Ames finds himself in a disfiguring car accident that disrupts the entire fabric of his silver-spoon existence, he signs a contract with a corporation promising him cryogenic freezing and his subconscious suspended in a lucid dream state after his death. Even before the viewer is aware of the narrative flipping between David's life and his death-dream, film techniques help highlight the difference between harsh reality and the fantasy world he creates for himself. Vanilla Sky includes a whopping 428 references to popular culture intentionally embedded by Cameron Crowe into the film, an incredibly detailed design of mise en scene that reflects both David's job at a pop culture magazine and the fact that he is constructing his dream world entirely from "reference" of the reality he knows. Within the frame, similarities can be drawn between a network of pop culture frenzy and the actual images on screen. For instance, it is revealed near the end of the scene that one shot of David and his love Sofia walking down a street completely parallels an album cover that David loved in his real life, The Freewallin' Bob Dylan. The psychologist that David talks to in his dream world bears an uncanny resemblance to Atticus Finch from the film To Kill A Mockingbird. Lighting is also an important difference to signify David's perfect construction of reality and the difference between the film's "reality" and "mimesis"-- during the last scenes that David can remember of his "real life", he goes out to a club with his old friends and finds himself dancing and drinking, wearing his latex mask to cover his disfigured face. During these scenes, he is washed over in flickering lights from the club. David is often entirely washed over in blue, creating an eerie representation of the man whose life is becoming a nightmare. The use of cool colors is exaggerated to overtake the viewer with the same unsettling, sickly, and ghost-like sensation that David is beginning to feel overtake his life. As David begins to find his life more and more harsh and uncomfortable, so does the viewer. This is contrasted later in the film, when the lighting sends a warm wash of color over David in the comfort of his constructed world. For instance, in the final scene of Vanilla Sky, the entire world appears tinted in a soft pink color. A halo effect is created behind the heads of David and the girl he loves, Sofia, as they stand on a rooftop in his pastel perfect world. In a film whose opening song (Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place") croons "there are two colors in my head", the use of warm vs. cool colors is clued as very important to the contrast of the two different words David experiences. The view from the rooftop in the final scene is a very expressionistic portrayal perfect for the science-fiction world, using stunning effects to make the clouds around David and Sofia look like something out of a Monet painting. The form in which David's world is portrayed correctly conveys the infinite possibility of his mind. A Sigur Ros song plays softly in the background, highlighting Cameron Crowe's ability to understand the emotional appeal of music as the high notes swing and fall, and in a moment of pure catharsis, David decides to jump off of the rooftop and end his dream to wake up in the real world. The kinetic symbolism of David plummeting across the screen and off the roof reflects his "letting go" of his dream and accepting reality as holding true value above fantasy. As the viewer absorbs these film techniques and watches David take his journey of rejecting his fantasies, they also undergo the same catharsis that David experiences in that final scene: the realization that the true world is preferable over a sugarcoated representation of it.

In terms of cinemetic style, Sam Mendes' film American Beauty (1999) is a much more realistic film. Mendes abandons jaw-dropping impressionist-inspired skies in favor of more "lackluster" portrayals of suburban houses and environments. The focus in American Beauty seems to be on the content rather than form. However, it still manages to fully immerse the reader into a character's mindscape, through the portrayal of a character "living their dreams" in a much more abstract way. From the first scene of the film, in which establishing shots track over a suburban town, the viewer is taught to sympathize and connect with the central character of Lester Burnham. A voiceover plays of Lester speaking, connecting the audience directly with him as a character. Lester lives a very monotonous and corporate-controlled life, stuck in a loveless marriage and never experiencing true joy. The scene in which the action of the film starts rolling is a scene in which Lester is dragged to watch his daughter Janie's dance performance at a high school sports game and sees Janie's friend Angela dancing out on the court at half time (1). For the first time, the film transitions into a scene of pure fantasy, moving the viewer into the character's flawed portrayal of life. The lighting in Lester's fantasy is very high-contrast, highlighting the drama and glamour that he feels in his perversion as he begins to sexualize the young girl. Movement is mechanically distorted into a slight slow-motion and atonal music clashes with odd bass sounds and drum clashes. The scene is almost perfectly symmetrical, showing Angela as the dominant contrast of every shot as she dances in the middle of the crowd. In the most notable highly symmetrical shot, Angela opens her jacket from the direct center and rose petals balloon out in all directions. These techniques are used to signify that Lester is fantasizing, not truly observing real life, and that the scene is a poor imitation of what's really happening. They also highlight Lester's unhealthy obsession through their dramatization, in some instances using left to right camera movement to create a strange eye movement for the viewer and suggest that the world Lester is creating is uncomfortable and unnatural. This distorted view of reality is mended later in the film when Lester comes to terms with his role as a father and accepts his aging, choosing to become grateful for his beautiful family instead of chasing his lost youth. In a scene in which he stands in his kitchen and wonders about his daughter's well being, Lester's face is lit entirely from above for the first time (2). Earlier in the film, the contours of actor Kevin Spacey's face were often exaggerated in shadow, lit from below to signify his slightly antagonistic nature. Being lit from above signifies his rebirth and acceptance of morality, almost reflective of a light "from heaven". Lester's death scene includes a heartbreaking anticipatory setup in which the camera pans over his white kitchen tile seconds before it is splattered with blood as his killer shoots him in the head. After his death, we are again immersed in Lester's representation of his life. However, now the images are accompanied by soft piano music and show him in left to right pans laying on his back as a child, admiring his cousin's new car, and admiring his family with fondness. This thematic montage is meant to truly show how much Lester has changed throughout the film. His mimesis has changed from an unhealthy, dramatized obsession into a true appreciation and love for "every single moment of [his] stupid, little life". (3)

Another 1999 film and and Cameron Crowe classic, Almost Famous, outlines a more complex tale of wonder and disillusionment with reality. Toeing the line between a standard a coming of age film and a musical, Crowe uses the function of music to signify time and locale-- selecting tunes from Led Zeppelin, The Who, Elton John, and dozens of other classic rock artists to immerse the reader in the period of rock and roll mania. Carefully cultivated costumes also have their function within the frame to solidify the time period and characterize each figure in Almost Famous-- the glamorous yet deceitful Penny Lane wears large furry coats and carefree summer clothes, Crowe's alter ego reflects his youth in baggy t-shirts and jeans, and the band Stillwater is dressed as rock and roll "outlaws" or "cowboys" (1). Almost Famous is the story of William Miller, a young teenager who is hired by Rolling Stone magazine to follow the upcoming band Stillwater in their tour and write an article about what he sees. Right away, this film also carries the central theme of the character's mimesis, or perception of reality. In the movie, his mentor Lester Bangs warns William that the world of rock stars is not what it's cut out to be, and that the musicians will use him to get what they want. Lester knows that the glamorous world of rock and roll is an illusion, but William loves rock and roll so much that he slowly forgets Lester's advice and "makes friends with the rock stars". In a scene where William accompanies a distraught rock star named Russell to a house party, the viewer begins to get a picture that something is wrong in the relationship between the stars and the band. Stillwater has just had a huge fight and Russell's future with the band is looking dubious as they enter the house. The party is very densely textured, showing bodies and heads everywhere layered within the frame, but William is always shown somewhere between 5 and 20 feet away from Russell. This establishes a social or public proxemic pattern that exemplifies the vast difference between their characters. In one shot, Russell stands on a roof above the mass of the party and screams the words "I am a golden god". The camera shows an aerial over the shoulder shot of Russell's birds-eye-view on the partygoers, symbolic of his position "above" them in the social order and his invincibility that he feels as a star (2). The viewer is immersed in the surreal experience that William is having as he comes to terms with the huge ego of a superstar and the turmoil that the emotional distance of the musicians brings on everyone. This experience foreshadows a later scene, in which the band totally rejects his article and ruins the end of his tour and relationship with the Rolling Stone editors. William is crushed because his perfect perception of reality has been destroyed. In the words of Lester, "They made you feel cool, and hey, I met you. You are not cool." William's perception of rock and roll as a perfect haven has been disrupted, and his fantasy destroyed. However, throughout the movie, hints of the real value of music are sprinkled in. In one of the most poignant scenes, William's beautiful friend Penny Lane spins and dances on a trashed floor to Cat Stevens' "The Wind" (3). The pure beauty of the music and Penny's reaction exemplifies the quality of music that William loves, and that Lester says makes it "a place apart form the vast, benign lap of America." William's final realization when writing his article is that he can't just write a piece that glorifies the band into superstars, but he also can't forgo that beautiful and emotional poignance of music that made him fall in love with rock in the first place. William decides to write his article with a mimesis that includes everything-- the good, the bad, and the ugly of his tour with rock and roll. This experience proves very cathartic for William as he processes his experiences and feelings towards music, and for the viewer as they realize that a true view of life includes both the amazing parts and the unpleasant parts.

Every young child, teenage student, and adult alike knows the exquisite pleasure of simply sitting and daydreaming: constructing fantasies that excite the mind, but have little to do with real life. Whether that fantasy be a perfect world with the girl you love, the "sexy" image of youth that you lost, or the invincible godlike quality of rock and roll; fantasy often allows people to cope with the reality of their lives. However, when this fantasy becomes an unhealthy crutch, a "dose of reality" can lead to an awakening in all of us. Through the use of film techniques in photography, mise en scene, movement, editing, and sound; directors Cameron Crowe and Sam Mendes help illuminate the flaws in fantasy and the catharsis of accepting the true world. The characters of David Ames, Lester Burnham, and William Miller all undergo a journey in their respective films that illuminate a realistic mimesis and change each character as a whole and dynamic person. Watching these experiences as a viewer helps adjust the mind, and when exiting the "fantasy" of the film into the "reality" after leaving the theater, we undergo our own cathartic experience. The world around us is illuminated in new understanding: how we choose to perceive the world is instrumental to our mental and even spiritual landscape. When, as Sylvia Plath or Joan Didion would say, we write down our world as we experience it, what has changed from the life itself?

american beauty (1999): sound

Sam Mendes uses specific music to allude to traits of certain characters, as a recurring motif in their storyline. Lester's relationship to music is the most notable. During a scene where he buys drugs from his neighbor Ricky Fitts, Lester looks around the young Ricky's room and exclaims incrediulously, "You like Pink Floyd?" As he abandons his monotonous way of life in favor of a more reckless philosophy, music from his youth-- presumably the 1970s-- begins to feature heavily into scenes with Lester. During the pinnacle of Lester's journey back to youth, he smokes a joint while driving and singing along to the song "American Woman" by The Guess Who, echoing the sentiments he now feels about his straight-laced wife Carolyn-- "I got more important things to do/than spend my time growing old with you." During the climactic scenes of the film when Lester walks into the living room with the hope of seducing the young Angela, the lyrics to a Neil Young song (covered by Annie Lennox) that plays on the stereo begin to reflect his acceptance of his aging-- "Old man lying by the side of the road", "Don't let it bring you down/It's only castles burning... you will come around".

Mendes doesn't just use lyrical music to communicate meaning-- non-musical and instrumental sound is very important to Angela's character. Mena Suvari's acting style utilizes different voices to communicate with different characters-- Angela takes on a very casual tone to talk to Jane, but her voice rises in pitch and softens in
to a very sensual tone when she talks to and about Lester ("Have you been working out? You can really tell...") in order to portray the sexuality she wants to exude. When Lester fantasizes about Angela, the same music always plays-- a tense instrumental clash of symbols and drums combined with atonal bass sounds. This strange motif that follows the Angela fantasies throughout the film, from the high school gym to Lester's kitchen to the rosepetal-filled bathtub. This music not only signifies that the scene has transitioned from reality into a fantasy, it also serves to make the audience slightly uncomfortable with the odd, falling pitches and clashing tones. We can recognize from the music that Lester's thoughts are perverse, no matter how much new life he finds in his obsession.

ALMOST FAMOUS (1999): sound

Dozens of songs are used in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (1999), some for only a few seconds or less. In some cases, the context of the movie and the song that was picked to accompany a moment complement each other powerfully. After the lead character William's sister leaves home to become a stewardess, she leaves a note under his bed along with some records telling him to listen to The Who's Tommy with a candle burning and see his future. In the next few shots we see young William lighting a candle and "Sparks" begins to play in the background, offering Cameron a perfect segue to literally let us see William's future. In the next scene, William has aged several years, his interest in music has grown exponentially, and we enter the timeframe in which the main events of Almost Famous are set. Cameron Crowe effectively uses Tommy as a device to move across time and space.

When music is added to a film, often it is to tint the viewer's perception of the mood of the moment, how they should feel, and what is to come. Due to the unique experience of designing a soundtrack for a movie about music, Cameron Crowe uses diegetic music heavily throughout the movie. Most notably, at one point the band all gathers in the tour bus after a rough night of drama and slowly the band members and accompanying friends begin to thaw, listening to Elton John playing on the bus speakers and beginning to sing along. This is unique because the song isn't just used to color the moment for the audience. The characters on the bus are also experiencing it, and the mood of "Tiny Dancer" affects both the story and the viewer simultaneously. As Cameron Crowe was recently quoted, "music will always be a single essential language shared by everybody, and it continues to be, regardless of format, price, social networking, sex, nationality, concert tickets or technology". 

INVENTED YET VIVID: MOVEMENT AND EDITING in SNATCH (2000), ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007), DONNIE DARKO (2001), AMELIE (2001), MEMENTO (2001), AND VANILLA SKY (2001)

Every story is a multidimensional being, with plot creating its underlying frame and thematic structure helping to organize a story's thoughts. However, plot and theme mean nothing without the figments of life within a story that move the plot and theme forward and whose lives unravel to create a work of art: the characters. A film often aims to explore a character and their perceptions of the world. Well-thought and subtly introduced character development is a powerful element to any story, and the medium of film has the potential for unique investigations of character type and development. Movement and editing are usually used in a film to help create a fluid and operational story, but in many cases techniques in movement and editing not only give consecutive structure to the structure of a film but also help establish its characters, lead an audience to sympathize with them or criticize their reliability, and develop the personas that a viewer will learn to hate or love over the course of a film.

Movement is often used to develop  characterization, since the actors on screen are often the most dynamic figures in the frame. Across genres as diverse as crime and gangster films, such as Guy Richie's Snatch (2000); heavily choreographed and active musicals such as Julie Taymor's Across the Universe (2007); and psychological reality-benders such as Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001), the movement of the characters within the frame is used to give us insight into the most important parts of their character as well as to create people that the audience can sympathize with.

For instance, during the climatic peak of Snatch, the underdog and eventual victor of the story engages in a bare-knuckle boxing match. Mickey, played by Brad Pitt, is struck heavily and falls backwards across the screen in slow motion, apparently defeated. He falls across the screen from right to left, a less natural movement of the eye for the average watcher designed to unsettle a viewer. Then a surreal shot of Mickey falling through water is played, using a distortion of movement to show his body sinking in slow motion. The light behind him, his battered body, and the drama of the slow motion shot build to cast Mickey as a martyr figure-- so when Mickey snaps back up to deliver the blow that wins him the match, the viewer is on his side. 

The movement in Across the Universe, in contrast, is much more tightly controlled and used to create a harmonious and organized portrayal of the emotion in each scene. In one of the most striking scenes of the film, set to the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", (clip @ 0:45) the character Max is shuffled through a draft office in order to determine his eligibility for the US army. Long shots of Max and the other soldiers being dragged and shuffled through the process like puppets incite heavy kinetic symbolism, a propaganda-inspired dance number that paints the US government as ultimately oppressive and controlling and Max as a victim of the restrictive and violent system. In Donnie Darko, one scene meant to explore the setting of Donnie's high school employs heavy mechanical distortion of movement. As the scene opens, the camera swivels in a stunning tilt shot around a fixed point, swinging a sideways view of a schoolbus upright as boys jump out of the back and walk towards the school. This scene employs speeding pans of the school's scenery that eventually collide with the path of a main character and fixate on them, dying down into slow motion as the characters perform actions related to their plot arc or personality (dancing with the dance team, snorting cocaine inside of a locker, or reading alone by a fountain; for instance). This method of revealing character traits allows a viewer to become familiar with Donnie's life and builds the world of Middlesex, while still implementing an element of chaos from the changing speeds.

Similarly, editing techniques can also be used across a variety of genres to serve diverse functions. The editor of a movie wields great power in cutting film to evoke emotional appeal, or in many cases to simplify the film's complexity from a viewer's perspective. Often, important differences and contrasts in a film must be highlighted, and parallelism in shots across the time frame of a movie can be implemented effectively to accomplish a multitude of effects. In the 2001 romantic comedy Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, thematic montages factor heavy into the plot as flashes of images are brought to illustrate the voiceover narration regardless of the time or space in which they are occurring. This is especially prevalent in the opening scenes, in which Amelie and her parents are described and Amelie's past is established. Short shots of things that the family members like cut quickly across the screen, revealing important differences between family members within the repeated structure of fast, tight jump cuts. (clip @ 0:00-0:20). Memento (2001), a psychological thriller investigating memory and revenge, similar short fragments of film are used to stud the plot's forward movement with outside visuals. In this case, the protagonist Leonard's memories are used in quick succession. Throughout the film several fast shots are repeated, with objects and scenarios morphing near the end of the film to call the memories' accuracy into question. For instance, a repeated shot of Leonard pinching his wife's leg is later replaced by him giving her an insulin shot. Similar replacement of content in shots also factors heavily into Cameron
Crowe's Vanilla Sky (2001). Many scenes were filmed twice, with Penelope Cruz and with Cameron Diaz, so that flashbacks could reveal inconsistencies in the main character David's perceptions. Both women posed for similar photographs and drawings, and the shots were cut and juxtaposed next to each other during David's mental breakdown. Cutting continuously between girls creates the illusion of Penelope flickering to Cameron and back again, dragging a viewer into David's confusion and panic.

Across the canvas of time in any film, the characters hold the brushes and create the life that moves a film forward. Fictional people captivate and enthrall audiences, creating their own fans, people who identify with other invented yet vivid personas. Techniques of movement and editing such as distortion of natural movement or parallel shots can assist in revealing those characters within a story, and bringing any film to its most human potential.