> I also tend to be a bit sceptic about the notion
> of "visualizing a =
> thought".=20
>
> Whose thought, anyway? The character=B4s thought?
> The filmmaker=B4s? =
> And what kind of thought?=20
That's the crux of it, really. There are plenty of
essay films that express the thoughts of the
filmmaker, though they are usually heavily dependent
on voiceover narration.
Then there are films that express a character's
thoughts. - Alain Resnais' Providence shows us the
creative process in action as a novelist spends a
sleepless night struggling with his latest creation
and we see it taking shape. There are films that show
us the characters thoughts as dream states (Mulholland
Drive and Waking Life being recent examples). And
there are films that depend heavily on flashbacks
(character's thoughts as memory).
When it's a character's thoughts that are being shown,
I don't think there's anything specific about the
shots themselves that signify: thought. Rather, it's
in the editing, in the juxtaposition of shots. Look
at the Limey and all the recurring shots of Terence
Stamp on the airplane, distractedly staring out the
window. How do those shots affect the shots around
them? Is the whole film a representation of Wilson's
thoughts as, on his way back to England, he goes over
in his mind what happened in California?
Of course, we don't need to see the thinker to know
we're seeing thoughts - is the protagonist/narrator of
Last Year at Marienbad remembering an event,
aniticipating it or simply dreaming it all up? We
don't know, because we don't see him outside of the
subjective labyrinth of his thoughts. But still, we
know that this isn't "real" - the style of the editing
suggests something closer to the way the mind works
than to the way objective reality (whatever that is)
operates. (Resnais' work is full of examples of
editing strategies that mimic the thought process).
You can also say that any film is ultimately the
expression of the thoughts of the filmmaker, which,
when viewed become the thoughts of the viewer. To
quote John Huston "To me, the perfect film is as
though it were unwinding behind your eyes and your
eyes were projecting it themselves, so that you were
seeing what you wished to see. Film is like thought.
It's the closest to thought process of any art."
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