Thoughts on Cinematic Naturalism

Seven or eight years ago, I saw a truly terrible film called The Loft at a private screening; this is a Belgian Flemish film that was, naturally, made into an American version that will presumably be even worse (since that's how things go). This terrible film had high-production value, kind of nominally “good” acting, “clever” cinematography, “smooth” writing, and so on. And these qualities are largely what made it quite so awful as it was—if it merely fell apart overtly or had crude workmanship, it could be a laughably camp failure. What made it so bad was that it was a collection of every cliche from film that we've seen a million times—camera shots that the cinematographer presumably learned in film school and had to insert in order to qualify as “artistic,” albeit with no relation whatsoever to plot or purpose.

The lighting and sets were absurdly stylish and stylized to scream out “noir” in every frame. The articulate roles of the misogynistic and double-crossing main cast were apparently chopped out of every worst excess of every awful David Mamet script. It wasn't even possible for me to dislike the characters who did the bad things, because my only attention could be on their cartoonish neatness in fitting the screenwriters' formal purpose

So OK, that film was disappointing and laughable (and Belgium's biggest commercial success in film, ever). It made me think, however, about what a good film could do... I wish so earnestly one would.

The various ill-intentioned characters were cut-outs of the roles they needed to play; well, the few better intentioned characters were equally structural and not nuanced. The failure of the film wasn't because these cut-out characters only existed for reasons of plot structure, but rather that the filmmakers felt compelled to give them “naturalistic” lines and scenes to explain these pseudo-characters.

I started out joking, but on reflection really believe, that the characters would have been better for their roles if they simply wore signs hung to their necks that read “misogynist” or “manipulator”, or “earnest young police investigator,” and all of the naturalistic dialogue meant to inform us of these roles was simply omitted and an actual plot was allowed to unfold in front of these pieces of what amounted to scenery and set pieces.

In this I'm genuinely not kidding. I mean, sure maybe not as a remake of this particular film; but in terms of this awful burden of “naturalism” impeding the actual structure of what could be interesting plot arcs. I think of Von Trier's brilliant Dogville and Mandaley especially here as illustrations of how non-naturalistic elements can be brilliantly used in stories with genuine impact and authenticity. Or Kabuki Theater, or Greek Tragedies, for example. If roles in films were acknowledged simply as structurally required placeholder in otherwise human and emotional dramas, it would open up fascinating narrative possibilities that have been left largely unoccupied.

So please, please, please... some filmmaker out there, make this great film I want to see in which the roles that serve, essentially, as scenery are treated in a manner appropriate to that role--for example with literal signs hung around the necks of structural players to name their position--and the actual foreground can be appropriately foregrounded without the distraction of false naturalism.