Not many people get the opportunity to interview a critic who is also a philosopher, so we at OKIEDOKS take pride in having Mark R. Leeper as our celebrity for the month of November.
The talented couple, Mark and Evelyn Leeper have been lucky to travel throughout the world and have shared their experiences with other people over the medium of writing and internet.
Team OKIEDOKS wishes all the happiness in the world to Mark and Evelyn. Best of luck for your future pursuits as well.
Lets know more about Mark's views on movies
1) When it comes to appreciating a movie, what factors do you as a critic notice first? What is the process of appreciating a movie? Why are courses
designed for it when it's just analyzing a movie?
I should probably preface this by saying that I am not a typical film
critic. I use my own technique. I have seen a lot of films in my time.
I see several hundred films a year. I have been reviewing films for on a
regular basis for over 30 years. So when I see a film I can put it in a
context of how film has developed.
This gives me a good feel for when a director is borrowing from previous
films or when he is being really original. With the exception of that
experience I see a film pretty much like anybody does. I do not have a
formal approach to reviewing. I just see a film and make comments on the
film. The comments I will either write on a notepad or type into my
pocket computer. When I am done I organize the notes and write a review
from that. But I am not consciously aware of a process or looking for
some aspect of the film first. I suppose Iusually look for characters I
can believe but beyond that what I look for first depends on the film.
Different films will have different virtues. A film like MEMENTO will
have very different virtues from those of LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.
I have very little formal education in film. I took one course on the
history of film when I was in college to get a good grounding on what film
and what film movements were out there. But mostly I have always seen
films like a twelve-year-old does with perhaps a little more experience.
I am just looking for what I like and what I don't like. I think most
people do not have time to watch some large volume of films the way I have
and for them there are courses in film analysis. I would guess that the
courses cover much of what to look for in a film.
2) How is art filmmaking different from commercial filmmaking?
There is almost no non-commercial filmmaking. Certainly films made for
release are intended for a commercial return almost always. The
difference is that films made for neighborhood theaters use elements that
are likely to please general audiences. They will have actors whose names
on the marquee will attract a big audience. They use special effects. In
Bollywood they will have a lot of big song-and-dance production numbers.
This leads to more profitable films. Some of these films will be very
derivative. But some of these films are still very, very good. Art films
take chances. These will be more original films. More frequently than
neighborhood films, a film will be one person's vision. You see a lot
films that are written, directed by, and starring one person. In general
these will have a lower budget because good writing, if you can get it, is
usually inexpensive. It is easier for a filmmaker to say a film will have
a lot of expensive visual effects than to say it will have very good
writing.
3) Do you feel that a film on paper can mould into an entirely different thing when it is completed?
Every single time. A film, particularly one intended for a general
audience, is really art by committee. A lot of people are in there
creating what a film will become. The score, the acting, the editing, the
casting, the direction all make big differences in the final film.
A musical score, for example, can completely change the texture of a
film. Alfred Hitchcock supposedly would have a film completely thought
out and perhaps storyboarded before the first camera rolled. But he had
nowhere near complete control on his films. The films after he split with
Bernard Herrmann had a very different feel from those that had a lush
Bernard Herrmann score. Brian DePalma's OBSESSION was released at the
same time as Hitchcock's FAMILY PLOT. DePalma intentionally imitated
Hitchcock's style so used a lush Bernard Herrmann score. The result was
that DePalma's OBSESSION, though an imitation, was a better representation
of good Hitchcock than Hitchcock's own FAMILY PLOT was.
4) On one hand science fiction films with robots and other future
innovation works well with the American audience and on the other hand,
animation and 3-D movies also succeed. Does this leave a limited scope
for classic fantasy movies?
The best science fiction film I have seen this decade was JEROME BIXBY'S
THE MAN FROM EARTH. The format of the film was characters talking. It
could almost have been done as a stage play with no set dressing at all.
The film had a terrific script by a very good science fiction author. The
special-effect-laden films and the animation films have a ready-made
audience and will bring in more crowds, unfortunately. But great things
can be done with fantasy and science fiction without 3-D animation and
without CGI. Film technologies have impressively improved over the
years. What is missing is, and has usually been, a sufficient number of
really good writers.
A filmmaker like a Roland Emmerich can say for sure he can deliver a film
next year that will have a lot of eye-popping special effects. He knows
just how to make that. He cannot say that next year he will deliver a
film that will have a really intelligent story that will engage the viewer
and get him thinking. There is no formula for that. And he cannot
cultivate a large audience for that. So he cultivates an audience with a
taste for visual effects and reaps a dependable profit.
5) Is there any movie in recent times that you feel is highly underrated. In addition, one movie, which you feel, is highly overrated.
When I write about a film I am giving one person's take (mine) on a single
viewing (usually my first). This means that I am not over-rating or
under-rating the film as long as I am truthfully giving my reaction. I
take a very subjective approach to film evaluation and I assume most other
reviewers do also whether they admit it or not. I assume that most people
who write about film are writing in good faith so they are also completely
correct in their rating. So, at least from my philosophy, a film cannot
be overrated or underrated. It can be surprisingly popular or unpopular.
So saying a film is overrated by the critics is a sort of shorthand, but
it is not literally what I mean when I say it.
So let me rephrase your question. Are there films of late where my
reaction was very different from the reactions of most people who wrote
about the film? Sure, that happens a lot. Just this week I saw the new
Coen Brothers film A SERIOUS MAN. I really like many Coen Brothers
films. This one was about people like I know well. So the film should
have worked for me. If I understand what the Coens were saying it was a
simplistic morality tale that got muddled. I will not say it is a bad
film if a lot of people like it. It is hard to entertain someone with a
piece of celluloid. So if people like it, it is not a bad film. But it
does little for me.
Is there a film for which I had a better reaction than other people? I
would say that Alex Proyas's film KNOWING had a lot of ideas and one
moment that gave me a genuine chill. Most critics and viewers were less
impressed. That is fine, but I was grabbed by the mood. I refuse to say,
however, that this film or any film is a "guilty pleasure." I do not
believe in the bad film that I enjoy. Again it is hard to entertain
someone with a piece of celluloid so if a film is enjoyable it is a good
film, even if most people think it is ridiculous. My classic example of a
film that I think is good and most of the world does not is LIFEFORCE.
Most people do not look beyond the naked lady and the hordes of
zombie/vampires to notice that it has a really interesting idea behind
it. Ideas go a long way with me. The idea of what the aliens are doing
and why is really audacious. From a distance the film looks like a mess.
Close up it is a very clever mechanism. Saul Bass's PHASE IV is another
film that has some really interesting ideas on close examination.
If I seem to be talking mostly about fantasy film, I guess that is because
it is my core interest. I am interested in all kinds of film. But I
started with an interest in fantasy film (including science fiction and
horror) and branched out.
6) You have seen movies from world over, so what is the principle
difference between the process of filmmaking in USA and other countries.
Suppose you have someone who has eaten in the greatest restaurants in the
world but does not know how to boil an egg. Can you ask him what is the
difference in recipes? He might know enough to say that this dish has
cumin, that one uses parsley, but he will not be able to say much that is
substantive. I tend to look at the movie making as a black box. I rarely
care about the process of making the film. I have little interest about
who hated whom on the set. I just look at the final product. There are
clearly very different cultural assumptions behind a Bollywood film or
even an Indian film in general and an American film. If an American film
was on a subject as serious as that of Ratnam's BOMBAY, there would be
little or no comedy. Certainly there would be no musical numbers.
7) Mani Ratnam once said that Indian filmmaking is like 'Celebrating
Life', which is very different from Hollywood, where it's 'the art of
story telling'. Any comments?
I would be interested to see how he comes to those conclusions. I think
it may be hard to make a case for that over all Indian film. Certainly
there are many Indian films that do celebrate life. Satyajit Ray
certainly does both celebrate life and tell a story. Saawan Kumar Tak's
KHAL-NAAIKAA is not about the texture of life. If anything it gives a
false feel of what life is like in India. It is a horror story without
much feel for the texture of life.
8) Does the advent of social networking affect filmmaking and film
watching, as many people get to know new opportunities through communities
in these sites? In short, does the Internet or social networking help in the quality of
movies?
Again, I am more a film enthusiast than someone with much inside knowledge
of the film industry. I would say that the Internet has a huge effect,
positive and negative, on the film industry. One can get film ratings and
ticket sale figures by the evening of the first day of release. Decisions
can be made on how long a film will run. Reviews of a film are available
days before the film is released. As a result films frequently have to be
tailored predominately with the young and wired generation in mind. Any
major film that is released will have a torrent of information about it
available to anyone wants to download it. Whether all this improves the
quality of films will very much be determined by your definition of what a
quality film is. The public knows very quickly if a film is an audience
pleaser--perhaps even before the film is released. So it behooves a
filmmaker to please his audience. It makes the audience marginally
happier, but you will get far fewer films of the quality of an ON THE
WATERFRONT or TWELVE ANGRY MEN. It is strange to say it, but there are
many great films that the audience would not have been interested in
seeing if they knew ahead of time too much about what they were about.
Sidney Lumet's THE PAWNBROKER is one of the best films I have ever seen,
but any description of the film I have ever seen does not make it sound
appealing. I am not sure today it could be sold even as an art film.
Note:- The interview continues on the second page