Games as art. (Gaming)

by breitzen , Kansas, Wednesday, September 21, 2022, 08:40 (576 days ago) @ Kermit

The biggest thing I'll say is this. No, editing is not intrinsic to the art of film. It is a staple. A powerful art, but a staple, a commodity for which the demand for is constant, as the needs require. And the needs are far fewer here.
Show me a theatre production that can be so infinite? That can have you witness the true scale of a battlefield. The only thing else that can do this with ease is a videogame, which is why this MOVIE, and all it's efforts to be what it is, brings with it great artistic value. I mean, can't beat those graphics, m I rite? :P

You could conceivably coordinate a series of events to replicate this movie in real life. Pay theater actors to do what they did on a location, blow shit up, crash planes etc. Then you could walk through said production in exactly the same way as the camera traveled through it in the film. That would be prohibitive given money and safety, but it is possible theoretically.

And it would probably be MORE interesting doing it that way.

But what can't you do in the theater? Cut to a close up.

Editing is intrinsic to storytelling. Whether it is a cut of film, a scene change on stage, or chapter break in a book. Choosing what to show/tell (and how) IS editing. Presenting a story in the "one-take" format is just a different way of editing. It's fixing time, stretching it out, allowing tension to build/pacing to form/emotions to play out in different ways than most films do it.

"No other art form is able to fix time as cinema does. Therefore what is film? It is a mosaic made with time." - Andre Tarkovsky

1917 asks: What if the mosaic, was instead a sculpture?

First of all, hat's off for name-checking Tarkovsky. Solid dude. The most transcendent moment I've ever had watching a movie was while watching one of his. (Probably the second-most transcendent moment was watching Russian Ark, a single-take film that surpasses all other attempts that I've ever seen, but I've already mentioned it in this thread.) Tarkovsky's films are way too slow for 21st century folk--it's tough for me now, when I'm not making connections to James Joyce essays I've just read and immersed in the middle of a film class. I'd love him if I'd never seen any of films because he wrote one of the best books about art that I've read--Sculpting in Time. (The title is interesting, given your final point, no?)

Steph got me Sculpting In Time this year after I kinda fell into Tarkovsky’s work for first time. So yeah, my phrasing was definitely intentional! 😉