NEW YORK, New York -- Eight years have passed since Mike Figgis' Timecode first appeared in American theaters, combining soapy drama with Hollywood satire, using the highly ambitious arrangement of four screens to reveal multiple scenes at once -- but, despite claims to the contrary, the British filmmaker doesn't think his romp with mini-DV cams heralded a new age. "The digital revolution has hit, but behind the scenes," the frequently witty and insightful Figgis told the audience at the DGA Theater in midtown Manhattan earlier this week, appearing for the Tribeca Film Festival's "Tribeca Talks" series. "Film is still the best way of making a big movie...but, in the meantime, digital has crept into our lives."
Figgis certainly isn't opposed to the technology -- he wrote a great book about it -- nor does the sixty-year-old director display any trepidation over the internet. Quite the opposite, actually: He helped start the online social networking community Shooting People, which helps connect filmmakers across the globe. Still, Figgis said he has serious reservations about the so-called democratization of filmmaking caused by the popularity of digital aesthetics. "Digital technology has accelerated the problem of cultural saturation," he said, rather bleakly. "You see a steady progression toward the lowbrow."
When moderator and TIME.com editor Josh Tyrangiel contested the assertion by bringing up examples of creative storytelling that has crept into mainstream channels, citing The Office and The Sopranos, Figgis clarified his point. "I directed an episode of The Sopranos," he said. "It's okay, but is it Shakespeare?"
Figgis' measured assertions give a frank voice to the modern independent film community, especially when viewed in the context of the festival environment. While the Tribeca Film Festival has vastly improved in terms of content and marketability this year, its program -- like most large festivals -- is still very much a mixed bag. Less a fault of the programmers than a product of some of the tendencies among independent filmmakers today, the lineup showcased the varied consequences of making movies on the cheap.
Disposable goofiness like the Tribeca premiere Wild Man of the Navidad very specifically demonstrate the pratfalls of digital filmmaking. An intentionally campy throwback to B-level horror of the 1970's, Navidad focuses on a host of eccentric Southern characters in a small Texas town fending off the murderous spree of a psychotic Bigfoot-like creature lurking in the woods. Although directors Justin Meeks and Duane Graves prove their competence when it comes to assembling the right beats to generate suspense, their monster is a shoddily assembled guy in a suit whose absurd appearance dissolves the impact of the moments leading up to its big arrival. "Don't you think that's on purpose?" a colleague asked me when I complained about the movie's lack of credibility. Maybe, but it seems like Meeks and Graves understand the mechanics of filmmaking too well, and they're better than this. Because it's shot in low-grade video, Navidad always reminds you that it's a no-budget operation, which is no excuse for shoving low-budget effects to the forefront of the experience, undoing the impact by going over-the-top when under-the-top works best.
A separate problem plagues the French drama 57,000 Kilometers Between Us. The film practically inhales its digital environment, and not only because it was shot digitally: The story of a dysfunctional family whose personal lives are broadcast as a web show by the man of the house, the movie drags on and on with pointless self-reflexivity, invoking the wannabe poignancy of making viewers culpable for their voyeuristic tendencies. Yes, the pixel helps more people tell stories than ever before, but doesn't mean we should all tell stories about the power of the pixel.
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"Is there too much culture?" Figgis rhetorically asked the DGA crowd. "Yes. And the second question is: Can poets be filmmakers? Yes." So he's not a relentlessly downbeat guy, after all. Figgis, a veteran of studio projects whose best work usually happens outside of that paradigm, endorses the possibilities of new media with a distinctly independent mindset. Rejecting Hollywood, he told the audience that "it's not the appropriate place for new cinema." Instead, the film community "needs young filmmakers to reinvent it." Creatively, honestly and inexpensively, of course.
At Tribeca, the presence of poetically-inclined filmmaking was more detectable in conventional works than among the barrier-breakers. Irish filmmaker Declan Recks' modern update of Eugene O'Brien's play Eden examines a marriage in peril through sidelong glances and whispers of betrayal. Shot on film, the movie could work just as well in the digital format -- if someone was patient enough to craft the same evocative imagery.
Idiots and Angels, the best feature of independent animator Bill Plympton's thirty year career, didn't require him to use a computer at all (his assistants took care of that). Appropriately enough, the director has described the film as a poem itself.
Similarly, Figgis was rather poetic when discussing the phenomenon of film viewing, describing it as "people sitting in a straight line looking at the same thing." During the Q&A session, I asked him if -- now that artists can market their products to a fan base over the web and eke a living out of it -- a small audience might be a good thing. He agreed, but added that "people don't go to the cinema now, because they can record it at home," which makes audiences devalue the experience as it loses a sense of immediacy. "I do love the internet," Figgis said. "The ability to get what you want in a big collective pool...you can find it so easily now."
Discussing the importance of pre-digital era auteurs who embraced the medium, Figgis brought up David Lynch. When he made Inland Empire, Lynch famously said he would rather die than return to shooting on film. But then he made his hilarious "fucking telephone" proclamation, distancing himself from the prospects of digital distribution:
"When it came down to the screen, he was very picky," Figgis said. "I found that contradiction very interesting." However, like all progress, contradictions are the necessary evil to keep the conversation alive. "Post-1950's, we became a moronic culture that just worships images," Figgis offered. "It's almost quaint."
--Eric Kohn