Four Self-Interviews About Cinema: the short films of director Norman Reedus
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A:I will. And please, by all means, do feel free to bring any of your own thoughts up, too, I’d be interested to know some specific aspect of what you’re thinking, as long as we’re both here.
C:Reedus himself, just to give those unfamiliar with him some loose reference—or would you like to do this bit?
A:Seems better suited to you.
C:Norman Reedus himself, while a filmmaker, photographer and just all around variable artist, is best known as an actor. Though he’s been around for quite some time and turning in fantastic work in usually quite artful, outside-of-the-establishment-films, cutting out a solid identity as a gifted character actor, he’s unfortunately most known for some of his more current, mainstream work—one of the two leads in the Boondock Saints franchise, a regular role on the American television series The Walking Dead and an appearance as Judas in a recent video by musician/performance artist Lady Gaga.
A:Not unfortunate in that his work in these was bad, certainly you don’t mean to say.
C:No, no. Unfortunate in that I don’t run into many people who seem aware of him as an artist but run into slews of somewhat vapid individuals who know him as the guy who was awesome in that Boondocks movie or young ladies with an older man fetish who are keen on the contemporary US zombie genre.
A:That just sounds like jealousy, there.
C:I say unfortunate primarily because, in my opinion, a more mainstream presence tends to dilute the impactfulness of outside-the-mainstream pursuits, what always get labeled secondary artistic pursuits. So, the more generic name recognition he has, the less likely his filmmaking (particularly of the nature of these three we are discussing) is to be seen as anything except a hobbyist’s pursuit—you see it all the time, as though if someone is recognized and gains success as a celebrity in one vein they are expected to firmly stick to the story that that is their heart and soul and anything else—music, photography, writing, etc.—is like someone playing a game. Reedus, as a filmmaker, does not seem to be at all interested in having a laugh, it does not seem the films he makes are mere follies or halfhearted stabs at something for the sake of self-aggrandizing, they don’t come off as just a thing he does that should rightfully be shrugged off to better focus on the comic book adaptations of some film he was in, you know?
A:Sure. I second that. I also would not want this discussion to be looked at as a quaint fluff piece examining the secondary residue of a celeb. Point taken.
C:If Tom Cruise was all of a sudden to say he was a filmmaker, even if he came out with Persona or Epidemic those would still just be looked on, for the most part, as those weird movies Jerry McGuire made.
A:Sure. Did you want to dwell on this point much longer, or were we moving on?
C:I’ll move on—and I think I should field this last bit. It should be pointed out that, while a familiarity with the films under discussion here is not essential to following this series, it is rather encouraged. As some of the commentary in this series will dwell particularly on atmosphere and specific variations in film technique (not through usage of technical terminology, but by way of descriptivism) it would only be beneficial to have actually seen the films.
A:Closing thoughts, now? Or closing introductory thoughts?
C:Please.
A:A reiteration, on my part, of the fact that the interface with art, the coupling with art, can only result in a Reaction-to-Art (opinions are silly and nothing to do with art) and that while some particular object of art may be the namesake, the totem under discussion/scrutiny, it is always and only the reaction itself which is being examined—this is central to the design of art (not just of creation, as not everything is art, I’m going to have to emphatically say) and so the purpose of any of my remarks—and likely any of Concrete’s remarks—is not to define, but to explore.
C:And as much as what Abstract says there is (or may be) true, the actual understanding of the components, workings, and nuances of an artwork do have to be examined outside of the protective umbrella of art, least one simply assign the identity of art to something not only not befitting it but not desiring it, leading to the only folly I feel can come of an interface with a subject matter, namely: to believe that everything can be said to be the same, when nothing—nothing—is the same, even one thing in the eyes of a single individual.
A:You’re sounding like me, there—careful.
C:Heaven forbid.
“THE RUB”
Originally appeared in the Montage: Cultural Paradigm (Sri Lanka)
September 11th, 2011