Its still Star Wars to me

It's a simple and unoriginal story, but thankfully it's told with style thanks to the visuals and Cameron's ability to make entertaining films. He's not the most nuanced of directors, but he's a decent showman. Though I could take it or leave it, I'm not too fussed either way. It's the music that I really care about.

Thankfully, the human mind is able to take more away from films than a story, even as we watch it. Otherwise, we would all be reading books instead. It's actually more a question of focus and cognitive priorities...in other words, we can easily go from a more audiovisual experience-type thing to a more characterbound, story-driven experience and back again. They are quite different, but none more valuable than the other. Just as paintings can communicate stuff that aren't so much about story, so too can film with its audiovisual potential.

No, Steven, story is only the guiding force in mainstream film. It's only ONE out of many ways to structure or use the film medium. The most common, yes, but not the only one. Likewise, it's not the only thing that a human mind is able to take away from audio & visuals.

AVATAR is a classic example of such philosophy even within a mainstream expression. It's not the story that makes it great. It's the visceral, immediate, cognitive experience of the world that Cameron created. The STAR WARS prequels have some of the same, but not to the same degree, of course.

And you don't seem to get my point either. Visuals are not always there to help a story. There may be other agendas on the filmmaker's resume besides or beyond that. Also, film viewers are able to use visuals (and audio) for OTHER things than story pleasure.

Like?

In the case of Avatar, the visuals are there to aid the story. So I'm not sure why you're using Avatar as an example? What else are the visuals created for in Avatar if not for and because of the story?



I never denied that. In fact, I admitted to the exact opposite:







Christ almighty, it's like arguing with a brick wall... that unfortunately talks back.

In the case of AVATAR, it was to create an almost body-envelopping experience - much of it had more in common with the aesthetics of theme park rides than classical, filmatic storytelling.

In other, less story-driven expressions (in the socalled artfilm world), visuals and audio can be used to create some political message or heavy, moment-specific symbolism that have little, if anything, to do with any story. Antonionio, for example, places far more emphasis on the construction of the image, the distance to the object, the use of silence and off-kilter sound etc. to explore his recurring theme of identification that runs through his filmography. Story matters less to him. Just to mention one.

Alright, your points can both be argued for. EVERY film has a story, even the most minimalist ones. Gus van Sants GERRY: two guys walk through a desert. That's basically it, but it's a story nonetheless. In the French New Wave, L'Annee Dernier a Marienbad; man tries to convince woman they met before. C'est tout (just about).

The mainstream conception of a film is, that everything supports the story and that as such, this is the prime function of the film: to tell a story. However, Gerry is a hypnotic experience created by the images and sounds, supported by the exhaustion of the main characters. Style over substance? You bet, but it's the style that draws you into the film, and the story is merely there to create structure. One might argue it's the two guys, the human element and their situation creates the emotional connection, but they are hardly (if any) developed. Story isn't a priority nor the reason the film exists. This is an extreme case, but it also works on q lot of Malick's films, for example.

There is a story, but it's not the most important element of the film. The emphasis is elsewhere and that's what's creating the emotions. You either make a film to tell a story, or use a story to display something else (often more abstract things).

To get back to AVATAR; the lack of proper development of its story, yet the detailed development of Pandora, its surroundings and the overall visual experience, shows that for Cameron, story did not have a priority. He's not telling the story in the first place, he's creating an experience. The story is just helping him to achieve this goal. Which doesn't necissarily need to be a bad thing.