STEVE JABLONSKY

Sure. But therein lies the appeal and the purpose, the way I see it. It's philosophical on a meta-level -- so self-conscious in its mise-en-scene that the moments stand out far beyond the classical Hollywood narrative it operates within. Few directors inside Hollywood manage to make these shifts as beautifully and overtly as Bay. It's almost a parody on emotional intensity, as expressed through excessive means. That's the gravitas right there, although not perhaps the one you had in mind.



I'm not sure this is the time and place for recounting all of my thesis, as that would get us too far off the path, but it's a term I coined based on classical narrative identification structures, especially Murray Smith's three forms of viewer identification (recognition, allignment and allegiance). What I meant is that Bay excels at the shifts between this and the 'audiovisual experience'-type of viewing, which is less reliant on identification and narrative understanding.

I must confess I haven't seen that one. It's a while since I've seen a new Michael bay (which makes me not a very good person to spar with, but in fairness I'm more generous to him than many here).

As for style traits-- yes, we need no list. What I do need to know is the content of this style?
What does it mean when you depict this content this way? All I can see is that it's narrative surface.
I know what Tarantino's style does to his content, or Godard, or
Costa gavras... But what is the meaning of the Michael bay style? Get specific.

Never have I heard such blatant bullshit put so beautifully. I imagine you find much meaning behind the fish-slapping sketch from Monty Python too?

I must disagree here. I think it's quite clear with Bay that what comes from within somehow permeates what comes from without - regardless of the machinations of the troubled mind, the feeling and the very humanity lies not on the meniscus of his consciousness but is layered fourfold. Ironing over the cracks in the garment of his philosophy may suit you but is clearly not what was intended - you are not understanding at the most fundamental of levels. The postmodern tendency cannot be found by scraping around the brow.

Further to my previous post, one of the most brilliant things about Bay's intelligence - and it's so sad that most people are just too stupid to realise it - is the way he uses the age of his actors to emphasise his real meaning. It's that old thing, Herr Willy Brand and everything. Some of the actors he casts are aged 22 - and some are aged 23. The truly brilliant thing here is that some of them are aged neither 22 nor 23. You can see it in all his films - just look.

And the women - especially ones with darker hair but just a hint of magnolia when they're in the sunlight - have you ever noticed that sometimes the camera is positioned very slightly to the left of centre? I wish you guys were clever enough to realise what that means. The astonishing way he can then shoot the same woman but from a different angle - sorry, I need to lie down.

In case of work of art, it's quite difficult. I luckily dealt mostly with stuff by people that are already dead, but you can apply certain ideas to a work of art and if it repeats in that work of art - you can apply it to the author's body of work. You have to ask whether the author (artist) could plausibly know the context you are referring to (in case of literature, especially old literature, the rule of thumb is that if it sounds like a Bible quote, then it is one, for example; same for certain philosophical ideas - you didn't need to know Plato's body of work, sometimes you indeed couldn't, to use Plato's philosophical ideas, because they were permeating the cultural work of the period, etc.).

If certain elements appear you have to read into it, as an interpreter, and you have to verify if the author could have such musings (if he seems to be intelligent, as is mostly the case, then, probably, indeed, he could). It's not about factuality here. Facts are used as a negative, not as a positive (a fictional example: let's say that a Spielberg film looks like Van Gogh. And let's say that checking his biography he never heard of the guy. If you have it confirmed, then he couldn't possibly refer to Van Gogh. If the data is that you can't say he didn't know Van Gogh, you assume he did, so "we don't really know" generally works as a confirmation).

I can put your mind to rest and assure you Pain and (no) Gain is not the thing. If you want to see what a truly great director does with similar material, go watch The Wolf of Wall Street (although I have no doubt I'm preaching to the choir here!).

In a lengthy discussion full of sophisticated rationales for distinctly unsophisticated filmmaking, this is probably the most beautifully succinct point of the lot.

I doubt you have the virility to do that.

Well, I for example, could argue that The Rock isn't as much for fuckwits as the general Michael Bay film and that it actually makes several points, including making the villain ambiguous. Especially for a Jerry Bruckheimer film it goes into rather high intellectual level.

Also, I think that what we deal with here is something relevant for modern aesthetics. The truth is that arguing that Michael Bay has artistic merits going beyond spectacle is not exactly being the film studies equivalent of creationism. Far from it. There are several points you may not know about art criticism that are put to use. I am talking about academic art criticism, not just reviews.

But first I have to make a certain confession. I have been an academic for a few years and I effectively quit research a year ago. The issues at hand were quite big, from personal (an atrocious supervisor) to professional, so I'll speak only of the latter and I know that it will bring a lot of criticism from science fans, but sadly, having been a part of the community for quite a few years, there are things I have noticed just by sheer power of experience.

I think academic discourse is losing its relevance as a descriptive mean of discussing reality. It was largely discussed on this board why people can still be creationists if we know that evolution is the true way. The reason is very simple. Academics, scientists, so to speak, are so ingrained into their own community that with very notable exceptions (Bill Nye, deGrasse Tyson), they have no appeal whatsoever to ANYONE outside of the community. I'll go even further. You once said that we are irrational beings in a rational world. I kinda let it slide, even if it proved my argument about metaphysics, but that's not the point here.

The thing is that the world isn't "rational" in the way I we perceive the term rationalism. I would say that your statement could be even a way of admitting to preferring the Gaia theory, because rationalism is nothing else than "reason is the basic foundation of the world, both our perception of it and it's functioning". The truth is that reality is something very complex. Science, if we look at it through Thomas S. Kuhn's way, an approach that was criticized in certain points, but seems to be still accepted in terms of the philosophy of science, then we notice that science history is a series of events called paradigm shifts. I won't go into how the shift happens as a by-way, a side effect, so to speak, of trying to confirm the former paradigm. Why did I mention it. Because the paradigm shifts redefine some of the discoveries that were made before. There is the Newtonian definition of gravity, there is the Einsteinian definition and now quantum mechanical definition. Each of them is substantially more complex, thanks to the paradigm shift that made us notice how things are more complex than they were before.

But then there is a problem. By making the world "rational", aren't we applying OUR way of thinking to the way everything functions? Yes, it has its use. We can manipulate the physical realm to have things like cell phones, computers. I by no means reject scientific research whatsoever. I have issues with the way the research is discussed in what is basically a quite closed and elitist (yes, not elite, elitist) society. Our knowledge about the world has changed significantly throughout the history of the world. As someone with academic sensibilities and with academic experience, I acknowledge and appreciate that. But the mode and style of discussion has not since 4th century BC. The way we make and maintain (sorry for the word, I know it's wrong) our arguments is exactly the same, no matter the distinct minds and language or each particular human being that happens to be a researcher, as it was when Aristotle created the model of a thesis, be it his Physics, his Ethics or even Rhetorics and Poetics. State of research (what was written before me), methodology, aim, then arguing what you want to argue. We added conclusions to that, though probably partly because we don't exactly have everything Aristotle wrote and some texts (Poetics!) were retained unfinished.

So we can analyse whatever we want, but unless we prove the relevance and as long as academic research keeps to ye olde thesis structure, which may, but also may NOT be comprehended by the general public, the museum of Godly creation that is in America and I don't even want to remember where exactly it is and how it is called will be something INSANELY successful. We either keep academics to their own little world when they think how relevant they are and are able to talk to themselves only, and we speak in a descriptive world that maintains the arbitrary logical model dominating in what's called formal logic, or research will be a relevant part of this world only in form of short blurbs of discoveries written in papers or speeches by people who can actually talk about it in general public.

Because as it goes, in the end the regular Joe wants only to know is his expensive new phone will turn on when he puts his SIM card and battery in it, or not. No matter the physics behind it, because according to our general perception, what we don't perceive in sensually... does not exist.

Sorry for this rant, I am just considering returning to the academic world at least to finish what I started, and I have doubts if I should go with it.

The guy got a postgraduate. He spent a while in the community, even if in artistic terms, actually

Talking out of one's arse seems to be the only connection I can make to recent discussions in this thread. If only I was as smart as Michael Bay, I might be able to shed more light on it.

Don't be silly. When it's been on-target and constructive, it's actually a good discussion. Just because you personally don't like and/or connect to the language of scholarly film theory doesn't mean it's 'talking out of one's arse' or 'blatant bullshit' as you rather offensively said earlier. That categorization fits better on the cheap shots, ridicule and personal attacks. But yeah -- one also needs to stay focussed if there's supposed to be any meaningful exchange of opinions.

Therein lies the appeal and the purpose, the way I see it. It's philosophical on a meta-level -- so self-conscious in its mise-en-scene that the moments stand out far beyond the classical forum narrative it operates within. Few members inside MainTitles manage to make these shifts as beautifully and overtly as I do. It's almost a parody on emotional intensity, as expressed through excessive means. That's the gravitas right there, although not perhaps the one you had in mind.

Answering carefully thought-out writings that happen to include advanced vocabulary, with meaningless and nonsensical dribble that also includes advanced vocabulary does not make you funny, it just makes you annoying. Notice how no one is laughing. I'll admit to not understand every point that Pawel and Thor have made, but I keep clicking on the thread because the discussion is quite interesting, as well as being that little bit more meaningful in that it's being held between two respected fellow film-music fans. So, people that actually have useful things to say, please carry on.