The Cinema holds a special place in western culture: it’s the quintessential image of leisure, a magic picture box displayer, a bringer-together of the masses. From the silent era onto talkies and stadium seating, the cinema is a space in which the personal and the public collapse into each other. Personal connections and reactions to films join, interact and play out in public. In the movie theater you are surrounded by strangers and yet the space grabs and holds each and every viewer inside of it, a shared experience, a spectacle.
London–based Canadian filmmaker, animator, and montage artist Paul Anton Smith focuses on “The Cinema” as subject in his montage film Have You Seen My Movie? It takes clips and snippets from other films, but every clip directly relates to and takes place within a cinema, displaying the space, the screen, and the audience. All of these depictions of movie theaters are then woven together into an entirely new and fresh narrative. Previously, Smith worked in a similar montage editing style on Christian Marclay’s 24-hour video installation The Clock, which screened at the Walker Art Center in 2014. In an extensive interview with Moving Image intern Kai Joy, Smith discusses the movie theater as a space, cinematic convention, the era of streaming and his own technical process.
Kai Joy (KJ)
In your movie there is so much interaction. Films are interacting with other films, characters in films are watching other films and reacting to them, characters from different films are interacting with each other in the audience, films on screen are even reacting to events in the audience. There are so many layers and meta-narratives, so much recontextualization. Going in, did you realize how complex the subjectivity would be and that it would kind of take on a life of its own? Especially adding the layer of the actual audience or viewer being forced into self-awareness. Watching in a proper cinema makes the experience fascinating and uncanny, I’m sure.
Paul Anton Smith (PAS)
The film began as just a dumb idea: how could I make a feature film from existing films and recontextualize the footage in such a way that it becomes a drama, a fiction, a narrative of its own as opposed to an essay, a compilation, or something more structuralist? I would have to abandon a traditional plot or characters or even a screenplay, a blueprint. Eventually I thought of movie theater scenes and how going to the movies is itself a three-act structure (we buy tickets and take our seats, watch the film, then go home and on the way discuss the film with our friends). And because the whole thing could take place inside of a movie theater, the space itself would allow for narrative cohesion. If everyone is doing the same thing, sitting in the same space, then it becomes like an ensemble piece, almost like a Robert Altman picture, and I wouldn’t have to rely on individual characters or a straightforward plot.
Have You Seen My Movie? is a personal reflection of my own thoughts and ideas about movies: how they work, what they are. I watched the footage I found and allowed my subconscious to make the connections between one film, often from a different time and place, and another. It’s an associative montage in that sense, and what you, the audience, is watching is basically an expression of what I was watching and imagining what would happen next. The film is multilayered, as you’ve said, and how you interpret what’s going on is very much down to whether or not you’re a casual moviegoer or a hardcore film geek. But Have You Seen My Movie? is made for all audiences, and I had that in mind while making it. If you’re a film historian you’ll get that I’m soundtracking Georges Delerue’s music from Le Mepris to Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, and perhaps you’ll intuit the connection between Bridget Bardot’s character from Mepris and Joan of Arc’s own particular persecution at the hands of her male inquisitors. If you know neither film the scene still works because the music somehow matches the images, and all of us can sympathize with the women, young and old, tears in their eyes as they watch Joan’s plight unfold on-screen.
KJ
That’s something that I did really appreciate about this film. There is always the urge to try and source, to identify. Like, “this clip is from this movie,” and then apply that knowledge to contextualize it. But then there were so many clips that I simply had never seen before, and yet that was never bothersome because they lent themselves to the larger narrative drama so willingly. While you were choosing clips, how much of the footage were you personally unfamiliar with? Did you do much research to contextualize the source material for yourself?
PAS
I had some idea of what each film was about or who the actor was. I haven’t seen everything, thank God, but I’ve watched a hell of a lot of movies. What I consciously wanted to avoid was turning the film into a puzzle or a game of Trivial Pursuit to be played by movie nerds. You don’t have to get any references, you can be oblivious to who that actor is, what that movie is about, and understand and enjoy perfectly well what’s happening, as though you’re watching a brand new film as opposed to these recycled clips. But, again, if you do have a reservoir of cinematic knowledge to draw from, perhaps your mind drifts toward making certain connections that the layman might not.
KJ
I’m wondering about the act of finding and choosing certain clips or certain kinds of films over others. How did you usually make these decisions? With so much discourse about it right now, how much was representation or demographics on your mind when you were making these decisions?
PAS
I used a local video shop, maybe the last of its kind here in London, called Close-Up Film Centre. I scanned through thousands of films looking for scenes that took place in or around movie theaters without prejudice concerning genre, language, era, etc. So a lot of trial and error was involved—not knowing what I would find or if I would find anything at all. My main concern was whether or not I could locate enough material to compose a feature film from. In the end, I had about 14 hours of footage to cut from!
If you’re asking whether I had any political motivation or intention of representing certain demographics equitably, it’s not a concern that lends itself well to a found-footage film because the story structure is limited to what I find, and that’s it. I wasn’t going to represent certain groups of people just for the sake of it, at the expense of the narrative. If I used footage that was political in intent, it was by chance and never design. For instance, there’s a scene in the film from a Bruce Lee biopic, Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, that involves Lee and his girlfriend going to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s. There’s a character in that film—it was made in 1961—who’s played by a caucasian actor in “yellowface,” a stereotype of a Japanese man that repulses Lee but humors the otherwise caucasian audience. His girlfriend/soon-to-be wife recognizes his distress at the depiction of this Japanese caricature on-screen, and together they leave. I found this footage and decided to intercut it with another film called Apt Pupil, a story which involves a teenage boy who secretly befriends an old man in his neighborhood who turns out to have been a Nazi during the war. As Lee and his girlfriend depart the cinema in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, I cut to the boy from Apt Pupil halting his laughter at what’s happening on-screen—this racist stereotyping—because, so we assume, he’s recognized Lee leaving and has thus sensitized himself to the affect that this distorted representation from Breakfast at Tiffany’s may have on those Asian immigrants who’ve made America their home. There’s a connection between these two films—Dragon and Apt Pupil—that I was able to make, thematically as well as narratively, that I liked. And if you’re familiar with the plot of Apt Pupil then perhaps you can even spot the metaphorical connection between a boy’s awakening to the fact that malevolent forces inhabit the world (his Nazi neighbor in hiding), and Bruce Lee’s girlfriend’s realization that many post-war depictions of the Japanese—of Asians in general—was flawed. The Nazis, of course, fabricated all sorts of distinctions between races and made propagandist films to brainwash the population.
But, anyway, had I not found footage from one film, I might not have used the other. So, again, I wasn’t trying to force anything. I don’t believe in “message movies.”
KJ
I just love the moments of conflict or tension between clips and the meaning that those juxtapositions can construct. There’s the scene where Val Kilmer is on the screen quoting Nietzsche over audio of a Native American drum circle and what I believe is a Hitler speech. The audience is just hating it, booing and everything. Then after that sequence and some hippy ’60s music festival clips, one character says, “They sure don’t make pictures like that anymore,” and then—BOOM!—there’s a montage of still images that I perceived to be about American nationalism and imperialism. It’s intercut with the cinematic aversion therapy scene from A Clockwork Orange, where Malcolm McDowell has his eyes forced open to watch. These moments just feel so raw and pointed but then fit so smoothly in with the rest of the narrative, I was blown away. Especially because these themes are so prevalent in conventional cinema, in general. I projected so much meaning and “message” onto that scene for example. Was that your intention?
PAS
If I felt there was some thematic association between clips, I tried to build on that. So Val Kilmer is actually playing Jim Morrison there, in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, and then Charlton Heston from Omega Man is reminiscing about his experience at Woodstock, the ’60s “love revolution.” But of course there was something darker going on, forces plotting to suppress it—stamp it out—and so when I found the famous montage sequence from Parallax View, I decided to intercut it with A Clockwork Orange. You can ascribe whatever meaning to that sequence you want, as a viewer. Personally, I was thinking of consumer culture, corporate culture, and let’s say its relationship with a counterculture hell bent on eradicating those things. Brainwashing, the conspiracy corporations engage filmmakers in to hock their wares, and, crucially, a certain lifestyle: to what extent are filmmakers culpable for the impressions made on the viewer and, in the widest sense, the culture at large? Reality TV, for example, engenders a sense of entitlement in its audience: “I’m just as gifted as that guy on that talent show, why am I not in the limelight?” “I’m just as pretty as she is. Why aren’t I married to the Bachelor?” And so on. When I was a kid, video games were about how many gold coins I could collect by banishing the monster. Today they’re often about how many gold coins you’ll get for stealing stuff and engaging in all kinds of psychopathic behavior. That sequence then provided a segue to a—I hate to use this word!—meditation on propaganda films and the enticement of war on film in general. I juxtaposed Lee Marvin as a US soldier from Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One with a scene involving a remorseful Nazi played by Marlon Brando in The Young Lions. Marvin was a marine in World War II and a recipient of the Purple Heart. Brando was a pacifist who avoided the draft by acting his way out of it! But it’s not about making a point so much as creating a connection, something poetic.
KJ
This is also a moment where more traditional montage technique sneaks in. This makes me curious about your influences. Especially because you have so much experience in montage and are also gravitating towards more traditional cinematic convention. So what movies or projects or filmmakers have been most influential to you as an artist and as a filmmaker?
PAS
I’m a classicist, ultimately, so I love cutting images to music, for example. There’s a montage in Have You Seen My Movie? where guys are attempting to get with girls, make the first move. So I had all of these different clips where essentially the same thing’s happening, and decided to cut them all together to a piece of music and I settled on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel Waltz. I found the track by chance, but didn’t put two and two together until I had already cut the sequence: a mating ritual inside of a movie theater paired with a piece of music that’s actually a waltz. It makes sense, logically, but the whole process of making the film was intuitive, so if something felt right I let it take me to the next scene.
There are too many filmmakers to mention that I appreciate, so I can’t really tell you who’s influenced me. Everything I watch—even the bad stuff—will influence me one way or another. I can say I love, I don’t know, John Ford or Akira Kurosawa or Hitchcock or Alain Resnais or Howard Hawks, but naming off the canonical filmmakers is so boring. I mean, I love John Waters, too, just like I love Steven Spielberg. I think I’m influenced by attitude more than anything else—the iconoclastic filmmakers. Of course, working on Christian Marclay’s The Clock was the most obvious, concrete influence on this film; I was collecting the material for Have You Seen My Movie? while I was also looking for … clocks, and watching how Christian worked.
KJ
In this movie a lot of tropes and conventions are played out and interacted with. Thematic tropes in the films—nationalism, imperialism, love and sex—are all explored. Also, just the classic movie theater tropes and experiences. What was it like getting to tackle and display these huge conventions and norms and tropes? Did putting together the clips make you see these conventions differently?
PAS
If I found a lot of footage that involved an audience watching a horror film, for example, then I’d naturally figure to work those scenes together somehow. And of course I found many scenes that revolved around “date night” at the movies. In a way, I wanted the film to be edited in a conventional style so that it would be as palatable as a more traditional, filmed drama. I didn’t want to make an experimental video; I wanted to make a movie that felt as alive, as emotionally charged, as anything you’d go see at the multiplex. So that involved being playful with the material, imaginative and romantic. What I discovered while editing it is that I could shift tone very quickly without the effect being jarring. I’m not sure how much of that is down to the material or the structure or it being a montage,
KJ
How do you see other directors and writers communicating with or speaking to those same big cinematic conventions? Do you see that changing at all or any trends?
PAS
Are you asking me about my thoughts on contemporary cinema? Oh, dear. Unfortunately, I don’t see too many filmmakers expanding on big cinematic conventions beyond those that originated not more than 10 years ago. Not a lot of filmmakers are going back to the films of the ’30s or ’50s or even’70s and making something new from them. Instead, I see a whole lot of movies ripping off whatever was popular the year before—usually something by Christopher Nolan or Denis Villeneuve (and I like some of those films). As far as the arthouse goes, I haven’t been too impressed. I’m sick of the vérité-style of handheld shots and anything-goes direction. I like something more disciplined, more stylized, heightened, and operatic—in other words, cinematic.
I like directors who use traditional and technical cinematic language and build on it in order to create something new. I’ve always enjoyed Brian De Palma, for example. He warps and twists traditional cinematic conventions into something fresh and exciting and technically complex. I’d like to see a return to beautifully composed shots with a cinema-sized screen in mind, along with imaginative direction and imagery that excites us emotionally, not just superficially like all of these CG action films. They’re like candy—that queasy feeling in your gut after the initial rush subsides and you realize you’ve stuffed yourself full of empty calories that won’t help you grow. I don’t see movie theaters surviving unless filmmakers start making movies that warrant the big screen and big sound. I’m seeing too many films that I’d be happier watching at home, whereas I’d never prefer 2001 or Lawrence of Arabia, for instance, in my living room.
KJ
Well, with the advent of online streaming, I know a lot of people are asking what the cinema will be able to offer and why directors should continue to make films that are specifically for the cinema. Especially, I know many younger or less “established” directors simply do not have access to the financial resources needed to make those kinds of films. Obviously you were in a very similar situation before Have You Seen My Movie? So what would you say to these filmmakers? What makes the theater worth it as opposed to the gallery or the laptop?
PAS
When you sit down to take in a movie, particularly a good one, you’re putting yourself in a state of submission. And the size of the screen projecting those images in sync to sound that drowns out even your own inner voice, and the darkness and the empathic response you feel for not only the characters in the movie but for the strangers next to you, the whole situation is calibrated to play your heart and mind like a violin, should the filmmaker do their job correctly. John Huston said something that’s stuck with me, and that is: watching a film, the succession of moving images, they flow as one’s own thoughts flow, as though a camera were behind one’s eyes and projected onto the screen what it is they wished to see. Sitting in a movie theater focuses our attention onto one thing; it overwhelms the senses in such a way that the experience is close to hypnosis, freeing the unconscious: their story, on-screen, becomes our story.
I don’t think the laptop, iPad, iPhone or a gallery are a comparable experience. Peripherally, there’s nothing but distraction. I watch something on my laptop and at the same time I’m taking notice that my iPhone is lighting up because someone’s just sent me a text about the cool new video they saw in a gallery that’s all about “post-internet’ or whatever—“check out the excerpt on Instagram, man!” It’s a bore. But, like everyone, I participate, and these distractions have become routine. It’s rare that I see moving image work in a gallery that’s something more than an ambient piece, more than something people watch for a couple of minutes before moving on. There are plenty of exceptions, of course: Christian, Bruce Nauman, Arthur Jafa, Nicolas Provost, Pierre Hyughe, golden oldies like Bruce Conner or Arthur Lipsett, Stan Brakhage, the list goes on… But I think their work endures largely because it does engage with the cinema and with cinematic convention. Viewers watch and they feel. They don’t just simply observe. I think there are a lot of younger, self-described video artists out there—everyone’s a video artist, nowadays—who don’t understand cinema or editing and therefore aren’t going to be capable of affecting someone in the same way a bonafide filmmaker can. So to younger filmmakers or to anyone beginning to work with moving image, I would tell them not to eschew cinematic conventions, traditional cinematic language, and technique in favor of whatever might seem trendy online or at the gallery, because I don’t think that a lot of those works will stand the test of time.
Stories, imaginatively told and beautiful to look at and listen to, writ large across the canvas of the cinema screen—nothing in a gallery or on TV is half as much fun, or as thrilling. Watch old movies, read old books, listen to old music! Lend your ear to the dead. Everything old can be new again. It’s often what’s filtered from out of the distant past that has the greatest potential to radically affect the present culture and assert itself as a touchstone for the future. Ripping off whatever moves the cool kid’s got—that dance is going to get old fast. What’s fashionable is what’s transient, and there’s going to be another person who’s racking up a million hits on Instagram, Vimeo, or wherever before they, too, are forgotten. Movies are an art form, tried and tested. The Internet, on the other hand, and its capacity for moving image content, will forever be evolving and expanding and mutating into anything and everything. And that’s fine; that’s exciting. But you will never affect an audience in any profound way if your aesthetic sensibilities are derived solely from the internet. The internet is about content, eye-candy, often computer-generated imagery. The movies are about storytelling and about feeling.
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