Potencialidades del sector agropecuario en el posconflicto

sort of God or monster. I am glad that there is an intimation of repentance, after all, this shot is followed by a quote from Augustine’s Confessions.

As I mentioned in the production section above, the diner scene was not rehearsed. As such I feel the scene failed to reach its full potential. Unlike his relationship with Zia, Valentine’s friendship with Nick does not come across as strongly as it could have. It was shot in a fashion that conveys some of this dynamic, but I would say that it is one of the weaker scenes.

The other scene that somewhat misses the mark for me is Zia’s first appearance in Valentine’s bed. I did a lot in editing and color correction to make this scene work but I am disappointed in the shot that goes from the bed to Valentine. As discussed earlier, we had to improvise this shot on set. If we weren’t pressed for time I’m sure we could have come up with something that traversed the space between them better. Alas, the dimensions of the room and limited schedule prevented this moment from properly being captured.

Given our mutual lack of experience with color correction, I do not feel that we hit the mark. The general strategy works, but I would like it to be fine-tuned. The final image looks more acceptable than impressive. Similarly, the sound design could stand to be more fleshed out. The soundtrack is clean, but could be used more expressively.

As per the requirement of the thesis project, I screened Beyond Memory for Rashada Fortier’s class. The responses were generally positive. It came up during the discussion that many student films were shown to the class and my movie was solidly preferred. In particular, they found the camera work engaging and the concept interesting. The process of dealing with the end of a relationship is something that everyone has gone through. The music was another element that worked well for them.

There was some confusion, but nothing that was unexpected or detracting from the experience. The primary question was whether Zia was really there or not. I am pleased that there were differing interpretations. Some people were confused as to who Sean Lawrence was. Once the movie was finished, I had some concerns that it might not be too clear, but there is enough to piece it together. The main problem is that Valentine refers to him as Lawrence, while Zia refers to him as Sean. This makes it difficult to connect the man in Valentine’s office to the man Zia left Valentine for.

Some of the students critiqued the production design inside of Valentine’s house. I admit that it could have been better. Sparseness is difficult to pull off. I should have worked with Alaina more to make this expression work. I still believe it was the right choice, just not the best execution. In general, the design worked for the audience, but this component missed the mark.

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XII – CONCLUSION

At this point, it is probably clear that I put little stock in narrative as a means and end to filmmaking. Over the course of my studies I have come to reject the view that it is the dominant component to filmmaking. Early on in this paper, I brought up Deleuze’s notion that it is the specific combination of images that create narrative in film, rather than narrative having some preordained

privelege in the medium. I find it hard to believe that a non-native structure, whose sole purpose is to pass judgment, can have a monopoly on meaning in the cinema. By way of conclusion, I aim to explore this belief in relation to Beyond Memory, as much of the film is shaped by this belief.

The thrust of my argument in “Isolated Together” was that the existentialism in film noir resonated with the writers at Caheirs du cinéma and led to the development of auteur criticism which promoted mise-en-scène as the primary source of meaning in cinema. In the scriptwriting section of this paper, I outlined my engagement with film noir as a genre. At the heart of the script, there is a questioning of the private detective as a masculine archetype. A great deal of my approach to the cinematography was rooted in a similar inquiry, but images only have potential meaning.

In his essay “The Cinema of Poetry,” Pier Paolo Pasolini discusses the difference between writing and filmmaking based on the comparison between language and cinema: “While the writer’s work is esthetic invention, that of the filmmaker is first linguistic invention, then esthetic.”65 This is due to the fact that images do not have a set meaning, like words, so each film invents its own own vocabulary and grammar. Ultimately, however, this is merely an analogy, because films are not linguistic but stylistic in nature.66

Pasolini develops the concept of free indirect subjective, which is taken up by Deleuze. This refers to the relationship between the filmmaker/camera and the characters that does not adhere to the distinction between objective images from the former and subjective images from the latter. Instead, the filmmaker/camera enter into a relationship with the character’s way of seeing, and the distinction and identification of these images dissolves. “The story no longer refers to an ideal of the true which constitutes its veracity, but becomes a ‘pseudo-story’, a poem, as story which simulates or rather the simulation of a story.”67

Thus, my questiong of the private detective was never meant as a denouncement, but an examination. The detective is inherently good (according to Chandler), at the cost of his own personal

65 _{p. 545} 66 _{ibid. 552}

67 _{Cinema 2 p. 148-9 It is important to note here that Deleuze distinguishes between narrative and story. Story is the} relationship of the filmmaker/camera and the characters (objective-subjective relationship). As discussed above, narrative (or narration) refers to the development of the sensory-motor schema (the relationship between action and situation, ending in judgement)

happiness, for the sake of his professional duty (which yields no results). The non-narrative approach shifts the critique from a judgment (to be happy, you should do this...) to a tender question: Why do you choose to be unhappy? I say “tender question” because I care about Valentine. I want him to be happy because he’s a good man, but unlike Chandler, I do not believe that he is inherently good.

Must the good man be unhappy? Certainly his life will be difficult, but despair cannot be a badge of honor lest it become more important than being good. The private detective’s denial of love is a copout; his detachment keeps him alive but it also keeps him from living. The detective is a crucial figure of modern man: detached and futile.

The modern fact is that we no longer believe in this world. We do not even believe in the events which happen to us, love, death, as if they only half concerned us...The reaction of which man has been disposessed can be replaced only by belief. Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears. The cinema must film, not the world, but belief in this world, our only link. The nature of the cinematographic illusion has often been considered. Restoring belief in the world – this is the power of modern cinema (when it stops being bad). Whether we are Christians or atheists, in our universal schizophrenia, we need reasons to believe in this world.

Deleuze, Cinema 2 p. 171-2

Through the process of writing this paper, I realized, more than anything, making Beyond

Memory was about my personal need to believe that one can be good and happy. I cannot say “being good

makes one happy” nor “unhappiness stems from being good,” so narrative, which can only pass such a judgment, is of no help to me. Valentine’s dilemma is existential in nature: as a private detective he chose not to be with Zia or, more accurately, he refused to choose her. This was not a coice between two alternatives (the false dichotomy between public and private), but his indecisiveness in becoming her lover (though he certainly demanded that of her). In his memory, he constructed her guilt. Zia was the one who did not love properly. This absolves him of responsibility, but it does not make him happy. In early drafts of the script, I mistakenly tried to prove Zia innocent, but Valentinte did not misintepret the past: he chose the unhappy version.

Deleuze offered a solution to the problem of narrative judgment through the time-image. My study of noir as a genre provided me with Valentine and his situation. From the outset the detective has been faced with this choice. This study also led me to further understand the auteur critics’ concept of

mise-en-scène, reinstating film itself (image, montage, sound) as the center of cinema. Only through engagement with film theory could I explore the relationship between goodness and happiness; only from making Beyond Memory could I believe in their mutual existence.

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