MELSEY

I have come late to this discussion. I love the article and I think it raises great questions that time has given further relevance. (SPOILER: Now that Ward is inhabited by the strange thing from another planet).
The questions that remain for me are:
How bad can you get and still get a shot at redemption?
Is a character entitled to redemption?
Are the SHIELD writers just messing with audience expectations around the theme of redemption?

I am reminded of Paul Schrader’s book on what he deemed transcendental film style. Unlike the style of psychological realism, which dominates film, where story may dominate the proceedings, the transcendental style expresses a spiritual state with austere camerawork, acting devoid of self-consciousness, and editing that avoids editorial comment.

I see some similarities in your article – in particular, your examples all speak to acknowledging more to the world of the characters – something greater than them that might only be expressed in a poetic way.

The departure of a poetic cinema departs – as you have beautifully laid out -from a transcendental style with what I would call “flourish”. Each of the directors you have named use cinematography or voice over and other filmic elements to, if not editorialize, to evoke. To stir resonations of meaning.

I agree that there is not enough discourse on John Waters as a filmmaker. The fact that his art is considered “low” should in no way diminish the messages of his movies. You did a wonderful job arguing that beauty cannot be the only aesthetic concept. You start a great discussion of whether we should appreciate an “ugly” work for its artistic representation or do we appreciate the cognitive ideas such a work may represent. Or is it both?

During my college days, I ducked into my favorite bookstore in Washington DC. A rail-thin man with a pencil thin mustache was sitting on a couch with a stack of books on a table next to him. No one would venture near him. They didn’t know who he was. I did because I had just seen Pink Flamingos at a midnight show. It was John Waters. When I passed he said “Hello”. We had a very nice chat about film in general and his book that he was promoting Shock Value.