Elephant

On the face of it the 1989 film Elephant by British director Alan Clarke is a piece of social realism, mainly because of it's subject matter (sectarian killings in Belfast during The Troubles), some aspects of it's aesthetic and the fact that a young Danny Boyle conceived the idea and took the role of producer. Having said this upon closer inspection there are many experimental traits in the approach of the film-makers.

The film shows 18 murders in just under 40 minutes and is based on real police reports of sectarian killings in Belfast during The Troubles. This is played out as just one murder after another. There is no plot, narrative or music throughout and only one piece of dialogue. Adding to this, it is shot on 16mm film creating a similar look to a documentary. By disregarding these usual staples of film all that is left is the point that the director is trying to get across.

Elephant is an experimental piece used to get across how brutal, unnecessary yet still everyday sectarian violence was in Belfast at that time.

The audience is not given any context. Most importantly in that the viewer is unaware of the side of the conflict anyone is on, which helps to show how trivial the rift is.

The minimalistic style of the film puts you right the at the scene of the crime, with tracking shots of people, followed by a killing and the a static shot of the body which works to make the viewer feel as if they have found it, the staging of which was probably really helped by the police reports. So much of the film is calm, quiet and still, again briinging across that this is not an unusual occurrence.

Still from Alan Clarke's Elephant (1989)

The title of the film came from the Irish author Bernard MacLaverty's description of The Troubles as 'the elephant in our living room'. Sharing the title 'Elephant' is Gus Van Sant's 2003 work based around the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999. Van Sant's film is heavily influenced by Clarke's. 

Still from Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003)

The film is summed up best in the words of director and writer David Leland when he said that,

'The cumulative effect is that you say,"It's got to stop. The killing has to stop." Instinctively, without an intellectual process, it becomes a gut reaction.' 

Experimental Individual Project

We have also been tasked this semester to create a 1 minute film piece individually with separate obstructions to the pairs project but again with the idea that when working with these obstructions we will consider our approach to film-making in new and interesting ways.

For this exercise you will be working as individuals

 The work you make will follow the set of rules outlined below:

–         work as an individual

–         make a moving image work with synch sound

–         works must strictly be one minute in length

–         works must be shot in one take

_    works must be a continuous single shot

–         works must include one object and at least one person

–         there must be no editing of the work

Experimental Pairs Project Brief

This semester we have been briefed to create a short experimental film in pairs. The basis of the brief stems from the 2003 film The Five Obstructions by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth in which Von Trier tasks Leth to recreate his 1967 short film The Perfect Human but this time Von Trier sets obstructions to navigate. These obstructions force Leth to revisit the aims he had when originally making the piece and to reconsider the process of film-making when out of his comfort zone. Out of this comes five very different and interesting new takes on one film. The obstructions we have been given as a group will hopefully serve to make us approach creating our film in new and different ways. Below is some of the information given to us with the specific obstructions from our original brief.

For this project you will be working in pairs

The starting point for this project are the films:

The Perfect Human – Jørgen Leth | 1967 | 12’                                                                                                      

The Perfect Human (Danish: Det perfekte menneske) depicts a man and a woman, both labelled 'the perfect human'      in a detached manner, "functioning" in a white boundless room, as though they were subjects in a zoo.

The Five Obstructions – Lars Von Trier & Jørgen Leth | 2003 | 89’                                                                         

In this film, Lars Von Trier asks Jørgen Leth to remake his short film The Perfect Human a number of ways with several different obstructions to influence the outcome:

1.             Leth must remake the film in Cuba (but with no set) with no shot longer than 12 frames, and he must answer the questions posed in the original film; Leth successfully completes this task.

2.             Leth must remake the film in the worst place in the world but not show that place onscreen; additionally, Leth must play the role of "the man". The meal must be included but the woman is not to be included. Leth remakes the film in the red light district of Bombay, only partially hiding it behind a translucent screen.

3.             Because Leth failed to complete task 2 perfectly, Von Trier punishes him, telling him to either remake the film in any way he chooses, or redo obstruction 2 in Bombay again. Leth chooses the former option and remakes it in Brussels using split-screen effects.

4.             Leth must remake the film as an animation. He does so with the aid of Bob Sabiston, a specialist in rotoscoping, who creates animated versions of shots from the previous films.

5.             The fifth obstruction is that Von Trier has already made the fifth version, but it must be credited as Leth's, and Leth must read a voiceover narration ostensibly from his own perspective but in fact written by Von Trier 

The work you will create will be inspired by a set of rules outlined below:

OBSTRUCTIONS:

–         5 – 10 minutes in length

–         x1 person or x1 object should feature within your piece focus

–         A Real location must be used (no sets)

–         No linear narrative should be used

–         No found sound used – you must record and manipulate sound

–         No use of sound purely as an explanation of screen action

–         You must include at least one aspect in your production that references the mechanics of filmmaking

(e.g. breaking the fourth wall?)