Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

Actors, crew members, audiences, everyone has their preconceived notion of what film is supposed to be.  If pressed to leave our comfort zone we become confused and indignant about what is supposed to constitute film.  Is it the purpose of film to entertain us and tell us a story in three acts with perfect technical structure?  No but it can.  Is it the purpose of film to show us some sort of grand truth by pointing a camera at the harsh realities of existence?  No but it can (maybe).  The fact of the matter is that film doesn’t owe you anything so stop expecting it to conform to your expectations.  Light passes through the lens of a camera and is recorded as visual information on film stock and it is then replayed so that information can be viewed.  Everything else that happens is inconsequential.  A director doesn’t have to play by any rules nor does he necessarily have to know what the hell he is doing.  There doesn’t have to be some grand philosophical meaning driving his work and if he does have some sort of internal agenda it is inconsequential if he is successful at that aim.

William Greaves may have been some sort of genius in his experiment of a film Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.  Is he showing us the truth of the genesis of art and using film as a means of capturing societal truths?  Can truth even be captured on film?  Is he the star of the show and this film is actually a narrative feature about a filmmaker and the turmoil of an artist that doesn’t feel the need to articulate his vision?  How much of this film is reality?  Can you really capture reality with the constant whirring and clicking of cameras and a boom mic in your face or does the knowledge that you are being filmed change your behavior ala Heisenberg’s principle?   I can’t really answer these questions and I’m not sure that anyone can.  I’m sure there are plenty that could give long diatribes about their theories on these existential matters and they could run circles around my awkward and ignorant observations but I honestly believe that nobody has those answers, some are just better at pretending that they do.  My social ineptitude makes me feel like an outsider and that we are always acting even when there are no cameras or audiences around.  I can’t answer questions about the reality of this film any more than I can attest to the genuinity of the last person that I had a face to face conversation with.

This film captures something in a mesmerizing and often hysterical fashion and that is good enough for me.  How much of it was reality and how much of it was William Greaves messing with the conventions of reality and cinematic technique and expectations?  Who cares, it was great.

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