Response to "The Absolute Film"

Dr. William Moritz verbalized something I have often considered: film can and should be thought of as expressive images that do not require narrative and sound to function. Mortiz says, "Cinema even more than music seems dominated by documentary and fiction functions," and I could not agree more. As I have taken more film classes and more creative writing classes, I have reached the point where the narrative is the least interesting aspect because it creates boundaries (as far as my writing goes I am far more interested in the scene rather than the story). There should be room to examine all cinematic opportunities. I feel that society takes film (the moving image) for granted. Yes, music can be used in such a way to enhance the image (as we have witnessed in class by way of Ballet Mecanique), but film should not be synonymous with music. A silent image can be deafening. I was watching clips from a random documentary about Norwegian black metal earlier, and the most feared of the black metal musicians silently stared at the interviewer without flinching for over 2 minutes; the silent portrait of this crazy guy will piss you off because of the silence and progression of time. That is the power film can have and, in my opinion, is a nice example of my interpretation of absolute film.