I guess I missed my post last night as well; that makes two this month. I'll fill those in with something. Was too busy with a midnight watching of The Boy and the Beast, last year's anime film Christmas gift to Alex, after having viewed this year's the night preceding (Your Name.) There's something really weird about the way that anime films are usually structured, which I'm gradually learning to piece together and put into words.
A funny thing about the pattern that I'm noticing, (at least as I'm expressing it,) is that it's also the way that a lot of Alfred Hitchcock movies tend to be structured.
Hollywood structure is famously straightforward. Bollywood structure, it's a little more complicated than that as a natural evolution of the format (longer pictures means intermission in the middle means the story gets told in two parts, with some sort of tragedy usually which gets rectified in the second half,) but that makes it even more... well I don't want to say predictable, so how about, familiar.
Hitchcock/anime structure, (and most likely applying to other film genres as well (though really more of mediums than genres) of course,) it's... even more epic and twisty than that. Kind of episodic, but the episodes can be as long as they want? And oftentimes upending a lot of a lot that's gone before. I'd have to get into specific details, which I can't get into here, in order to explain fully what I mean, and I'm no expert of course so maybe my examples wouldn't be the best anyway. But that rough rough rough explanation still stands.
And this combined with genre-typical atmosphere, the effect is... intoxicating. Hitchcock's creation of suspense. Miyazaki's worldbuilding through details. The recent Star Wars films have been leaning very slightly in this structural direction as well; The Last Jedi was weird, and not for no reason.
Dang, I think I've got a pretty good video essay on my hands...
No comments:
Post a Comment