Lost in La Mancha/Editing.

In Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s documentary ‘Lost in Mancha’ about the ‘making of’ Terry Gilliam’s unfinished film ‘The Man who killed Don Quixote’ the two film-makers use a similar observational style as written about in Kay Donavan’s case study of Tagged. This ‘fly on the wall style’ characterized by long takes and imperfect camera angles was done in order to give the viewers a truthful depiction of the film set, and from first notice this appears to be the case.

However, in the editing room, it appears that the directors wanted to comment on Gilliam’s ‘mad’ approach to creating films in a negative manner. This is done through the use of juxtaposition, the director’s pair scenes of Gilliam laughing madly with fellow members of the crew showing deep concern over the financial and logistical state of the film.

This assertion is also supported by the films form, it starts off by stating Gilliam’s past failures as a director, setting up the audience’s expectations, and as the film progresses with time these expectations are met. Instead of having a respectful relationship with its subject, ‘Lost in Mancha’ mocks and satirizes. Unlike ‘Tagged’ it appears that the films aesthetic choices are less bound by ethics and ethical consideration, this could potentially be due to the subject matter. The topic of ‘Bankstown’ ‘one of the most culturally, racially, socially, and religiously diverse areas of Australia’ should be dealt with more sensitivity and more respect to the truth, than Terry Gilliam’s madness. Another key difference is the fact that Tagged is a case study dealing with four unique individuals lives, in order for the viewer to gain a truthful representation of what it is like to live in Bankstown. ‘Lost in Mancha’ is not specifically about anyone, and was initially commissioned to be about the making of a film and due to this, it is shot with less intention and isn’t initially (during the shooting) impacted by the film makers views or values, which are only asserted in the narration, an aspect of the film that was written and created in post-production.

Another fascinating thing about ‘Lost in Mancha’ is that Terry Gilliam had to re-give his consent after he saw the film, and reportedly he loved it, even though it portrayed him in a negative light. It may have been due to the film-makers knowledge of Gilliam that influenced their ethical decision making in the film, if they knew he was going to like the way in which they portrayed him, they had far less ethical and moral constraints.

Tutorial

In my tutorial today we had our first look at editing and discussed project brief 2. I will come out and say from the start, I am a huge fan of editing, I think it’s one of my favourite aspects of media-making. To be able to link images that hold meanings of their own together to create brand new meaning is a heap of fun. In my project this was my approach, I collected a whole heap of videos and images that I believed represented me and through the use of narration and music I gave my project a whole new (deeper) meaning.

I also enjoyed the editing activity where I had to make cuts based on shape, this was challenging but really cool. I was reminded of the famous ‘A Space Odyssey’ cut  from the opening sequence, when I was doing my task.