Roger Ebert, together with Rex Reed, is arguably one of the best movie writers in the business. I read his columns regularly. In his review of Syriana, Ebert forwards a very interesting thesis: "The movie's plot is so complex we're not really supposed to follow it, we're supposed to be surrounded by it. Since none of the characters understand the whole picture, why should we?" I never thought about a situation in which ALL the characters would be confused about what's really going on... If that is the case, does the script itself need to reflect that confusion? And does this mean that the script should end up confusing the audience, by design? It's hard to buy that. The first chapter of Faulkner's unforgettable The Sound and the Fury comes to mind... But in the later chapters Faulker lets us discover the genius of that first and utterly confusing first chapter. At the end of the book, we also agree with the author that the first chapter HAD TO BE that confusing in order both to understand one of the characters and also savor the aesthetic structure of the whole edifice. However, I cannot think of myself leaving a movie more confused than I was in the beginning. RASHOMON is an example where it is totally legitimate to reflect a LACK OF CERTAINTY. But Kurosawa is never confused about his take on the relativity of "facts." He is very CLEAR about lack of clarity in life. Syriana seems to be opening the gates for a new post-9/11 kind of "post structuralism" where we're permitted to confuse the audience as a matter of "high concept" and not only the style. ----------------------------------------- |
