In other words, *art brut.* I get that approach - I mean, I mixed Birdemic 2. I collect Richard Dadd books. And I get "this is a movie made by someone who doesn't want to make movies." My discomfort with Primer and its fans, I think, comes from the fact that they don't treat him like Tarkovsky. They don't treat him like Ron Fricke. They treat him like Chris Nolan - "here is genius, let me show you." As an objet d'art, it's fine. It's a cheap meditation on fate and causality. That's fine. But people try really hard to make it something it's not - they try to make it cinema. And that, I think, is what really bugs me - cinema isn't that tough to make. Time travel stories in particular are pretty basic - "I'm going to mess with the storyworld rules to illustrate a point, here, watch." But Primer is so in love with the contrivance of temporal manipulation that it befuddles the message. It also performs so much sleight of hand with the basics of its storyworld rules that you're left presuming it's too smart for you (fans) or that it's a disorganized mess (everyone else). And finally, that's what I'm left with - Primer is an attempt to make a movie that fails as a movie so it's passed off as "outsider art." Compare and contrast with Richard Kelly - he made a feature for $100k that sucked so he licked his wounds, learned from his mistakes and rolled up enough money to make Donnie Darko. Compare and contrast with Darren Aronofski - he made Pi for $50k and sold it. Compare and contrast with Clerks or Slacker. Flawed films that were nonetheless entertaining and executed in a way that requires no apology. Yet Shane Carruth finished Primer and said "yep, I'm good." Slacker cost $23k back when you had to shoot on film at a dollar a second. It is every bit as free of narrative convention as Primer is. But it's a movie and nobody disputes that.
Yes, there's certainly a vociferous fan-base that elevates it beyond what seems reasonable for a cheap black and white flick with a confusing story. But why? What is it about the thing that inspires such devotion? It may not entertain everyone but it entertains them. I have the same relationship with Sudoku, I can't understand why some people are so passionate about them. If some of his fans treat him like Chris Nolan I think they're mistaken. Nolan seems to revel in puzzle-making. I don't think that's what Carruth is trying to do. (Although, I could be projecting.) I'd agree that it's failure passed off as art if it were his only attempt but his second production shares many of the same approaches. Either he'll continue to fail or he'll refine his technique to support his as yet unachieved aims. By feature three, I might be in a position to assert with confidence: yup, he really doesn't know what he's doing. But note that it's the fans passing it off as art - Carruth himself has never appeared to do so. Still, I admire the effort, even if it is tainted by too-rabid fans and even if it leaves me colder than I think it should. I've made my share of rambling, incoherent and retrospectively painful indulgences. I have learned enormous amounts from failing and, thankfully, no-one will ever see them. He's a brave fool for putting them out there. Expanding the conversation: as screenwriters, how aware should we be of the bounds of the medium? How participatory should the audience's role be? Where is the line between eliciting emotion and abusing the trust of the viewer? Why are we doing this weird, rarely rewarded, Tantalan work anyway?
TOTALLY AND ABSOLUTELY AWARE. It's one thing if you're making a movie out of your own pocket for $7,000. That's fine. Every other film ever made is a collaborative effort with other professionals and in order to spend more than you have in your pocket you have to borrow from others. This requires you to be aware of your market. This requires you to work within the system. That's why we experiment with shorts and then knuckle down and make our money back on the features. Sunrise, sunset.Expanding the conversation: as screenwriters, how aware should we be of the bounds of the medium? How participatory should the audience's role be? Where is the line between eliciting emotion and abusing the trust of the viewer? Why are we doing this weird, rarely rewarded, Tantalan work anyway?