This is a blog post about John Baledessari…

In this documentary, the director goes about describing the life of John Baledessari in a very fast paced and artistic way. I was immediately intrigued at the start of the video due to the straightforward approach the narrator took towards documenting the belongings of John Baledessari rather than introducing him right away. I think that there was a lot of purpose behind the fact that the narrator continuously said John Baledessari’s name rather than using “his”, “him”, or “he”. This purpose most likely goes along with the argument or goal for the entire documentary which was to remember the name of John Baledessari. I don’t think that there would be any other reason for his name to be not only said aloud so often, but also to be plastered all over the screen visually. By targeting two different senses, the director of this documentary is able to more adequately ingrain the information into the audiences mind.

Not only does the director use the dualism of audio and visual stimulation for “John Baledessari”, but throughout most of the video, pretty much all of what the narrator was saying was flashed across the screen in print as well. The words weren’t in normal print either; because a lot of the words were flashed across the screen as completely different fonts, colors, patterns, and styles, it led me to believe that the director was trying to portray the words as art themselves. By making the audience have to constantly change their focus due to the very rapid text swap, a lot of attention must be paid to the words themselves, and I think this was one of the main points of the short.

Another visual strategy that I noticed the director using was the grainy filter that was put on any of the footage of the past, however when he cuts to the interviews with Baledessari, the image is very clear and hi-def. I think the idea behind this strategy is to see Baledessari in his current age as very modern and to see his works in the past (that were shown through the grainy filter) as classical and timeless. Another way that this “classicalness” is portrayed is through the music in the background. By playing the classical music and showing examples of Baledessari’s art to the beat of it, it executes the director’s goal to portray the art at classic.

The affect that documentary creates with me is a reason to remember John Baledessari. Through the constant and rapid use of his name, mentions of his awards, and the combination of the sensory effects, I think the director really strives for this and executes it in a strong way. It really makes me want to use a combination of visual and auditory media in my own documentary to really get my point across.

The Power of Pathos

For this blog post, I chose to analyze “Every Runner Has A Reason.” The purpose (exigence) of the piece was to raise money for a nonprofit organization called the Hospitality House, to inspire, and to defy misconceptions/societal norms about the homeless. To do so, it told the story of Ronnie Goodman, a middle-aged runner with a very rough past.

The short starts out with the backlit image of Ronnie running in slow motion through the city streets. His deep, manly voice chimes in soon after to narrate the piece. The viewer’s initial impression of Ronnie is that he is a normal, healthy, prosperous, even heroic, athlete. He is incredibly fit and is clothed in expensive running gear: Adidas spandex shirt, Nike shoes, Manzella beanie, ear buds, etc. However, this image is immediately juxtaposed with an image of Ronnie pulling all of his belongings in a dolly under the freeway. Ronnie then says, “When people see me, they just see a runner. They don’t see me as a person that’s homeless.” The sharp juxtaposition of runner versus homeless man, coupled with Ronnie’s touching quote, acts as a persuasive hook, and immediately establishes a emotional connection between the audience and the subject. 

The entire film is an effective appeal to pathos. The producer chose to lay b-roll over the interview footage so that Ronnie could tell a focused, captivating story. Frequent use of slow motion adds intensity while making Ronnie look heroic and elegant as he runs. The producer also utilizes a variety of different shots (close, medium close, medium, long, extreme long, aerial) to establish emotion, detail, intimacy, relatability, setting, and context. He also stuck to the “rule of thirds” to create more interesting, energy-charged shots. The producer never shoots Ronnie looking directly into the camera. This intentional avoidance of eye contact is meant to convey Ronnie’s focus and intensity. In addition, the music in the short also mirrors Ronnie’s story. It is reflective and moving while Ronnie thinks back on the trials and tribulations of his life (drugs, jail, homelessness), but picks up the pace for an emotional and uplifting conclusion. Ronnie’s last statement, “I don’t want too much, I just want to get up and stay healthy and enjoy this moment right here…every runner wants that,” is truly the icing on the cake. It solidifies Ronnie’s status as a grateful, passionate, and inspiring man, while establishing solidarity between himself and the rest of the running community. 

To me, the argument of the piece seemed to be that even those who are given a hard lot in life have the power to overcome their issues and ultimately thrive. I also felt that the film was meant to humanize the homeless. Unfortunately, society tends to view the homeless as useless or mentally ill individuals. Ronnie acts as a symbol for both of these arguments. He gives the homeless an attractive, healthy, normal face, and allows the audience to see them in a different light. We, as the audience, feel sympathy for Ronnie (and by association, the rest of the homeless population). We want him to be happy, to be healthy, to succeed.

And so, we are persuaded to donate to his cause. Time well spent.

 

A Life in 6 Minutes

“A Brief History of John Baldessari” uses specific film techniques to characterize John Baldessari as an artist whose importance is only exceeded by his humility. In less than 6 minutes, the director splices quick snippets of Beldessari’s art to encompass his entire career. Grainy film and a classical overture supply an old-school aesthetic that makes Baldessari’s life story feel timeless and his art look classic. With so much information given in just a few minutes, it would be easy for the film to get chaotic. Yet the director balances the film’s frenetic energy by switching images and shots to the beat of the music and making the narrator speak at a conversational pace.

 

Baldessari responds to the overview of his career with laughably humble quotes. He sits at his desk, completely surrounded by books (showing his productivity) and mumbles a matter-of-fact statement (“[My beard] is pretty much the same color as my hair.”) that accentuates his humility during an explosively successful career. During the interview snippets with Baldessari, the camera stays in the same level position to keep the focus on the subject, Baldessari, instead of the camerawork. It stands at eye-level perspective with the artist to show that he relates to the audience, as if they’re having a casual conversation. The shot’s central composition places Baldessari in the middle, once again keeping the focus on him.

 

The film is packed with humor, too. Tom Waits narrates, “Baldessari wonders about Clint Eastwood’s height,” as a picture of a gun-slinging Eastwood pops onto the screen. Then Baldessari mumbles, “How tall is he?” with a drawl that makes him sound like he’s someone’s confused pap-pap instead of a world-famous artist. Instantly, a close-up of Eastwood’s scowling face pops up next to the words “Tall Enough,” punctuated by a gunshot sound. The quick succession of these images makes the humor more immediate. The director never gives a comedic pause after the punch line but instead jumps into the next barrage of facts. All of these elements work together to condense an impressive life to 6 minutes using Baldessari’s style and wit.

Contented Isolation

Every Runner has a Reason lingers on the idea of isolation as the composers expose the truth about Ronnie; a homeless man who is dedicated to his running. The composers of Every Runner has a Reason use strategies such as slow-motion frames, sound effects, and a variety of focuses to expand upon the metaphor of isolation and project an affect of peaceful loneliness. As Ronnie tells his story, he speaks very slowly and relatively quietly, with pauses in between phrases. In addition to the effects of Ronnie’s voice-overs, the music in the video progresses softly and gradually to add to the peaceful flow of the video and its portrayal of Ronnie. At times the composers used visual effects, such as slow-moving frames to capture the sheer peace which Ronnie finds himself in when he runs.

After Ronnie has been introduced to the audience as a runner, we are suddenly shocked as Ronnie transitions into telling us that he is homeless. The composers of Every Runner has a Reason use this shocking move into the presentation of both literal and metaphorical isolation of Ronnie from society. Not only does Ronnie face the isolation that results from his drug use, time in prison, and current homelessness, but he isolates himself as he runs. Ronnie says that people do not see him as a homeless person when they see him running; meanwhile he isolates himself in impenetrable focus – which is portrayed by the camera focusing on just Ronnie while blurring his surroundings. His isolation is depicted once more as the camera follows him on his run through several barren city streets, and the composers remind us of his isolation in homelessness by showing him walking by himself, pushing his cart of belongings down empty streets. There are several shots which add to the overall affect of peaceful isolation; for example, when we see Ronnie running through the forest or standing to hear the wind rustle through the leaves.

To take the means of persuasion further, Ronnie is easy to relate to for one simple fact: his need for isolation from the world. Every person has experienced a time in their day or week when they need to escape from the world for a while. We all know how it feels to slip away into our daydreams, or to change our environment just by putting our headphones in. Digital technology has made it possible for us to separate our minds from the real world, regardless of what is actually going on. Has technology become a way for us to isolate ourselves from the world? If so, have we actually just created a new (digital) world for ourselves to need escape from?

I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art!

Focusing on “A Brief History of John Baldessari” for this critique, I want to bring a focus upon the speaker and there will be focus on the way the facts are presented. John Baldessari does not voice his own biography, nor does he speak much in it except to give a comment or two in supporting—or in some cases almost supporting —the facts Tom Waits, the speaker, claims about Baldessari’s life. This gives Baldessari a sense of being art himself discussed instead of just an interviewed artist. It gives dimension and a sense of “pop documentary” if you will. It should also be mentioned that the true facts that one would consider worthy of being in a biography or traditional documentary are not covered until a few minutes in. Before this it is a series of “This is John Baldessari’s [blank]” statements followed by more “fun fact” type of statements like his height, the peepholes in his doors, and the burning of his paintings that were technically in a crematorium but “we’ll get back to that later”. These give more of a sense of what Baldessari stands for and his life by showing the images that help viewers perceive his personality better and makes his biography more interesting than just having a constant slew of facts. The fun facts also serve to catch the attention of viewers and make them want to continue watching.

All of this results in a quirky delivery on John Balderssari’s life and supports the quirkiness within Baldessari’s pop art. It gives a light and familiar tone to Baldessari and his work, which is also helped by the conversational tone between Tom Waits and John Baldessari have towards each other. It’s informal more than a formal documentary. While one may or may not be familiar with his art, the tone of the narrator and the nonchalance of Baldessari makes one feel familiar with him and his work even if one, like me, hasn’t heard of him. This juxtaposes strongly with the fact that his art is pop art and the idea of pop art is that it shouldn’t be familiar. But most importantly, all of this ties into one central theme that is repeated several times and has become the mantra to John Baldessari’s life: “I will not make any more boring art” and this documentary, is far from boring art.

The Essence of the Thing

The short documentary called “A Brief History of John Baldessari” does an excellent job of matching its subject with its film style and theme. The subject, John Baldessari, is an eccentric, creative, and interesting man and so the film was created in the hopes of being these things as well. One of the ways the director gives this feel is by breaking all of the information in the film short, and sometimes random, statements. By doing this, the director makes the film feel almost like one of Baldessari’s pieces of art. Each piece of information becomes its on piece of art for the audience to take into consideration alone. It starts by showing just clips of items around his office. It makes the audience think, “Why are they showing me this? What is the importance of these objects?” This is not unlike the reaction they might have if they were to look at his pictures with dots on their faces. This is a strategy that connects the audience to the Baldessari and his art without them even realizing it.

The film also uses clips, music, fonts, and images that are just as creative and diverse as Badessari’s artwork. They all seem to have no real connection to them and this is a film rhetorical strategy in itself. Their diversity forces the audience to notice each on because they all do not blend together but stand out. It goes along with the very light and pleasant tone of the film but also helps create a lack of organization. By making the films style similar to the style of the subject himself it creates a better of what he is like for the audience. It is possible for the audience to even imagine that the film represents his creative process.

I think that this documentary shows that is not enough to show the subject and something they are interested in. The film itself has to be a reflection of the story you are trying to tell. By creating a feeling for the film that fits the subject you can help the audience become almost immediately immersed in the film but immersed in the subjects world.

A Brief Reflection on John Baldessari

My absolute favorite of the films we watched was the portrait of artist John Baldessari. The draws of this film for me were the use of shots of everyday objects belonging to the artist and the infusion of its narrator, the gravelly-voiced crooner of all things banal and macabre, Tom Waits. I’ve been a fan of Waits for many years, and the fact that he and Baldessari have a sort of conversation (“He’s got a great voice!” “Thanks, John.”) in the midst of the former narrating the latter’s life and accomplishments is one of the many highlights of the film. Waits’ distinctive snarl on words like “Biennale”, and undertone of “Jesus Christ” accompanying rapid shots of Baldessari’s bevy of awards lends an amount of humor to this short that would never have been there had someone other than Waits narrated. As a voice actor myself, this is one of the many reasons I love hearing just the right voice for a spot, and Waits was a brilliant pick for this.

While there is some discussion of Baldessari’s current life, we don’t see modern-day John that often, and when we do it’s nearly always in a medium or a close-up shot from across his enormous desk. This helps us feel both the immensity of his workspace and the kind of intimate closeness that only Baldessari’s friends, family, and work itself have likely seen. Of course, that intimacy also comes in other forms; giving the audience a very personal look at Baldessari’s office and personal life, directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman go so far as to shoot close-ups of objects as mundane as his coffee machine, and as private as his Wi-Fi password. (I also enjoyed seeing the hand-drawn thank you note from SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg.)

Much of the film is made up of archival footage of Baldessari’s work, be it films or pictures of his paintings, and almost all of Wait’s dialogue is accompanied verbatim and in real time by written words in various formats on the screen.  (The use of iconic orchestral music like Rossini’s William Tell Overture provide a perfect and almost frantically joyous backdrop to the pictures, so caught up in the act of helping tell John’s story that they make the documentary feel much shorter than its six-minute runtime and hold the audiences’ attention for much longer.)

Waits’ booze-soaked voice echoes dramatically at the end, quoting Baldessari:  “I will not make any more boring art!” for an ending to a film that is fast-paced and full of close-ups, giving us a look at man whose life has been nothing but.

El Jaque Mate

I actually had to watch this mini documentary, Odysseus’ Gambit, twice before I understood the analogy. As I watched it a second time, just really listening, the analogy suddenly made sense. The documentary tells the story of Saravuth, an entertainment chess player in New York City, and about his life and hardships. The story is obviously a comparison between the game of chess and Saravuth’s life.

But it’s really much more than just a comparison. His life is a game of chess. He has overcome obstacles in his life only to be caught in a stalemate. To tell this story, the director uses all different types of angles to convey these emotions and hardships of Saravuth. The documentary contains mostly medium shots and close-ups of Saravuth. There are some long shots to set the location of the documentary and possibly to see what Saravuth is wearing. The close-ups and medium shots are used to show the audience the emotion on his face and also to create a sense of relatedness between the two parties. By doing this, the audience feels more connected to Saravuth and in-turn feel more empathetic.

There is also significant use of A-roll and B-roll footage as well. Most of the time, we see Saravuth speaking to other people who have stopped by his table. This dialogue provides a look into his daily life and friends without him explicitly speaking to the audience. So it’s like we’re eavesdropping on the conversation. There is however B-roll footage as well and Saravuth speaks off screen while different images play on screen. This allows the audience to sees what he’s doing and also hear him describe what he’s doing, like he says “It’s part of my daily routine”. If we didn’t know that, it would’ve just been a scene of him getting coffee with no real significance. And there are also some moments of A-Roll footage when he speaks directly to camera as if we’re having a conversation with him. This gives the feeling of being even more involved with Saravuth’s life as he reveals more information about himself.

What was really interesting for me was the Spanish subtitles. It doesn’t give a different meaning to the story being told, but some of the translations were really interesting. The one that stood out for me that most was the word “stalemate”. In Spanish the word is “ahogado” which means to choke, to drown, or to suffocate. Saravuth was always trapped and unable to move from the United States. A place he did not ask to be taken and given a life he did not request. Since then, he has been trapped in a stalemate, unmoving, just suffocating and drowning to get out.

Uncovering the Reason

      As a runner myself, I immediately was attracted to the short documentary entitled “Every Runner Has a Reason.” As it began, I simply saw an image I see frequently around Oakland, a man in running gear, with his headphones in, running. I see it so often I never really think there is more to the person other than the fact that they are a runner. However, as the video continued it made me realize that this runner was not just a man who got home from work and decided to go on a run, but a man just out of prison, struggling to find a home and a stable job, running to truly “enjoy the moment,” as the runner, Ronnie Goodman, states in the video.

      Throughout the video, I began to feel compassion and inspiration towards the runner known as Ronnie Goodman and I think a lot of it had to do with the director’s strategy of always keeping the camera fairly close to Goodman. The majority of the shots consisted of medium full shots, medium, medium close-up, and close-up; I did not see many extreme long shots at all. I think this strategy leads the viewer to feel closer to Ronnie Goodman, as if we are truly getting to know him for they are all quite intimate and contextual camera shots.

      Another neat strategy was how the director constantly shot Goodman moving or running; he was rarely ever standing still. Even when he shot him moving all of his belongings to show his state of homelessness, it seemed as if Goodman was still moving forward, constantly persevering and growing from his difficult past.

      There are also a lot of nature shots, which I believe exemplify how free he is now and how even though he may not have a job or a home, he is doing better than he was before and he is able to now enjoy nature a little more. Overall, it is quite a moving short documentary and makes one think a little more about the runners and people in general he or she sees on the street because we truly do not know what they have been through or are going through. It makes you want to change the way you look at certain people and almost motivates you to make a difference by either choosing to donate or somehow raise awareness for the “Run With Ronnie” cause. This is something I will definitely take away from the video because I would like the video portrait I do, to leave a similar impact. Ultimately, I think it would be incredible if the video I create makes people change the way they think or act in certain situations, even if only a few people watch, for I believe creating something that leaves an impact is truly incredible.

Finding the Reason of the Runner

When we had to choose a documentary to write about for this week’s blog, I immediately knew I wanted to use “Every Runner has a Reason”. It stuck out in my mind compared to all of the other documentaries and I gravitated to it. At first I had no idea why I liked this mini documentary more than the other ones or why it stuck out to me. Then, I started thinking that I must have been persuaded by the compensational and rhetorical elements within the video. The first thing I noticed is that the documentarian used many different shots throughout the short video. First, he opens with a shot looking up at the runner with the sun washing out the runners face. I thought this was a very powerful shot because a voice is talking about the experience of running. He says he likes that when you run, people only see you as a runner, nothing more and nothing less. It then cuts to different shots of this man running in slow motion. There is a medium-close up of his back while he runs through the woods that makes you feel like you are running behind him. There are also very impressive extreme long shots that show you the area in which he is running. One shot in particular breaks the rule of thirds. He is shown far away from the camera, but only from his torso up. The rest of the screen is filled with green trees. What effect does this have and why did they choose to break the rule of thirds? I also noticed many of these shots do not actually show his face. I thought this was interesting because it relates to the idea of only being a runner and leaving his other personal problems behind for a couple of hours. When he runs, that is his identity, and I think the documentarian captured that in his shots.

I also think the documentarian used pathos to draw on the audience’s emotions. The man tells a very touching story about overcoming drug addiction. He even says he’s been to hell and back “about four times.” I personally like a story of triumph and success over personal demons. The documentarian also appeals to the audience’s emotions when they show him as a homeless man versus a runner. They show him pushing all of his possessions down an alley or street. It is heart-wrenching to see such a strong, likeable man in such poor conditions and still be so thankful just to be happy.

This documentary displays a peaceful tone. There is slow, soft music playing while the man runs in slow motion through the woods while light shines through the trees. It appears to be a very hopeful scene. While the wind ruffles the leaves on the trees, the man talks about how running “makes everything fell at peace” for him. Suddenly the tone changes, and the music is uplifting and fast. The man is shown running at full speed and he talks about how he wants to make a difference for organization that helped him at his lowest point. It is only now that words appear on the screen and show the purpose of the documentary. It says he is running in the San Francisco marathon to raise money for Hospitality House. I think showing his whole story with a peaceful tone was an effective way to pull people in before even telling them what you want them to do, support his cause. I wonder how it would have changed the video if he had put the message at the beginning?

For my own project, I hope to incorporate some unique shots like this documentary included. I plan to use a wide variety of shots that show many points of views.