Obscenity revisited

I just received a note from a friend that I think is worth sharing. The
first paragraph is my response to him:

Great stuff!!! I think I met this guy at a conference last March in CA…he's
not a Christian but was talking about the same stuff…you need to read the
Culture Wise Family and two others: Amusing Ourselves to Death and The
Disappearance of Childhood…wait! You must read The Death of the Grown Up…!!!
None of these are written by Christians except Culture, and to our
shame…please read these!!!
By the way, at that conference these elite guys, producers from Disney,
Paramount, and Fox were asked what can prepare our youth the most for a film
making career and they said, "Study philosophy and theology!" Also, I will
send you something that will quite blow you away concerning Harry Potter.
Wait till you read this!
Maybe we can get together next week while I'm in NY if our schedules
connect.
Mark

Hey Mark,
 
I've been enjoying your recent blog posts.  If you didn't already know, I'm
"JPC" who commented on your post about obscenity.  I thought it would put my
name when I signed in, but it just used my initials. Anyways, your posts put
me in mind of a book I read a few years back called "On Directing Film" by
David Mamet.  I remember at the time being impressed by many of his
observations--observations of a man who, for all I know is not a Christian,
but from love of his craft, comes to many of the same conclusions that we
would come to on moral grounds.  I just wanted to send along a few snippets
from his book that I think relate nicely to your recent posts--thought it
would be too long to post as a blog response. ;)
 
"...It is our nature to want to make sense of...events--we can't help it. 
The human mind would make sense of them even if they were a random
juxtaposition.
 
"This being the nature of human perception, the smart dramatist will use it
to his or her advantage and say, 'well if the human mind is going to do all
that anyway, why don't I do it first?  Then I will be going with the flow
rather than battling against the tide.'
 
"If you aren't telling a story, moving from one image to another, the images
have to be more and more 'interesting' per se.  If you are telling a story,
then the human mind as it's working along with you, is perceiving your
thrust, both consciously and, more important, subconsciously.  The audience
members are going to go along with that story and will require neither
inducement, in the form of visual extravagance, nor explanation, in the form
of narration.
 
"...If we don't care what happens next, if the film is not correctly
designed, we may, unconsciously, create our own story in the same way that a
neurotic creates his own cause and effect rendition of the world around him,
but we're no longer interested in the story we're being told...  'Yes, I
saw, but I don't quite know where it's going.  I'm following it, but I am
certainly not going to risk my unconscious well being by becoming involved.'
 
"That's when it stops being interesting.  So that's where the bad author,
like the countercultural architect, has to take up the slack by making each
subsequent event more diverting than the last; to trick the audience into
paying attention.
 
"The end of this is obscenity.  Let's really see their genitals, let's
really endanger the actor through stunts, let's really set the building on
fire.  Over the course of a movie, it forces the filmmaker to get more and
more bizarre.  Over the course of a career, it forces a filmmaker to get
more and more outrageous; over the course of a culture, it forces the
culture to degenerate into depravity, which is what we have now.
 
"...the nature of dramatic art [is] to tell a story.  That's all it's good
for.  People have tried for centuries to use drama to change people's lives,
to influence, to comment, to express themselves.  It doesn't work.  It might
be nice if it worked for those things, but it doesn't.  The only thing the
dramatic form is good for is telling a story.
 
"If you want to tell a story, it might be a good idea to understand a little
bit about the nature of human perception.  Just as, if you want to know how
to build a roof, it might be a good idea to understand a little bit about
the effects of gravity and the effects of precipitation.
 
"If you go up into Vermont and you build a roof with a peak, the snow will
fall off.  You build a flat roof, the roof will fall down from the weight of
the snow--which is what happened to a lot of the countercultural
architecture of the 1960s. 'There may be a reason people have wanted to hear
stories for ten million years,' the performance artist says, 'but I really
don't care, because I have something to say.'
 
"The film business is caught in a spiral of degeneracy because it's run by
people who have no compass.  And the only thing you can do in the face of
this downward force is tell the truth.  Anytime anyone tells the truth,
that's a counterforce."
 
Excerpts from "On Directing Film", by David Mamet, 1991
 
So I tried to be brief--that entire chapter is really great stuff.  I knew
you'd be interested if you hadn't already read it. :)
 
All the best,
Jesse
 
PS--I was also interested by your Harry Potter posts (I saw two of them).  I
read the series a few years back and actually thought that, if I wanted to,
I could write a book called "Christ in Harry Potter" or some such thing. 
Taking in the entire arc of the plot, I found much more that spoke to the
things we believe and hold dear than not.  Anyways, I thought it was
interesting... :)