Wednesday 22 June 2011

Love Letters Straight From Your Heart

Having just purchased The Straight Story and spending this evening listening to Angelo Badalamenti on repeat, I found no better excuse to post a personal profile of David Lynch that I wrote a while ago . I think about this sensational human being for 20% of my day, each day.

                “A swathe of curled black hair, a veil of cigarette smoke, pulling a pensive frown or an impish grin; perhaps the reason that David Lynch is seen as such a fine director is that he paints himself with the same nervous energy as his most famous characters. There’s more than a touch of madness to his craft and his films can be as disturbing as they are entrancing. His tight control of the camera and his pastiche style are the guardrails you hold on to as Lynch walks you through his murky yet dazzling world.
                His debut, Eraserhead, despite being over two decades old, remains as achingly complex and uniquely terrifying today as it was on its release. Eraserhead’s foundations would lead him to direct modern classics like Mullholland Drive, Inland Empire & Blue Velvet. Lynch often describes the development of his art like fishing; a patient, quiet process where magic springs at you in the blink of an eye. His films arguably mirror his thinking too. In a solemn, grey sea, Lynch is the Blue Marlin thrashing against the waves; a rare, inspiring flash of brilliance that will set your sails in its pursuit, like Ahab for his whale.”





 







Tuesday 21 June 2011

Neo "Noire"

There's been a great deal of press coverage about attempting to define what L.A. Noire is. Released by Rockstar and following the tremendous Red Dead Redemption, L.A. Noire reaches deep into the language of film noir and noir literature.

It highlights what up until now has been "the shame of gaming". No matter how far an enthusiast would argue that gaming is digital art, offering an immersive experience far beyond (or at least different to) the realm of novels or cinema, publishers and artists have taken little time to make games beautiful or inspiring. Earnest discussion about why this hasn't been worked towards as goal for industry has in part created some of the most widely praised independent games of the past decade (Braid, Minecraft, Limbo, Amnesia, And Yet It Moves).



L.A. Noire is no doubt the most expensive attempt at cornering this market of "quality gaming" which seems a bit of a fallacy. By making exception to the fact that L.A. Noire is a remarkable acheivement simply for being intelligent you in turn dismiss video games as a medium of doltish, low brow culture. Unfortunately, there is a broad dirth of content that is vapid, sour, offensive, bland and, most importantly, willfully moronic without a touch of irony.



















This perception shouldn't limit your medium's potential and this is exactly what L.A. Noire overcomes. It has a far greater appeal by presenting a video game as a framework to hang a set of artistic ideals and unique storytelling principles from. Whilst the breakthroughs in hardware and technical performance have catapulted forward what the industry can do in terms of raw power, it's taken longer for us to discuss what you can do with a narrative when you control the pacing.

L.A. Noire never in fact felt like a video game. Performances from Aaron Staton, Adam Harrington & Andrew Connolly were brought alive by motion capture and harnessed with a bleak and layered storyline. Cinematic as it may be the ability to direct those people you empathised with and believed in helped further explore the depths of guilt, anxiety and judgement that those characters felt. If you failed to bring a case in or stepped out of line, it's the audience that's made to feel ashamed of their decisions. I wouldn't suggest that the opportunity to feel worse coming away from L.A. Noire is something to look forward to but the lingering attachment to what you have just been a part of  is a hallmark of any truly immersive and brilliant art. It's a testament to not only what the designers and developers should be aiming towards but it also addresses to what purpose games exist.