Cynema

It doesn’t quite work, because “Cynema” and “Cinema” are homonyms. Visually – okay. Aurally – needs to be “Cynical Cinema.”

Over the last year, I’d say I’ve seen about a dozen short video/film projects that have been conceived of and/or produced, directed, acted in by students or friends of mine, plus a few more via the “Check this out!” entreaty of a Facebook post or what-have-you. I’ve noticed in far too many of them a gravitational pull toward a glib, cynical tone – fully half of them are allied with the mockumentary style that reached its apogee first with Spinal Tap and then with Waiting for Guffman, and recently popularized on television by The Office, but depressingly absent a certain quality to be discussed below.

I think part of why the mockumentary is appealing to low-budget short film auteurs is that it offers relief from certain hoary technical considerations like “good lighting” and “camera moves” – the genre is defined by natural lighting, handheld camera, improvised lines, etc. But when you put poor lighting and jagged handheld camera moves on top of NO STORY and glib, improvised The Office-ish dry humor – this holds interest for about one minute  - if you’re really funny. My problem is that unless you’re going to be better and funnier than those two films or The Office, you shouldn’t attempt it. Those are professionally funny people, and in this business I think if you haven’t been paid to be funny, there’s an awfully good chance that if you tried, you simply aren’t funny enough to be paid for it. Ipso facto whatevero. And then there’s the common offshoot of this tired genre: The mockumentary about The Industry. One of the short films I watched was an industry insider mockumentary about a horrible actor who screws up audition after audition while thinking he’s Marlon Brando. Or the other one about, get this, The Awful Agent!  Ugh. If there’s anything worse than generalized cynical mockumentary tone, it’s that tone applied to the industry. It all just feels terrible irrelevant and clique-ish and narcisisstic. There’s a reason Unscripted didn’t make it past one season – and that was produced by George Clooney, who would seem to know a thing or two about creating successful work (the pilot was shot in one of our theatres, btw). And Extras as well – I think there are 12 episodes total. (Though among others, that one oft-Youtubeified scene with McKellan and Gervais is brilliance in this genre.)

But Holy Hypocrisy, Batman: I love Entourage. Huh? How is this possible? First off – it isn’t mockumentary style. It has a structured story line each season, it’s shot beautifully, and has at its heart a pulsating performance by Jeremy Piven as Ari. No Piven, no tickie, no laundry, no series. (Kevin Dillon’s hilarity runs a close second.) And I loved Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman. Huh? Why? Firstly, they are made by some professionally funny people. But I would offer that underlying successful mockumentaries and industry-insider comedies is the factor referred to in the title of this post: They aren’t Cynema.

cynical, adj., 1. concerned only with one’s own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards, 2. distrustful of human sincerity or integrity

So a definition emerges: cynema, n., filmmaking motivated (too much) by cynical motives of what will move the creators’ careers forward, at the obvious expense of humanity or passion; cynema is often characterized by mockumentary style, poor craftsmanship, trying unsuccessfully to be funny (or just imitating others’ humor), hitting a visual punchline, trying to nail a tone without nailing a story.

To me, the reason Guffman, Spinal Tap, The Office, Entourage do well is because there is a palpable sense, quite simply, of  joie de vivre. There’s just a raw sense of fun underneath the really good ones. And most of the dozen or so shorts that I’ve seen that attempt the mockumentary style are bereft of joie de vivre. They’re cynical. There’s a nastiness underneath it, there’s a bitterness, and it resonates throughout like a stuck low note on a piano, its volume regenerated again and again because the hammer is not damped down. They’re trying too damned hard to be clever and to hit a tone. Why? Because they think that will be funny or will catch the attention of someone who will move the career forward. And when considerations of tone are overriding story, I think you’re heading down the chute to irrelevance. Without story, there tends to be an aimless non-energy, no forward movement, the pace lags, and thus the only thing you have left to elicit a response is friggin’ cleverness, and as result I feel pandered to. As the viewer, I start feeling ornery, as if I’m being commanded to laugh because…. Why? I don’t know. Because if I don’t, the poor specimen won’t make it onto www.funnyordie.com or some such thing…

But I must confess I think all this relentless glib cleverness and cynicism is undercutting the real potentials of the talent involved. The question I always have, similar to that of my “Shit Theatre” post….: What else could this person have spent the time creating? One of my most common rhetorical questions to actors is, “If someone gave you $1M to make the movie you want for you to star in, what would that story be? And who would you play?” It’s kind of scary how few people have the answers. But I would conjecture that only a small number would answer, “I would take the $1M and make umpteen cynical mockumentary short films, plus one narrative film about how bad my agent is.” I think we’d start to hear about a broader story arc, more in-depth character, more dramas would show up to balance out the comedy, the imagination would take flight, etc.

So the bottom line of all this rambling would be that whatever passion and thoughtfulness would fuel the feature film you’d make for $1M or more, have the same fuel all that you do. A strong story, believed in by all who are making it, told with humor and compassion and humanity, has far more potential to launch you than a cynical attempt to nail a tone or style that is popular.