it was Stephen Fry I think who said a
true thing poorly expressed is a lie
it's the theory that the language you
speak determines how you think of me
yeah
affects how you see everything the point
being that there is no thought without
expression no content without form that
an idea
however profound it feels to you it does
not really exist until you can write it
down or in some cases put it on film to
watch denis villeneuve arrival is to
watch a filmmaker in command of the
language his ideas presuppose just to
say that he has a firm grasp on craft I
can't really tell you how soothing this
is for me as a film core to feel that
I'm in the hands of someone who knows
why the film is constructed the way it
is so much of today's filmmaking is all
over the place to the point where the
viewer has to exert themselves more to
compensate for a lack of focus in this
way I think arrival is the perfect
response to the bad movie so we see so
much of pretty much everything they do
wrong arrival does right it is effective
and impactful and it does this by
focusing on the very thing that effects
and impacts us language but I think
arrival is just as concerned with the
language of film as it is with written
or spoken or alien language for example
the first couple scenes are kind of like
an enlarged experiment in the Kuleshov
effect the phenomenon in which a viewer
derives meaning from two sequential
shots that Hitchcock famously
illustrated by turning a kindly
gentleman into a pervert by replacing a
single reverse shot they'll move does
the same thing an arrival but on the
scene level the first scene is a montage
of the birth and young death of Amy
Adams daughter the second scene is Adams
coming to teach at her school on the day
of the aliens arrival because of the
tragedy we witness in the first scene
and our assumption that the film's
timeline is linear we read Adams
disinterest here as despondency and her
general dry demeanor as one of deep
sadness and heartache it's not until we
finish the film and learn that the
opening montage happens after the events
of the movie that we understand atoms in
the second scene was merely a blank
canvas that we attached meaning to
montage means the assembly of pieces of
film which moved in rapid succession
before the I create an idea what
separates ville knew from many other
filmmakers is his ability to generate
ideas with cinematic craft then on
another level mingle those ideas collide
and blend them to create a higher order
of meaning so what's the meaning for
example that ville new suggests with
this Kuleshov effect experiment perhaps
that the future can influence the past
that's certainly a reasonable thing to
derive from this kind of experience in
the film in fact it's an idea that turns
out to be the key to the climax of
arrival as Adams learns that the aliens
are higher dimensional beings that can
see all of time at once and uses that
skill to access future events to
influence her present I caught you
tonight yes you did but you could also
read another meaning from the same
experience namely that communication is
limited by perspective but from our
perspective at the beginning of the film
everything tells us that Adams is
grieving only later do we learn that
that wasn't true this too is a major
theme of arrival the limits of human
communication are reinforced and
expanded upon in probe throughout the
film the limits of our biology of
relying on what our senses report the
limits imposed on us by our culture or
our own personalities trust me you can
understand communication
still end up single in conversation with
the aliens communication is literally
imagined as a screen a mediator that
blurs intention now screens can connect
us they can also divide us and it's the
same with communication communication is
a link between two parties but it's a
link that often facilitates a split
language is the foundation of
civilization it's glue that holds the
people together it's the first weapon
drawn in the conflict
we are following asleep at the wheel
people you know what I'm talking about
I know you do what's important here is
not that both these readings are valid
they are but that both have echoes
elsewhere in the film and echo off each
other a theme once introduced isn't
wasted the alien language is circular so
the film is to the difficulty of
cooperation in the small group at the
Montana site echoes the difficulty of
cooperation between nations
Louise's understanding of her
displacement in time happens
simultaneously with the audience's
realization that the events depicted
aren't linear nonzero-sum game every
theme is filtered through other moments
and characters and eventually other
themes until it starts to feel like
something solid you start to think what
is the relationship between language and
time maybe it's that the mind is not a
thing but a process language happening
in time just like film is communication
occurring in time schools emotion the
six you know HTML to make you know the
story she at
is it so much of arrival seems to be
about the possibility of meaning in film
what is it where does it come from
I think Villeneuve imagines it as an
alien spacecraft mysterious obscure an
expression that's not quite written or
spoken language and so always difficult
to decipher something when born out of
craft and character and story is always
hovering over the film it's always in
the background seen from different
angles and possible to avoid arrival
isn't just a repudiation of bad movies
because it leads by example it's also I
think an active exploration into what
makes a movie great it explores the kind
of unique perspective that a film can
gift to the film goer like a language
gifted by aliens and what kind of brand
new world that perspective allows us to
see
[Music]
hey everybody thanks for watching happy
Wednesday and happy Valentine's Day to
my girlfriend who's sitting right over
there even though it's a day late I
recorded this on Valentine's Day so I
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love you baby