(Finishing my thoughts on this post has been bugging me, so I figured I should do it. One qualification: This is actually a really complicated subject, so even with the length of this, it is vastly incomplete . . . This is also today's excercise in mind. Join me?![Smile [:)]](../../../../../../Public/cs/emoticons/multiplex_subdomain/emotion-1.gif)
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Part 2
Okay. Wouldn’t ya know it- where should I happen to find most of the exact words I am looking for to explain something but in the writing of Ken Wilber.
From the latest chapter (5) of Integral Spirituality: (Bold emphasis mine)
“As a short sidebar, it particularly helps when we realize that developmentalists view cognition as the capacity to take perspectives. Role-taking, or taking the view of another person, is something you can only do mentally or cognitively. You can feel your own feelings, but you can cognitively take the role of others or mentally put yourself in their shoes (and then you can feel their feelings or empathize with their point of view). So cognitive development is defined as an increase in the number of others with whom you can identify and an increase in the number of perspectives you can take.”
Thus, for example, preoperational cognition means you can take a 1st person perspective (egocentric); concrete operational means you can also take a 2nd person perspective (ethnocentric): formal operational cognition mean you can also take a 3rd person perspective (worldcentric); early vision-logic means you can also take a 4th person perspective (beginning Kosmocentric); mature vision-logic means you can also take a 5th person perspective (mature Kosmocentric). That is why research shows that your feelings, your art, your ethics, and your emotions, all will follow your cognitive line, because in order to feel something, you have to be able to see it.” (Integral Spirituality, pg 141)
Problems and Difficulties
There are myriad realities that I believe Michael Crichton is lamenting (or bringing things back down to earth about), but I think two in particular stand out.
First, we might just call Hollywood very much an orange machine. It is dominated, more than anything else, by orange values centered primarily on the LR. Movies cost a lot of money to make-and are also not made without that money. Studios investing the money (and time and effort and resources and technology, etc) to make them are primarily interested in 1.) not throwing their money out the window and 2.) the occasional substantial-to-massive profit they can make back. I heartily support those concerns and values, but they do not necessarily include nor coincide with depth or artistic merit. (They should or could, but even with the best and most noble and integral of intentions, this expensive art form is a very risky business. 1 out of every 4 films turns some kind of profit or breaks even So 3 flops for every movie that might only break even. And as I’m sure you all here know, “hit movie” and depth/artistic merit are not in any way necessarily synonymous. i.e. many of the best movies are flops because enough people are not interested in seeing them. Again, this is a tricky, culturally dependent business with never any guarantees.)
As I noted above, Jennifer Aniston is a nice name to have on your movie, but believe you me, 9 out of 10 studios considering investing money into a Grace and Grit project are going to be pretty upset that she will have to go bald. The result is probably one of two things: we cheapen the story (and a great deal of the possible DEPTH of the REALITY and emotions) by having her not go bald and/or keep her as cute and pretty as possible so we can sell her pretty face that is a proven success (which happens ALL the time!) or we don’t fund the project.
This is just an example of the kinds of things that occur when entering into “the machine” that begins to bring about realities that Crichton is talking about. (This is also for Aniston one way the machine-in addition to iKarma’s note about the culture- may also lock you in, or hold you back as an artist. Desire and talent to grow or no, it’s a reality and can cause problems.)
But the second thing is, I think, much more significant. In order to have a legitimate vision-that is, in order to see something- the likes of a Michael Crichton book . . . you have to have vision-logic. Note that you don’t need to have it to read his book or even to enjoy his book, but you do have to have it to write his book.
And so if you are going to make a movie out of it, you are essentially writing a new book. There are two difficulties. One, short of vision-logic you will not even be able to see the full contents of Crichton’s vision/book (or at least reconstruct it in your own mind), but two, in order to make a movie out of it requires an entirely NEW vision (which is also complicated in many, many other difficult ways*).
Add these two factors to the fact that, vision-logic or no, movies are a collective art form that requires the contribution of hundreds of people and you may begin to see how the statistics go down on the chances of a great movie out of or equivilent to a great book.
(*Examples of other difficulties: The only possible way to sit down and film every “scene” in a book is to make a TV mini-series out of it because it will always simply take too long - and even with a scene-by-scene filmed, 12 hour mini-series, the result might still eventually loose your attention in ways that the book simply didn’t. The nature of each art form, how and why it works, is just different. This is only one of the reasons why an adaptation, if it be any good, requires a new vision.
To give recent comparative examples: Harry Potter vs. Lord of the Rings. The HP movies are perfect examples of struggling vision-if it’s even that at all. We can’t fit the whole book in, what in the world do we do? Well, we’ll just film this, that and the other thing and hope it turns out okay. It’s kind of like a cut and paste job and even then our scissor work is kind of sloppy (-cut and paste is also, incidentally, conop) We will also occasionally throw in a tid bit of our own image or thought and, whatever, the kids are still going to like it and it’s sure to make some money. Don’t get me wrong, it is no small feat to even conceive of adapting those books . . . Which brings us to the Lord of the Rings. Being older, there is a long history of attempts to make the books into movies, all of which failed to amount to much of anything. (I realize there is a technology factor involved here too, but I don’t think that detracts from the point.) But along comes the legitimate vision and vision-logic of a Peter Jackson and what we have is a whole new, quite nearly perfect, vision, whole vision in itself, born of the books not clumsily from them. )
Okay, all of that is just to add more perspective on things that have already been noted on the thread.
My original concerns are two additional perspectives.
Height, Depth and the Dramatic Arts
Again Ken from IS : “in order to feel something, you have to be able to see it.”
If this has bearing on any of the factors mentioned above, what kind of bearing do we think it might have on the dramatization and acting of the human spiritual experience, progress in meditative states and/or realization?
I can only create art out of what I see. If I can’t see the profound spirituality in a book like Grace and Grit I am not going to be able to create anything artistic out of it. And since we are also talking about state experiences (and adaptation), if I don’t have that, at least to some extent, I will either a.) miss it entirely or b.) only be able to speculatively pretend about it and so probably be wrong or at least not believable to those who, at least to some extent, do. All of this, and do little for anyone else (see below).
That’s what I am most skeptical about. The story telling arts are simply awash in treatments of human spirituality that simple have no idea what in the world they are talking about. And as far as I am concerned, with that, out the window goes any chance of helping anyone or the world in any substantial way. Also, in the IS chapter I have been quoting, Ken (and Traleg Rimpoche) also writes extensively about Right View.
So if you going to dramatically treat the human spiritual experience/realization/adaptation or any authentic Spiritual Truth, if you don’t have the experience (and so depth) to draw upon, you can at least attempt for Right View. If you fail to do that-and/or make your own convoluted and misguided interpretation (which will probably be magical, mythic or just stupid)-and rather present wrong view, you only compound samsara.
And so, the very short summary is as follows:
Assuming the movie-makers are professional and do know how to make movies (and even assuming for them the highest standard of such) . . .
Do the movie-makers have the same cognitive capacity as Ken Wilber?
Julie brought up a really good point: it is the director who is ultimately the visionary and single driving vision-factor for a movie. Even with bad actors and a bad crew, etc., it is possible for a director to pull it all (and point it all) together into something substantially good, even great, depending on your genius. (No one said it was easy, just possible . . .)
Do the movie-makers (writers, directors, producers, consultants, etc.) have, if not the exact Spiritual Depth of Ken Wilber and Treya Killam Wilber, at least something comparable –including at the very least some kind of authentic spiritual experience (minimum in my mind, Subtle Level Intution or True Faith experience)?
No apologies here, I am highly skeptical about this. I will s**t myself if the movie shows this, touches or penetrates to this Depth in any substantial way . . . You may consider that a challenge if any of the movie-makers happen to be reading this.
And lastly, Louis does ask a legitimate question:
Does Jennifer Aniston have the Spiritual Depth –or at least something comparable-to Treya Killam Wilber, (especially at the end of her life)?
Julie again is correct, the director can do a great deal to make up for this if it is not the case (and even in some ways writers, editors, etc.); movies are not actor driven, but director driven. The driver can do a lot to save the show and sometimes even make it.
But the bottom line is, I can only act to the depth and the height that I possess within my being.
An actor’s work of art is created out of the actor! I can not consciously create something which I do not see-and especially for the actor do not possess.
There are some ways to off-set this a little (and as stated many “tricks” that might be used for movies, if the director knows what to do), but you can not act height nor depth that is beyond your own, because it will be just that –acting.
I think of the Wyatt Earpy blogs (and paraphrase): Please show me all the things which you are not aware of.
To an audience that is equally unaware, it may just not matter (but for Right View and other things to lengthy to explain here). But for an audience that is aware . . .
Well, maybe in this instance the Sword of Prajna should be replaced with a cane. The vaudevillian Cane of Prajna that by rights should reach out and drag you by the neck right off the stage . . . . while the Voice of Highest Buddha Dharma yells ![Movie [~]](../../../../../../Public/cs/emoticons/multiplex_subdomain/emotion-53.gif)
“Cut!”
Tim
What you see is what you get, What you get is what you see,
Don't see it? Don't get it. Don't get it? Don't see it.
What you see is what you get.