In certain types of Lutheran preaching, the pastor's first task must be to locate him- (or her-) self in the Biblical text. "Where do I enter into this narrative? How does it relate to me?" After defining the preacher's relationship to the narrative, the sermon, then, adopts that stance as a platform for the message presented. For instance, in the Biblical story of the prodigal son, do I situate myself as the father, the obedient son, or the prodigal? And, then, what are the implications arising from my situating myself in that role. A film, I think, might be encountered in the same way. Where do I situate myself in connection with story dramatized on-screen? With whom do I identify and why?
William Greaves' experimental film, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm - Take One, shot in New York's Central Park on no budget at all in 1968, edited together into a 70 minute feature completed in 1971, but not theatrically released until 2005 is an attempt to apply the principles of improvisatory jazz to film making. (The picture has a scintillating score by Miles Davis with contributions from Joe Zawinul.) The situation is simple enough: a film crew under the direction of Greaves has assembled to film a scene between a man and his estranged wife. In the scene, the woman accuses her husband of being a "faggot" and says that she is going to leave him; the husband unsuccessfully attempts to placate the woman. The scene involves a couple of pages of dialogue, mostly the woman insulting the man while he asserts repeatedly that she is crazy. (The crew members suggest that the dialogue is poorly written, implausible, and low-grade Edward Albee -- a riff on similar scenes in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.) Various problems afflict the production and the scene is re-shot a half-dozen or so times, each version different from the others -- the effect is like jazz musicians improvising on a hackneyed theme, six variations on "My Funny Valentine." At least, three different couples attempt to deliver the dialogue and their speech is directed in various ways -- in one version, the woman and man actually try to sing the lines. The camera crew and director encounter a crazed homeless man who has been sleeping in the park and it is clear that he is more authentic and interesting than anything that the actors and crew can contrive from the unsatisfactory script that they are filming. The picture ends with the homeless man delivering a lengthy monologue about politics and, then, inscribing his name on a release authorizing the use of his image in the film. An interracial couple appears and begins rehearsing the same dialogue on which the film has foundered earlier. From time to time, the film shows the crew without the director "rapping" about their concerns about the production: the production crew debate whether Greaves as a director knows what he is doing. At last, someone suggests that the film mirrors the chaotic social situation then-current -- the crew has been provoked by the director, appearing as a representative of the Establishment, into a rebellion.
The movie is continuously interesting and, sometimes, quite funny. It is pointless, more or less, but that is part of the film's charm. Early in the picture, Greaves tells the crew that everything must be related to "sexuality" -- although the film isn't particularly sexual or erotic in any way. He says this after we have been treated to close-up shots of comely African-American lady's buttocks, lovers grinding against each other on the grass, and, then, a female sound technician attempting to plug some kind of cord in Greave's groin. A woman with big breasts rides by on a horse and Greaves shouts: "Get the shot. Here she comes. The woman with big tits. Get the shot." Attempting to discern some theme in the repeated iterations of the sub-Albee dialogue, the crew debate the merits of the text -- one of the technicians says that it is the typical American script: all little girls learn from age four to accuse men of being "ineffectual -- that is, faggots;" all little boys learn to express this thought: "Baby, you've got my balls in a vise." Someone argues that the film can't be about the lame dialogue that they are shooting -- it must be "about layers of reality." But another member of the crew notes that as far as the audience is concerned Greaves could be in the corner of the smoke-filled room where they are having their "rap session" directing that dialogue as well. The two actors most prominently featured in the film are, apparently, minor players who have worked frequently on television ads. The man says that he doesn't know how to position himself because there is no product that he can hold up to the camera. The woman purports to be a thespian and denies that she has ever done work in TV soap operas. The man debates with Greaves whether he should play his character as a "butch fag, a fag fag, or a closeted fag." Ultimately, the actress, who accuses herself of overacting, stomps off the set. A weird buzz afflicts the sound track. Greaves doesn't cut it out -- he just uses the drone as a counterpoint to his jazz soundtrack.
The movie was lost for many years and rediscovered by Steve Buscemi in 1993 when the picture surfaced at a film festival. Steven Soderburgh, who has increasingly come to be an angel to American independent film (he rescued from oblivion The Exiles and Killer of Sheep) paid for the restoration of the movie and it was briefly shown in theaters in 2005 before release as a Criterion disc. In an early scene in the film, a New York cop mounted on a horse asks to see the director's license for shooting in the park. The license is shown to him and the police officer, who is polite and helpful, makes some notes. He asks about the name of the film: "It is called 'Over the Cliff'," Greaves says. "But we don't have any cliffs around here," the cop says. "It's right here," Greaves tells him. The cop, then, gets back on his horse and rides away while Greaves, or a member of his crew, salutes him with the muttered words: "Fucking idiot!" But, of course, the poor guy is just doing his job and no one has clued him into the joke, the fact that the whole thing is some sort of "put-on." I situate myself in the saddle with cop and am inclined to regard some aspects of the film as mean-spirited. But, then, how do I know that this man is a real cop and that this encounter was not also scripted? One of the continuing themes in the film is that no one has read the script and some even wonder whether a script exists. "I've read the concept," one crew member says, " and it doesn't tell you anything at all."
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