"Je suis un menteur qui dit toujours la verite" Jean Cocteau
I am liar who always tells the truth. Isn't that the very essence of filmmaking. The stories I write and bring to the screen are all made up, they are in the words of Fellini "supreme fictions" an in simpler terms they are simply lies. Lies that reveal truth--truth in the human condition. Afterall, don't all lies lead to the ultimate truth. Cinema is the language of lies, everything you are shown or told is not real, but in some cases is allows you to have a greater undertsanding of reality and of truth. A lie, or something created is as real as you see it. Is not a movie real for its duration, is not the time you watch the movie a time you spend believing its reality. Is the lie cinema is telling you really a lie. Who defines the difference between imaginary and real? Is not the artist the medium, the determining factor between fantasy and the rest of the world?
How ficticious is art? How much of a lie is it really? Does not every artist put a piece of himself in his art? If this is indeed the case does not all art have fundamental truth in its perceived existence of lies? Or the feelings it brings about in its audience, the very human, very true feelings that the lies bring out? What do we make of them? Do the feelings and reflections of truth brought out by the lie of cinema mean that the lie is justified? Do they make the lie real?
Is cinema a lie or is a human way of discovering truth?
-MJ
I am liar who always tells the truth. Isn't that the very essence of filmmaking. The stories I write and bring to the screen are all made up, they are in the words of Fellini "supreme fictions" an in simpler terms they are simply lies. Lies that reveal truth--truth in the human condition. Afterall, don't all lies lead to the ultimate truth. Cinema is the language of lies, everything you are shown or told is not real, but in some cases is allows you to have a greater undertsanding of reality and of truth. A lie, or something created is as real as you see it. Is not a movie real for its duration, is not the time you watch the movie a time you spend believing its reality. Is the lie cinema is telling you really a lie. Who defines the difference between imaginary and real? Is not the artist the medium, the determining factor between fantasy and the rest of the world?
How ficticious is art? How much of a lie is it really? Does not every artist put a piece of himself in his art? If this is indeed the case does not all art have fundamental truth in its perceived existence of lies? Or the feelings it brings about in its audience, the very human, very true feelings that the lies bring out? What do we make of them? Do the feelings and reflections of truth brought out by the lie of cinema mean that the lie is justified? Do they make the lie real?
Is cinema a lie or is a human way of discovering truth?
-MJ
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