Sniffer by Bobbie Peers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bop_UJ3kmog

What an odd, yet memorable and nuanced film. The consistent hum of the soundtrack matches the monotonous expressions of the characters, especially the main character's expressionless and almost comatose look. Drudgery seemed to be one of the underlying tensions in Peers' film. One element that suggested this, aside from the steady hum in the background, was the silence the characters had adopted. Throughout the film, no words are spoken in reaction to or in acknowledgement of anything that's taking place. After floating to the ceiling, the husband chooses to pull down a light fixture rather than call to his wife, who, upon noticing her husband's location, exhibits no alarm, but calmly lowers and fastens him in bed. Later, neither spouse utters even a pleasantry when the husband leaves for work. Peers builds on this pattern of apathy to the climactic scene when the pigeon falls dead amidst the indifferent deodorant test subjects and our main character's carbon copied coworkers in lab coats. All stand in careless acknowledgement as the receptionist attempts to throw the deceased bird away, until the main character, to that point indifferent toward anything or anyone is stirred to action, rescuing the bird from the room's disinterest, monochromaticity, and callous. He then wanders, somewhat aimlessly outside, the pigeons limp head and neck dangling from his hands, when a flock of pigeons interrupt his wandering, the lifeless bird mysteriously gone, like his own indifference. The man seems to awaken from his stoicism, abandoning his gravity boots for the sky in a beautiful metaphor for self-actualization.

I also have to comment on Peers use of setting. There's a mystery and fantastic element to the nature of these character's environment that add another layer of tension to the story. The inexplicable nature of the atmosphere's lack of gravity is such a brilliant addition to the narrative, because without it, the culminating scene and several other tensions couldn't be achieved. Peers seems to be illustrating that no matter where a civilization or people exist, no matter how unconventional their surroundings, monotony and tedium can still erode their passion and pleasure.

Late Bloomer by Clay McLeod Chapman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gNQ2KYCb4

This film is a comedic and psychedelic journey through the death of a young man's innocence. The power of this film for me was in the protagonist's highbrow, poetic language contrasting the adolescent baseness of its content. Unlike Peers characters, whose absence of expression was necessary for drawing out the film's underlying tensions, Chapman's characters amplified their facial expressions to help draw out the film's comedic intent. For example, the main character becomes manic as his discomfort and arousal increase during the lecture.

Like Peers, McLeod uses elements of fantasy in his story to add tension and intrigue to the film. For example, the girl's erotic dancing in their desks, the animated chalk genitals, and the eventual student orgy, all illustrate the speaker's inner and physical stimulation. These fantastic elements help to build the film's tone and illustrate the protagonist's struggle, much like the husband in "Sniffer," whose gravity boots and midnight levitation mirror the weight of his life's tedium and drudgery.

Natives by Jason Kobl

            Jason Kobl's characters are rich and clearly defined, adding to the film tensions. The father's misunderstanding and disapproval of his daughter's sexuality is ironic when paired with his clearly Native American roots. The Native Americans were a misunderstood and judged people by early settlers. This underlying tension amplifies his judgement of his daughter and causes an increased sympathy for the women's relationship in the viewer.  The mother's unwillingness to hug her daugher's girlfriend sets the tone for the visit, each callous word and gesture highlighting the girlfriend's role as the victim. Not only does the woman's parents keep the girlfriend at an arm's length, but the woman herself becomes cool and embarrassed of their union. The viewer realizes that her discomfort stems from the subtle yet palpable disapproval of the parents. The girlfriend is further shown as the victim through her nervous, yet heartfelt, attempts to connect with the parents, be it her gushing over her love for Lost or attempting to make a religious connection at dinner over the name for god, the viewer can't help but rally into her corner.

            As the film progresses, the viewer notices the daughter's desperate attempts to share her wealth with her parents, and her parent's stubborn resistance of it. Maybe, her parents hold some resentment over her abandoning the place she grew up. For instance, at dinner, the father expresses his daughter's talents and there usefulness in recent town struggles. He follows the compliment by passive aggressively calling her, in essence, too good for the town, having left for New York. This moment definitely reflects some tension surrounding her departure from home, which maybe they assume to be tied to the revelation of her unconventional sexuality.

            In the end, the girlfriend's idealism over coming out to her lover's parents combined with the her lover's seemingly defeated resolution that her parents could never understand and accept them despite their spiritual inclinations drives a wedge through their relationship.

            In regards to creative decisions, I love the way the film starts with the girlfriend walking in the sun sublimely eating an ice cream and ends with the two women standing in the still evening on the train platform. It's creates a beautiful imagistic dichotomy between the hopefulness of the main character verses her eventual disillusionment.

The Anti-Social Network

The tone of this film begins with a purely comedic image of the main character checking in to a social network at a funeral. The character's obsession with Facebook is visually represented by social networking icons and features that have become so embedded in his mind that they've bled into his reality. The ridiculous and fantastic nature is believable and comical at the same time. The viewer believes that although he/she may not know anyone whose obsession has seeped into their daily consciousness, that by no means rules out the possibility of someone existing with a dependency as such.  A powerful scene that Shackleford uses to epitomize our culture's obsession with technology is the main character trolling his social network on his couch, while the arbitrary flash and buzz of the TV entertain the kittens and his smart phone keeps him company on an adjacent couch cushion. This inability to find contentment in one endeavor seems to be an epidemic in contemporary culture. It's sad to watch our main character miss real human connections while his over active news feed like consciousness scrolls from stimulus to stimulus. He ditches his friend at the bar to chase girls, he blows off his responsibilities at work to scroll his news feed, and climactically he nearly squanders a possible love interest all in the name of technological impulses.  I love that the love interest represents the counterpoint to the main character's disconnection from reality. She creates the opposing force in the plot, trying to coerce him from his dependency by convicting him of his futile attempts at omnipresence that are only resulting in his mental absence from the human connection and intimacy he's been seeking via technology.

There's a clear connection between the technology-smitten man and the free spirited girlfriend from Kobl's Natives. Both characters become fixated on things to a fault. The Romeo of Social Media Facebook obsession drives a wedge between him connecting on his date, while the girlfriend's desperate need for her lover's parents approval creates distance between them and seemingly dissolves their union.

Death of the Right Fielder by Stuart Dybek

It's fascinating that Dybek's able to spin a whole story around a dead character. It's amazing how every detail stems from the unlikely death of this "outsider." Dybek definitely allows his imagination to run with the possible causes of the right fielder's death. Although his imagination is indulged in the story, every tangent he ventures is visceral and laced with powerful imagery that drives the narrative forward. For example, "he'd had an allergic reaction to a bee sting, been struck by a single bolt of lightning from a freak, instantaneous electric storm, ingested too strong a dose of insecticide from the grass blades he chewed on..." Regardless of the likelihood of these scenarios, the imagery and relationship to the tone and content make them plausible and appropriate. From Dybek's controlled indulgence, I can glean that our imagination should be followed within the boundaries of the narrative at hand. If our imagination doesn't serve the story, we will have to make each detail subservient to the characters and narrative world we're in, after the fact.

A powerful by product of the narrative and characters in Dybek's story is the reality of social ostracism. The right fielder seemed to represent those people who exist on the fringes of society, present but unnoticed. The speaker regrets this truth, "perhaps we didn't want to eradicate it completely--a part of us was resting there. Perhaps we wanted the new right fielder, whoever he'd be, to notice and wonder about who played there before him, realizing he was now the only link between past and future that mattered" (Shapard 38).

Blackberries by Leslie Norris

Norris tells so much about these three characters through simple, yet beautiful imagery. The mother's conventional nature is revealed at the barbershop when she says, "we thought it was time for him to look like a little boy. His hair grows so quickly" (Shapard 40). He reveals her frugality when she purchases the hat, commenting ""Oh, I hope so," his mother said. "It's expensive enough"" (Shapard 41). This is an important detail that Norris uses to build tension later in the story when the boy is collecting blueberries with his father. The mother's rigidity climaxes at the end of the story when she chastises the husband and son for filling the hat with blueberries. It's amazing the way Norris teases out this tension between the husband and wife.

The dynamics in the relationship between the mother and her son verses the father and his son is so different. The boy leaning against his father's knee at dinner shows his ease and affection for him, while the mother's interactions with her son seem calculated and mechanical throughout the day. For instance, keeping his cap in the bag, putting it in his drawer, is extremely telling of her sterility. The father's impulsivity and romantic gesture solidifies their incompatibility, which is the real tension in the story.

The Falling Girl by Dino Buzzati

In the story "The Falling Girl" by Dino Buzzati, the author creates a powerful metaphor. The young girl who jumps off the skyscraper encounters several people and has multiple experiences during her fall that alludes to different life stages. In the beginning, as a young woman of promise, Buzzati places "the city below shining in the dusk" (Shapard 29). Positioning Marta this way creates the panoramic sense that Marta has her whole life ahead of her and endless possibilities. In other words, Marta had the world at her feet for the taking.

Buzzati also creates an image of the city, as a thriving and vibrant being, much like the youthful woman taking it in: "the city became a sweet abyss burning with pulsating lights" (Shapard 29). It's no coincidence that Buzzati gives the city such an electric and youthful vibe. It sets the stage for the sustaining of his metaphor.

While Marta's falling, Buzzati returns from the literal event of her descent to the metaphor of her life as a free fall when he says, ""you have your entire life before you," they told her, "why are you in such a hurry?"" (Shapard 30).  Stepping out of the reality of the girl's fall, Buzzati forces the reader to consider the transience of our lives on earth. In the story, she didn't have the ability to step into the party, but by returning to the metaphor, the reader makes the connection between the literal descent and the figurative mid-air conversing taking place.

From the naive and vibrant, Buzzati transitions Marta's surroundings to reflect the passage of time: "several of them were young people as old or older than she, and weary of the day by now, every once in a while they raised their eyes from their duties and from typewriters" (Shapard 30).  The people in the lower floors weren't the "beautiful people" of before. They were her age or older, many of whom toiled and dressed more simply. Here, along with the metaphor of time's passage, one could comment on Buzzati's implicit commentary on economic class.

The metaphor for time's passage is capped with an image of heaven represented as the entrance to a large party. Buzzati hints at this metaphor when he writes, "heaven help her if she missed it" (Shapard 32). By placing this phrase within the mind of Marta, the author can subtly bring the metaphor to the light even if just a toe.

""An old woman," the wife answered. "A decrepit old woman. She looked frightened" (Shapard 33).  It's this image that solidifies the metaphor's effect, suggesting that the woman's fall took a lifetime. 

There are several interpretations of this beautifully sad story. One, the woman was old from the start, her life scrolling through her mind as she fell, as is often considered a by product of death. Maybe, Buzzati was attempting to demonstrate the obsession people have with fame and beauty, the woman's obsession obliging her to suicide.  I think I'm starting to realize that all are true. Buzzati clearly let the images and character need drive his imagination, the theme, tension, and meaning derived not explicitly but implicitly through the quality of his imagism.

written by Rob Crowl

*Shapard and James Thomas. Sudden Fiction International. New York: Norton, 1989. Print.

Week 3, Crowl's Log:

Professor Chacon sounded off through my Sony headphones, the pale Starbuck's tile perfectly muted against the sharpness of his assertions. My knees cradled the chair under the table as if to console me from his resonating, and intensely convicting, words...

Professor Chacon's Flash Film and Fiction:

Flash Fiction is a shortened story with "detailed images" that "accelerate and decelerate" its narrative course. Flash film and fiction utilizes "Characterization, dialogue, setting, props, lighting, etc..." 

Crowl Clumsily Interprets Chacon:

Like the brief nature of a camera's illumination, flash fiction is a quick, yet imagistic, brightening of the reader's and viewer's mind. Flash fiction and film seek to tell a rich, yet efficient, story through the aforementioned tools and elements.

Chacon's important elements of the text, characterization, setting, etc.

"Stories or work should be meaningless in order to be meaningful." Our "agendas will come out organically when we write or create." We don't need to come to the art with an agenda. "It's wise, for now," not to think of the effect you want your work to have." "When we follow language or character need the themes are created by the elements themselves."

"Characters should want or need something" "In fiction, irony can operate as a character wanting one thing, but really wanting something different." "A story should accelerate and decelerate depending on the need of an individual work." 'Let's use our imagination ahead of our intellect."

Crowl Clumsily Interprets Chacon:

Agendas are insidiously churning within the caverns of our, the writer's, minds, pushing the ink from our pens and the thoughts to our page. Every character we write and setting we erect are embedded with every truth or conviction that courses and stirs in their creator's mind and heart. Our imaginations  and characters are the engines that yield meaning and theme.

Chacon and Flannery O'Connor Separate Prose Poetry From Flash Fiction:

"We want to tell a story. It's not about poetic language that sometimes doesn't tell a story. We want interesting characters and a compelling plot."

"Form is not structure. The aspects of your story should help readers arrive at the meaning of your story. The affects the art has on its readers is its meaning."

Crowl Clumsily Interprets Chacon and O'Connor

We need to sacrifice the meaning of flash fiction on the alter of character need and language. For some reason, maybe it's the high chair fatefully left by the last patron who occupied this table, the metaphor of parenting comes to mind. I've spoken to so many parents who declare that raising a child is an adaptive venture, with the child often revealing his or her needs and the parent responding to those needs as they arise. If we treat the language and characters in our stories as our children, we might stop leading with our intellect, strong arming our stories to adhere to the agendas we preconceive, and our stories may start to mature and reveal our influence on them, organically. Our children are born with our genetic code, our tendencies imprinted on their

double helix, much like the stories  written and filmed are the offspring of their creators.