The art of filmmaking is the art of creating reality: people, place, purpose. We construct the objects, the characters, the space and even the light within the frame in such way that the viewer believes there is a continuity of this world beyond the frame. And most movies that you see in theatres or on DVD are able to pull this off.
But there is usually one type of movie scene that fails at this: the protest scene. Whenever a film has a protest scene my ‘willing suspecion of disbelief’ is usually… suspended.
I used to live on Commercial Drive in East Vancouver. It’s the centre of all kinds of activism in Metro Vancouver and so I witnessed my share of protests. And the thing I’ve noticed about protests is that they are messy. There’s a mix of passion, deep seeded anger, and chaos. A group of protesters is an animal in constant flux. It’s mostly unpredictable.
What’s inside the frame of any movie is highly controlled in order to give the illusion of reality. So staging something like this on camera is nearly impossible. Protesters in a movie scene are made up of background actors who are being herded around by assistant directors. Their placards are typically very well made by competent art directors. And it’s hard to give each person in this crowd an individual passion and motivation to create the flucuating beast that is a protest.
The next time you see a protest scene in a movie, just note how difficult it is to stage true flux and chaos on the screen.
I’m curious to see Battle in Seattle , a movie that is actually about a protest. Ironically it was shot in Vancouver.
Jun 27
