coast: cruise: float.

“

Cinema, in its essence,

is about reproduction of reality,

which is that, like, reality is actually reproduced.

And for him, it might sound like a storytelling medium, really.

And he feels like, um— like film—

Like— like literature is better for telling a story.

And if you tell a story or even like a joke—

“This guy walks into a bar and sees a dwarf.”

That works really well because you’re imagining this guy and this dwarfing this bar.

And it’s an imaginative aspect to it.

In film, you don’t have that because you actually are filming a specific guy…

in a specific bar with a specific dwarf…

- of a specific height who looks a certain way, right? - Mm-hmm.

So like, um, for Bazin, what the ontology of film has to deal—

it has to deal with, you know, with—

- Photography also has an ontology, - Right.

except that it adds this dimension of time to it…

and this greater realism.

And so, it’s about that guy…

at that moment in that space.

And, you know, Bazin is, like, a Christian,

so he, like, believes that, you know—

in God, obviously, and everything.

For him, reality and God are the same. You know, like—

And so what film is actually capturing is, like, God incarnate, creating.

You know, like this very moment, God is manifesting as this.

And what the film would capture if it was filming us right now…

would be, like, God as this table,

and God is you and God is me and God looking the way we look right now…

and saying and thinking what we’re thinking right now…

- because we’re all God manifest in that sense. - Mm-hmm.

So film is like a record of God or the face of God…

or of the ever-changing face of God.

And the whole Hollywood thing has taken film…

and tried to make it this storytelling medium…

where you take these books or stories…

and then you get the script and then try to find somebody who fits the thing.

But it’s ridiculous.

It shouldn’t be based on the script.

It should be based on the person, the thing.

And in that sense,

they’re almost right to have this whole star system…

because then it’s about that person instead of the story.

Truffaut always said the best films aren’t made—

The best scripts don’t make the best films…

because they have that kind of literary, narrative thing that you’re sort of a slave to.

The best films are the ones that aren’t tied to that slavishly.

So, um— So— I don’t know—

The whole narrative thing seems to me like—

Obviously, there’s narrativity to cinema ‘cause it’s in time,

just the way there’s narrativity to music.

You don’t first think of the story of the song, then make the song.

It has to come out of the moment.

That’s what film has. It’s just that moment, which is holy.

And film can let us see that.

We can frame it so that we see, like, “Ah, this moment. Holy.”

Like “holy, holy, holy” moment by moment.

But who can live that way? Who can go, “Wow, holy”?

Because if I were to look at you and let you be holy—

I don’t know. I would, like, stop talking.

Well, you’d be in the moment. The moment is holy, right?

Yeah, but I’d be open.

I’d look in your eyes and I’d cry…

and I’d feel all this stuff and that’s not polite.

It would make you uncomfortable.

You could laugh too. Why would you cry?

Well, ‘cause— I don’t know.

For me, I just tend to cry.

Uh-huh. Well—

Well, let’s do it right now. Let’s have a holy moment.

- Everything is layers, isn’t it? - Yeah.

There’s the holy moment and then there’s the awareness…

of trying to have the holy moment…

in the same way that the film is the actual moment really happening,

but then the character pretending to be in a different reality.

It’s all these layers.

And, uh, I was in and out of the holy moment, looking at you.

”

—Waking Life - 2001

“Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven’t met, but I don’t want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. “Here’s your change.” “Paper or plastic?’ “Credit or debit?” “You want ketchup with that?” I don’t want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to be ant, you know?”

—Waking Life - 2001

“Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration and this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like you know, “water.” We came up with a sound for that. Or saber tooth tiger right behind you. We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting I think is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing. What is like… frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say love, the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet you know, when we communicate with one another and we feel that we have connected and we think that we’re understood I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.”

—Waking Life - 2001