inglés al español Arte/Literatura Cine, películas, TV, teatro películas

A crucial aspect of the effect of the circulatory nature of Shadows’ presentation is that it works to defeat moral categorizations and judgments. Where so many different points of view are presented and shuttled between, rankings, judgments, and absolute values of any sort are undermined. There is no morally “right” or “wrong,” no imaginatively “best” or “worst” stance in the scenes I have mentioned; there is no one character whose point of view the viewer can plug into in order to judge events and other characters in terms of. Ben’s attitude and feelings have as much importance and validity as David’s in the street scene; Hugh’s, Rupert’s, and their girlfriends’ perspectives equal validity in the late-night conversation scene; Ben’s and Hugh’s exchanged glances and laughter as much validity as Lelia’s self-protective delaying-tactics, and both as much validity as Davey Jones’s irritation with her in the scene where she primps and preens while he waits; Ben’s amusement as much validity as Tony’s lugubriousness in the apology scene. This is one of the fundamental differences between Cassavetes’ work and that of Robert Altman, whose narratives are sometimes described as being similarly multi-threaded or as having similar circulatory qualities. Altman is full of judgments (mainly of the negative, limiting sort), moral and emotional parsings, and invidious rankings of characters (generally in terms of their respective degrees of innocence or implication in a system). Nothing could be less like Cassavetes. He not only honored and respected imaginative and emotional differences without judging them, but in a profound philosophical sense, viewed the world as being better, more interesting, and more entertaining because of the differences. The more differences the better. Circulation is not only a law of life in Shadows and the films that follow it, but one of the things that gives life its supreme interest and value. A world with a dominant, controlling point of view, a world without differences, would be a less valuable and interesting one. (Faces again is the great illustration of this.)