To paraphrase Joshua Davis (of praystation.com), "I hate Jackson Pollock. I hate his works with a passion. So what did I do? I read everything I could about him." Seems bizarre to immerse yourself in what you hate but it's more than likely that you hate what you don't understand.
I must admit that I didn't like Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner at all. I felt that the plot was hard to follow, the scenes seemed haphazardly put together and slow moving, and my opinion of the acting wasn't very high. While watching the film for the first time, I had to leave halfway through because I didn't think I could make it all the way to the end.
When I arrived at the Kodak Lecture they were showing The Fast Runner. (Having to see it again is truly a test of understanding through immersion.) At the halfway point, they stopped the movie and turned the floor to Zacharias Kunuk (director) and Norman Cohn (photography director).
Kunuk, in his accented English, spoke shortly about his childhood growing up in Nunavut and how he started making videos in the North at a time when television was rare. Cohn, a New Yorker, continued Kunuk's story of how they met and ended up working on The Fast Runner together.
The majority of the lecture was a Q&A period and it was actually quite revealing of Kunuk and Cohn's character and viewpoints. Kunuk mostly remained quiet and was content with watching Cohn's hands through the eyes of his mini-DV camcorder -- evidence of the Inuit non-didactic storytelling style. On the other hand, Cohn was very opinionated and he usually spent a few minutes answering each audience member's question. (Unfortunately, his humour seemed to be coloured with a slightly condescending tone which affected my view of the presentation quality.)
The answers of most interest to me were on the topic of video versus film. I suppose Hollywood has brainwashed me into thinking that each scene should be well planned in order to save on film but Cohn argues that video will change that mindset and allow a wider range of freedom. Video allows the director to stop worrying about the costs of shooting and instead focus on catching the unexpected moment which can be more interesting than what's written in the script.
In the end, I still didn't think The Fast Runner was any better but having Cohn and Kunuk as speakers did explain quite a lot to me. They definitely used an approach to cinematic representation that hasn't been seen often before and even the subject matter of the North has been scarcely touched.
Cohn had asked, "Who has the power to represent?" And just as Walter Benjamin optimistically wrote in his essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Cohn and Kunuk seem to believe that the magic of video is that everyone can have that power."
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