14. Visions of the Third Cinema: An ‘open system’ of art

(Author’s note: This chapter is an extended dissertation on NewsRadio’s implications on film theory. As such it may not be of interest to every reader, but it is included nonetheless for those who have an interest in this.)

If you asked me to list the greatest cinematic art ever made exclusively for television, in addition to NewsRadio, I would have to mention Roberto Rossellini’s La Prise de pouvoir par Louis XIV (The Rise of Louis XIV) (1966) and Cosimo de Medici (The Age of the Medici) (1973) as well as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979). However, these latter works are all ‘closed system’ works.

What are ‘closed system’ works? These works, by far the most common in cinema, create a world that is their own, and when we leave that world at the end of the movie we feel like we have left that world entirely. Using some popular shows as examples —The X Files, Frasier, Friends, Law & Order, JAG, NYPD Blue — these are all shows that circumscribe their own private ‘closed system’ world. When you finish watching the show there is a dissonant break as your attention moves from the cinematic world that until a moment ago was so fascinating into the ‘real world.’ The reason this occurs relates to the issue of manipulative forms versus forms that are spontaneous and natural to the real world. In this fashion, NewsRadio’s forms are natural and true, and this provides the liberating freedom of an ‘open system’ work — its cinematic world seems to reflect back on our own real life world just as the real world seems to reflect on the cinematic world.

Television’s capability to have an ongoing relationship with its audience may lead some people to argue that the relationship between a show and its audience automatically constitutes a form of openness. It is not unheard of for a show to make audience-pleasing changes, and I know of at least one currently running, very popular TV drama that has an inordinate habit of modifying plots to appease its rather vocal fans. However, do not be deceived. Even if such a relationship is established, the use of manipulative forms still encloses the show within a closed system. For a work to be truly open it must make a reflection in the viewer’s real life and also require an active dependence on the viewer himself or herself as part of the process of artistic communication.

We could say that NewsRadio was most introspective when real life events intruded on the show. (The technically correct statement would actually be that NewsRadio’s mise en scène was most introspective when real life desires borne out of real life events intruded on the show.) Khandi Alexander’s departure from the show ("Catherine Moves On" [4-7]) was an example. The most definitive example was the death of Phil Hartman, a monumentally tragic event that was enfolded into the fabric of the show in "Bill Moves On" [5-1] and which marked the show with a subtle tone of tragedy for its entire fifth season. This was followed by the addition of Jon Lovitz’s Max Louis. Although very talented in his own right, it could certainly be said that part of the reason for choosing Lovitz was his friendship with Hartman, and it was fully in keeping with NewsRadio’s style that they chose to enfold this into the show as well: Max gets the job because he had worked with Bill. However, the effects of the outside world go even deeper than that. There was a nervous energy to the show that seemed to correlate with the show’s uncertain status on the NBC network. Even at the end of each season, NBC never gave the show a definite commitment to a continuance the next season, and the staff had to leave the show at season’s end wondering whether they would be seeing each other again. At one point, the show’s writers and producers openly admitted that they tried to reflect the show’s insecure position on NBC within the show itself — classically by having WNYX always struggling with ratings and the budget.

More than on any other show, a real relationship existed between the real lives of the actors and the characters they portrayed. The way that Vicki Lewis brought her natural girlish demeanor and her comfort with her place in the world to the role of Beth was just one example. Moreover, the show was littered with motifs derived from the real life habits of its actors. Musical motifs have already been discussed. Dave Nelson’s coffee addiction arose out of Dave Foley’s real life coffee dependence. As Foley himself tells it, "It didn’t take too long. I think they were impressed in the first episode by the amount of coffee I drink, as most people are when they see how much coffee I put away in a day. Jim Burrows directed the first couple of shows, and after he left he sent a note over saying, "Tell Dave to put the damn mug down." I would do that in the Kids in the Hall show too. Whenever I was doing a monologue, I tried to have a cup of coffee in my hand." Dave’s appearance in drag in "Halloween" [3-5] was a follow-up on his cross-dressing days on The Kids in the Hall. Similar motifs arose out of Joe Rogan’s interest in martial arts and ultimate fighting, and by Rogan’s own design, Joe Garelli was very similar to his real life persona. Lisa’s Boston accent in "Boston" [5-9] was a gag based upon Maura Tierney’s Boston roots, and Lisa’s puppy Daisy in season five may have been inspired by Tierney’s frequent companion, her pug Rose.31 Beth’s chewing gum habit arose out of Vicki Lewis’ real life penchant for gum. Andy Dick’s weird diets occasionally made their way into the show (who can forget Matthew’s recommendation to use vegetables to cure addictions32 or Bill’s observation about Matthew that "He has got to start eating red meat.") In season four we saw them play upon Phil Hartman’s gift for comic impersonation ("Jackass Junior High" [4-21]), even having an episode where Bill’s impersonation of President Bill Clinton makes him famous ("Pure Evil" [4-6]). (Hartman’s impersonation of Bill Clinton was the role that made him famous on Saturday Night Live.)

In addition, part of the show’s on-screen aura could be attributed to the show’s behind the scenes genesis. The cast was in my opinion the greatest ensemble of comedic actors and actresses ever assembled, but even today none of them are really household names. Phil Hartman was the most famous name after his stint on Saturday Night Live. (Industry insiders were particularly surprised when they learned that Hartman had left Saturday Night Live for a show with an ensemble cast and that NewsRadio was not ‘The Phil Hartman Show.’) Dave Foley had acquired a strong but still only cult following for his work on The Kids in the Hall. Andy Dick was only a fleetingly recognizable name from his work on The Ben Stiller Show. Maura Tierney, whom I regard as the greatest actress in at least six decades, as well as Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis, Khandi Alexander and Joe Rogan were virtual unknowns. Paul Simms had established a reputation for his writing for The Larry Sanders Show, but he too was far from a household name. At a time when the dominant paradigm was to sell a show around a famous star personality (with an unknown supporting cast), NewsRadio was distinguished by its ensemble cast and lack of famous names. The people of NewsRadio were in some way in the position of ‘young Turks’ of network television. Their refusal to deviate from what they felt was best for the show provided an aura of, not so much television for rebels, but television for iconoclasts. While other shows have played the ratings game, NewsRadio’s response to NBC’s request for a wedding to boost ratings was a bogus marriage proposal from Joe to Lisa on "Our Fiftieth Episode" [3-20]. NewsRadio never compromised on its comedy — it never veered into cheap sentiment and the show’s comedy retained its anarchic spirit right until the very end.

The title of this chapter "Visions of a Third Cinema" needs explanation (remembering that film art is film art and artistic communication is the same in television as in cinema). A full discussion of the history of mise en scène is beyond the scope of this chapter, but briefly, most filmmakers have fallen into one of either two paradigms of cinema — the first or classical cinema (to which the old masters such as Dreyer and Hitchcock belonged) and the second cinema (which was born with Rossellini’s Viaggio in Italia in 1953 and includes Nicholas Ray, John Cassavetes, and the masters of the Nouvelle Vague).33 The first cinema represents cinema about the world, and its characteristics, especially effacing the camera, are in line with classical dramatic virtues. The second cinema represents cinema about the cinema, and its characteristics, such as including the camera as part of the form, are typically not appreciated by those who only appreciate traditional dramatic virtues.

There exists the possibility of a third paradigm of filmmaking, which represents a unification of the cinema and the world. Here, the cinematic world reflects the real world, and the cinematic world reflects back onto the real world. Glimpses of this not-yet-fully-born cinema are seen in the art of Jean Vigo and Dziga Vertov. In their art we find a spontaneous (i.e., uncalculated) creation of forms unified with a spontaneous discovery of the world. NewsRadio strikes me as a very similar type of art. It creates forms that are spontaneous and natural to the real world. Real life events alter the course of other television shows, but almost always these shows will manipulate the forms of the show to accommodate them. NewsRadio’s forms stay true to these events (or more correctly, desires) by being natural and spontaneous to these events. In so doing, the cinematic world of NewsRadio is never divorced from the real world, thus giving rise to an open system.

The second part of the equation is that the cinematic world must reflect back to influence the real world. Vertov’s Kinoglaz (Kino Eye — Life Caught Unawares, 1924) provides an example of what this means. In this film there is a scene of Soviet boys and girls on a field trip. The visual forms of parading lines and angles leave an ineffable impression that has to be seen with one’s own eyes to appreciate. For some reason, the scene becomes more than just marching boys and girls, and yet the scene is still wholly and solely about marching boys and girls. The scene is signified by mise en scène, but the signification does not come from externally — it comes only from whatever is within the scene in the first place. This is a spontaneous and natural form that makes a spontaneous discovery about the real world. In so doing, we discover something about the world that we could never see without the power of mise en scène. What applies to Vertov applies even more to Vigo. Vigo’s masterpiece L’Atalante, a work of art whose wholeness is manifested in its holographic construction, stands as testament to the genius of an artist who could let the world and the cinema speak for themselves. In the same fashion NewsRadio allows us to see things about the world that we could only see through mise en scène. What we see is a breadth of human conditions, expressed as human desires in forms natural and spontaneous to the real world. Unlike most art I see, NewsRadio never leaves a taste of artistic dishonesty or fakery. It shows us a way to create art by letting objects within its mise en scène signify themselves. Such forms create an inseparable bond between the work of art and the real world that lies in conjunction with it. For these works of the Third Cinema, the system is complete by being open instead of closed. I suspect that this is what Jacques Rivette has been aiming for his whole career with his collaborative, openly structured art.34

Most of the film art we see, even that which is commonly regarded as ‘cutting edge,’ arrives ‘dead’ the moment it is born. In this ‘stillborn’ art, artistic resonances are embalmed within the work of art. It is rare for art to achieve resonances beyond the cinematic world. Of the modern directors, examples of great open system art can also be found in the work of the great Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien (and also to a lesser extent in the more problematic works of Abbas Kiarostami).35 For Hou, truth of content gives rise to truth of form. For Rivette and NewsRadio, truth of form gives rise to truth of content. Hou makes poetic films about the common aspects of human life. Rivette’s films and NewsRadio constitute prosaic art about the extraordinary aspects of human life. Thus, the art of Jacques Rivette and NewsRadio form the complement to poetic dramatists such as Hou. Hou demonstrates the revelatory power of open system film art; Rivette and NewsRadio demonstrate its transformative power.

 

31 The name Daisy may also have been a play on Tierney’s character in Primary Colors, Daisy Green.

32 "Smoking" [1-3]

33 Viaggio in Italia was such a massive paradigm shift that Rivette described it as "opening a breach, and that all cinema, on pain of death, must pass through it" (Rivette, Jacques. "Lettre sur Rossellini," Cahiers du Cinéma 46, April 1955 [translation by Tom Milne]). The old masters of the first cinema continued to produce great art after this breach, but any new artist who tried to make first cinema art after Viaggio in Italia looked horribly old-fashioned and formalistic (see Peter Bogdanovich). This was the real reason why the Cahiers du Cinéma critics (especially Truffaut, Rivette, Godard, Rohmer, and Chabrol) found that they could not make films like the old masters they so admired and had written so much about. They instead had to make what appeared to be formally radical films belonging to the second cinema, thus launching the Nouvelle Vague.

34 Rivette’s films, more obviously his earlier work, are famous for an apparently improvised style. These films were actually highly structured; it was just that they were structured to allow the real world to spontaneously breathe life into his art.

35 Andrei Tarkovsky would perhaps also fall into this grouping, with the allowance that his films are almost completely spiritual and divorced from the physical world.