Hi everyone,
This clip is from the movie Enter the Void, by Gaspar Noe. To find the video, scroll to near the bottom of the page; it's number six in the rankings. It's both concrete and abstract, which I thought would give you guys the opportunity to be creative with your interpretations. Here are a few questions to get your thinking started.
There are many different locations featured here. Why does Noe pick the ones he does?
What about the soundtrack? Was it chosen for the video, or was the video chosen to fit the song? How does the answer affect the song's rhetoric?
The nudity here is pretty hard to ignore. Why show it in this way?
And what about all the abstract graphics? The director could have chosen any kind of "trippy" graphics. Why these?
Lastly, let's think about the word 'trippy' for a moment. Is this video 'trippy'? If so, why? What specific aesthetic choices help create this effect? Why might Noe have made these choices?
Enter the Void
To answer those questions that i have found in this video.Firstly, i have to admit this is the most trippy video i have seen until now. The location that director chooses look like Tokyo or somewhere in Japan, maybe there is famous at porn industry and looks a kind of mess at night.
ReplyDeletePersonally i realize the sound track is kind of peaceful and lazy but turn to more and more crazy and quicker rhetoric at last. SO the picture is always blurry, shake, and various direction, that looks like a drug abused person's view. The soundtrack must be chosen for the video which makes the cooperate or video and sound looks perfect trippy.
The nudity is show on a place look like bar or strip clubs, i found this haves some link to the sax content, and conduct a picture that the director shows before of a induced abortion.
Also the abstract graphics that director selected is sometimes looks like a cell of humamn, sometimes looks like an eye or toxic drug person's cell. That kind of abstract things make audience have imagination of the body's change after having drug abuse, and how they grow into toxic cells. That is creative and very impressed.
Ryan Tucker's post:
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing the video for the first time, I was left confused and pondering the meaning of it's rhetorical goals. I had to watch it twice more to help get a better understanding, but even then, there were many questions left unanswered. Perhaps I was so clueless because this scene was viewed completely out of context and I was unaware of the movie's plot. However, from what I was able to interpret, the man who was pictured in the beginning of the scene, hugging what looked to be a toilet, was passed out after a crazy drug experience. From then on, the rest of the images shown were seen as memories of this man while he was on the drug. Throughout the scene, there were a lot of very quick changes in the images being displayed and there were also a lot of bright lights and blurry objects. To me, this portrays the effects of the drug on the man, and the blurriness objectifies his memories of his experience, which are obviously not very thorough. There was a bright orange circle shown, which looked like a sun, and to me this represented energy; perhaps the all of the energy that this man had during his trip, which is what led to his hard crash. I think the general location (a big city) is perfect for this scene because of the normal attributes it contains, such as bright lights, tall buildings, and large crowds, which all relate to a messy trip on drugs. The most interesting thing I noticed was the change in the way that the city's buildings were shown; normally, as bright lights, and also as blue-print like sketches. I think that the music was chosen to fit the scene, because it was clear what the character was going through, so it was best to pick a song that went along with this mood, which was very slow and freaky. Lastly, I think that the graphics that were chosen here were for a reason, because they all seemed to relate to the mind or brain, which is where someone's mood or mindset spurs from. This scene was very intriguing and left a lot of things up for interpretation by the viewer.
I'm answering the listed questions. First, I have to say that it is really hard to understand the meaning of the video, The video seemed too abstract for me. I couldn't find the topic of until I watched two more times. In my opinion, this video begins with a man lying on the floor and perhaps already dead. Then the camera rises up and begins cross through the city. For the first question, I believe that the locations in the video were the places that the man who appears at the beginning of the video used to visit a lot. Those flashbacks review the life of that man. About the soundtrack, I think the music was chosen for the video because it perfectly fits the topic of the video which is ＂void＂. The melody gives people a feeling of illusory and the harmony also makes the music sound more mysterious. For the last question, I think the video is really trippy. I would like to talk about a detail in the video. There are times in the video that the real buildings were changed into the forms that can be usually seen in a 3D design software. Those scenes make me feel confused and curious. I was thinking whether those building really exist or they are designed by computer programs. The stagger between the reality and the fiction makes the video really trippy. I think Noe chose to make the video trippy because the topic of the video is void and the trippy effect also gives viewers a feeling of void.
ReplyDeleteTo response to the questions listed above, I thought this video made me feel confused. From the beginning of this video, the soundtrack is soft and peaceful with the scenes of looking down at the whole city. Then, the sound gradually became louder and louder, the scene focused on the "virus-shapes" images with kinds of colors. These images changed frequently and sometimes became very indistinct.The articulation of the whole scenes could indicate the fundamental key of this video. Also, from the aspect of colors, there were many colors which changed in a very short time, so did the shapes. It looked like a kind of drug. (I am not sure about this.) They all looked very trippy. Next, the music changed from sound to a song. And the scene was changed from colorful images to people's real life. The location was in Japan, and there was a large name "Sex Money Power" in the video. And then, the camera got into that place and showed several nudity and sexy scenes. Even though these scenes seemed not to match the theme of this video, they can indicated a kind of aspiration of physiologic desires, making the whole video look more and more triply.
ReplyDeleteI'm responding by using the prompt 6. The creator used lots of rhetorical ways to portray this clip. As far as I'm concerned, the first scene is the base of the whole clip. A man is faint or dead due to abusing drugs, lying around a toliet. In the afterwards clip, the concrete scenes are to reveal the subject, whether the reasons leading to him abusing drugs or the consequences after taking pills. For instance, there is a scene of dead unborn baby in the plate, which is because of abortion. Thereafter, there are several nudity and sex scenes, which may be related to the abortion, before or after. These factors could be all related to why the man tend to drugs, or what happened after him having drugs. For the abstract scenes, they are the unconscious pictures in his mind after abusing drugs, which makes the clip pretty trippy. Meanwhile, these rolling images make audience feel like enter the void, the world after having drugs.
ReplyDeleteAnother rhetorical method used by the creator is the way to show the concrete scenes. They are not from normal angle. Instead, it's like the world you see when you are in roller coaster. The whole world is rolling, fragmented, various angles, upside down sometimes. Maybe the creator wants to show audience the void world after taking drugs. You may go to the mountain top, but the next second you are in valley.
The last rhetorical method I want to talk about is the lights. In the whole clip, it seems there are many lights, especially neon lights. However, the world showing is not lightful, which is in a dark night. Maybe these also resemble the inside in the man--seems lightful and relaxed, but dark and desperate actually.
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ReplyDeleteIn response to the questions above, this video is definitely trippy. The different visual effects, the music, and the content that is portrayed throughout the scene is very similar to that which a person on drugs sees and feels, giving a similar experience to being on a drug trip.
ReplyDeleteThe visual effects that Noe used are perfect for the scene because they help recreate the experience of being on a drug trip It says in the video description that the effects done in the film are very similar to those which a person on drugs experiences. This is exactly what Noe intended for the scene to do, therefore the effects are on point.
Lastly, the music that is used for the scene is highly effective. It gives the effect to the viewer of a sort of "different world" experience. It goes hand in hand with the effects to help recreate for the audience the experience of being on a drug trip. For this reason, I think the song was chosen to fit the film scene.
Responding to the questions above, Noe is extremely effective at using colors and visuals to create a very psychedelic feel to the clip. The colors stand out and move in a very kaleidoscopic pattern to mimic what someone under the influence of hallucinogenics may experience visually. The music sets the tone for the clip and is very light and soft with the warming voice of a female. The music is very comforting and portrays the fact that the drug user is in a comfortable place mentally, but is maybe drifting off a bit with their visuals. By using the patterns of color and music, Noe creates what I would consider to be an extremely trippy effect and it is certainly felt by the observer.
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