Call of the Wild

IN THE WOODS

By Clarence L. Donowitz

      Columbia Teacher's College is not known for hosting sneak previews, but this Wednesday students and faculty were invited to see a film that has become part of the Art Education curriculum.  Which is all the more interesting, because "In the Woods" defies the "educational" label, or any other label for that matter.  That the film is not easily categorized  is a source of pride for writer-director Jennifer Elster.  If "The Blair Witch Project" were directed by Franz Kafka, the result might be something like this: mundane surface action rooted in deep existential questions.   

      The core idea is simple enough: walk into the woods with celebrities and record their musings on camera.  Thus, we have impromptu thoughts by Moby, Famke Janssen, Debra Winger and Dave Matthews, to name a few luminaries. What seems like a marketing ploy at first, gathers steam and meaningful monologues emerge.  This is not a collage of actors going off the script; rather they are creating their own.  Although Elster is reticent to discuss the process behind the interviews, one gets a sense that the subjects received little instruction as to what exactly they are supposed to do in the woods.  They act the way "real" people do when confronted with the unfamiliar.  They look for direction from the cameraperson (none is forthcoming), and crack jokes to hide their nervousness.  Surely there is something nerve-wrecking about a silent camera watching your every move.  One by one the subjects break down to varying degrees to fill the void.            

      Moby confesses that he is afraid of living his life by someone else's standards and Terrence Howard tells us that "Madness is its own freedom, because it frees you from the world's understanding of you."  There are plenty more nuggets like this and reducing them to sound bites does them a disservice, so I'll stop right now.  Watching them emerge from the mouths of celebrities who are not faking emotions for a change is the unique pleasure of this film.       

      Why should this be so? Perhaps because watching celebrities grapple with the same issues that plague ordinary mortals validates our own suffering. If money and fame do not insulate you from pain, then it must be a universal experience. In the case of Moby, his question sounds almost nonsensical. If you lived your life according to other people's expectations, wouldn't you be a lawyer, or an accountant, instead of an iconoclastic musician? 

      If anything, the film shows that self-perception is the one true reality, since outward success and accolades are brought home through the mind's highly subjective filter. The cleverness of Elster's approach is that by removing the usual societal support structure, she creates a fertile ground for self-reflection. Not having a frame of reference to cling to, her subjects are forced to create their own realities, which in turn reveals highly personal emotions. 

      It is almost like the opposite of reality television, which shows you everything, but reveals...not much. The drama in most reality shows is of the external kind played out on recognizably large (usually urban) canvas, whereas here, the setting is so limited that the only choice the subjects have is to go deep into themselves.  In the woods, the usual cultural codes are absent; no signs, people, or manmade noises which spur the mind to ceaseless action.  All that city hustle-and-bustle and days that are divided into activities which seem so important in the moment, but are merely distractions which lose their false appeal in the woods. 

      The title of the series is "Being" and I couldn't help but think that all this elaborate exercise on the part of Elster is a way to penetrate past the point of "doing" and glimpse some eternal truths.  The film succeeds at raising a few questions that are already on the audience's mind.  It creates a unique cinematic experience where you are not so much watching the film as making it up as you go along.