I think part of my love for the Life After Beth vid is that it's set up to be a vid about a particular kind of introspective ~deep~ film about death and loss and then -- surprise zombies! While I like/love many individual deep introspective films I also have low tolerance for the genre's bullshit. The vid reminds me a bit of a joke I used to make when I was in film school which was: "What does a Godard film with zombies look like?" And the answer is exactly the same. (I think that the follow up joke, if I'm remembering correctly, was "What does an Ozu film with vampires look like?" exactly the same.) There are certain filmmakers (~auteurs~) who are so wrapped up (and whose characters are so wrapped up) in themselves that you could insert zombies in the background of the film, or the foreground, and I honestly don't think things would change. (This applies less to Ozu than Godard. I have major Godard issues. The joke about Ozu is less about his characters and more about the camera work/editing/pacing; I would love to see what a horror film with the same style as Ozu looks like.) This only tangentially applies to the vid, but that sense of "this is a movie about loss and ennui" superseded by "holy shit zombies" is one that I often imagine when I watch particularly poor examples of certain kinds of films.
(This is also why I am suddenly more interested in the Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive; I've been meaning to give Jarmusch another chance anyway -- this makes me more interested in doing so.)
(Rereading this makes it sound like I hate certain kinds of films and that's not entirely true: it's more that I am incredibly fussy about indie & art house films to the point where I either LOVE THEM FOREVER or I HATE THEM FOREVER with very little in between. Oddly both groups occasionally get the "how would this film be different with [x]?" treatment.)
ANYWAY. I fully admit that not everyone would have that same feeling of delight.
I also mostly agree that there is a contract between reader/viewer and creator and certainly I have been angry at creators who have violated it, but there is also a place, I think, for setting up expectations and then subverting them. I don't have a general rule of thumb for that, except that when it works, it can work really well! (When it doesn't work, I get angry though, so ... IDEK.)
Re: this is a total tangent: how best to elicit surprise?
(This is also why I am suddenly more interested in the Jarmusch film Only Lovers Left Alive; I've been meaning to give Jarmusch another chance anyway -- this makes me more interested in doing so.)
(Rereading this makes it sound like I hate certain kinds of films and that's not entirely true: it's more that I am incredibly fussy about indie & art house films to the point where I either LOVE THEM FOREVER or I HATE THEM FOREVER with very little in between. Oddly both groups occasionally get the "how would this film be different with [x]?" treatment.)
ANYWAY. I fully admit that not everyone would have that same feeling of delight.
I also mostly agree that there is a contract between reader/viewer and creator and certainly I have been angry at creators who have violated it, but there is also a place, I think, for setting up expectations and then subverting them. I don't have a general rule of thumb for that, except that when it works, it can work really well! (When it doesn't work, I get angry though, so ... IDEK.)