A Necessary Experiment?

Trinh Minh-Ha's Reassemblage (1983) is an experimental depiction of the Senegalese people, a thriving African community who are often improperly portrayed. The film sets out to dispel such previous portraitures through such unconventional techniques as jump cuts, stretches of silence and blank screens. These technical elements are often jarring and get in the way of getting the film's message across. The disconcerting nature of the filmmaking is particularly perplexing when hearing Minh-Ha's intentions (or lack thereof) in a dialogue with Constance Penley and Andrew Ross entitled When I Project It Is Silent.

In this dialogue, Minh-Ha states, "Any motive that I had before starting work on the film necessarily dissolved as I went along, so that creating consisted not so much in inventing something new as in rediscovering the links within and between images, sounds and words." From this statement, it seems that while Minh-Ha may have had an initial plan of attack, she abandoned any goal to create a coherent piece for the sake of getting a better understanding of what and why we capture certain subjects on film. As such, it is implied that the collection of footage for this piece was done without bounds, and consequently without order. Minh-Ha herself describes that the filmed subjects were "purposeless," that their filming was not "governed by a single rationale."

While my experience watching experimental films is limited, I feel comfortable saying that lack of structure in filming is not necessarily detrimental to experimental film, on the contrary I presume in some instances such filming has the potential to be conducive to challenging traditional film conventions. My problem in this particular case is that Minh-Ha tries to address a very specific issue (rectifying past ethnographic portrayals) from loosely related images. In essence, she creates a very definite story from haphazardly captured footage, resulting in a clumsy balance between story and discourse.

Minh-Ha makes it no secret that her intention was to "[unsettle] our habit of seeing through the documentary 'object-oriented' camera eye" to give an unfettered image of the Senegalese lifestyle. By choosing not to abide by the typical structure of documentary to achieve an authentic and organic representation, she seems to forget that so long as the subjective eye of the camera is recording, truth is being filtered. The filmmaker's presence is simply not natural to this people's environment. Thus it is natural to question whether Minh-Ha's straying from conventional story-telling is any more effective than documentary.

Two particular techniques Minh-Ha uses to "better" project her message come to mind. The first is the absence of sound and/or image - the stretches of silence and blankness mentioned above. When questioned about this particular technique, Minh-Ha suggests, "Silence is an important part of the work: it makes it breathe." Thus one can conclude that the ultimate goal of using this technique was to make the film as organic and alive as the people it depicts. While Minh-Ha confesses her awareness that silence can be "disquieting and disorienting" she maintains that this "breathing" also functions as an opportunity for the viewer to reflect on the previous image and narration to form his own conclusions. However, at times, Minh-Ha's unconventional and disjoint techniques prevent the viewer from obtaining a decent understanding of these people, thus it is implausible for her to expect viewers to make sense of her abstract narration and imagery to develop their own interpretation.

The viewer's experience was perfectly summed up when addressing another repeated convention of Reassemblage: close-ups on women's breasts. My own rationale of these shots was to suggest the fertility and health of these people. To me this made perfect sense when put in context with Minh-Ha's narration about the usual images of African women, with starvation apparent in their frail topless bodies. So I was surprised and curious to see the various interpretations around the room when this was brought up in class. One person suggested these close-ups were used to commodify/fetishize women, while someone else suggested the close-ups functioned to focus on a single woman rather than always looking at a number of women collectively. Furthermore separate suggestions were made that these shots function both to humanize and to dehumanize these women.

With the idea that this film was meant to correct the public perception of Senegalese people, I read the filmmaker's admission, "My approach is one which avoids any sureness of signification," and consequently had to question the credibility and persuasiveness of Reassemblage. When asking viewers to draw finite conclusions about their own potential misconceptions, I have to believe that a more resolute set of concrete assertions than Trinh Minh-Ha's abstract musing is necessary to change a viewer's mind.

Blindness Review

Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness is about a city that is rapidly falling victim to an unexplained epidemic of sudden blindness. The government’s immediate response is to quarantine all infected individuals in an abandoned prison-like hospital where these neglected individuals must fend for themselves when denied medical care, hygiene and sufficient food rations. At the head of this effort are a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) and his wife (Julianne Moore), the true heroine of the story, who sticks by her husband’s side despite never losing her vision. The semblance of order they create is challenged when the hospital is filled beyond capacity and the will to survive supplants the will to co-exist.

Right from the beginning we are met with the idea that vision allows for order. In a hectic urban environment, the only thing keeping drivers from running each other off the road are bright red and green lights. The opening sequence juxtaposes shots of accelerating and braking cars and the impatient, frustrated people controlling them with close-ups of stoplights as they simply switch on and off. This regulated chaos is thrown when a single driver can no longer interpret the visual cues overhead: he has gone blind.

In the film, blindness is presented as a milky whiteness that clouds one’s vision, a decision that was presumably chosen for both narrative and technical significance. From a writer’s standpoint, the ability to perceive light yields the possibility that these characters will overcome this affliction to see whether they will simply return to their former lives or if they will forever be impacted by this ordeal. Furthermore, whiteness gives metaphorical significance to the story in that the absence of light (the typical interpretation of blindness) is replaced by the sensation that all the lights have been turned on, implying a period of reflection and understanding.

The technical aspects of portraying blindness are two-fold: presenting the perspective of the blind person and presenting the world in which he endures. These two perspectives are achieved through a clever combination of sound and lighting. As we watch each successive character lose his sight, we hear an eerie mix of bells and ringing that is reminiscent of the sensation of hearing loss. Lighting comes into play when the wife of the first victim calls the hospital from the kitchen. The room starts out perfectly lit, but when her blind husband enters the backlight fades throwing the foreground into shadows. In the hospital, where all characters except Moore are blind, this subtle technique is replaced by more overt use of whiteness. Many shots show a blind subject in focus with the surroundings all blown out (i.e. overexposed) to isolate the character as he stumbles through the unseen corridor. These shots help the audience to better understand the disorientation and panic that causes the makeshift society of blind people to crumble.

It was this crumbling that first led to the surprising comparison of this movie to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. Boyle’s film involves a different kind of outbreak, one that infects people with murderous rage, but the film is equally effective in capturing the chaos that ensues when society breaks down. Both films have a shot of a once bustling city street, now completely abandoned, being traversed by a lone vulnerable human. The barren wasteland really evokes the carnal aspect of life without structure, without society. Both films have their protagonists facing kill-or-be-killed situations where the only foreseeable goal is to survive. When pitting one ward of patients up against another over limited food rations, it’s easy to compare them to the mindless zombies of 28 Days Later whose only ambition is to feed.

This carnal theme is also conveyed in Blindness through the use of color and music. With the exception of the aforementioned stoplights, all of the colors (for both sets and costumes) at the beginning of the film are very soft and muted, giving the world a very clean, simple look. The sterility of the undisturbed world is used in contrast to the world post-epidemic. As soon as blindness spreads and the hospital wards fill up, the white hallways quickly become soiled with trash and human waste with no one able to see the difference. Humans pass through the mire barefoot and naked, indifferent about their surroundings, only concerned about continuing forward. This animalistic nature is echoed through the simple African drumbeat that remains the only soundtrack until the core group of patients regains some dignity through the harmony they find in one another.

As the film points out, the sense of agnosia (the inability to interpret sensations) inherent in losing one’s vision has etymological roots in the ideas of ignorance and lack of belief. Thus it seems natural to use blindness as a vehicle for exploring psychological constructs in the absence of a stable society. I believe the film was incredibly successful in this respect as it was able to portray man at his ugliest and his finest in the face of such insurmountable odds. Now I may be biased toward high stakes, dystopian, psychological thrillers (with a movie collection containing Sunshine, Children of Men, and Equilibrium), but I think the combination of such an interesting premise, strong acting, and such clever filming techniques (lighting, sound, editing, etc.) truly make Blindness a movie worth watching.

Film Noir

As I am of the opinion that film noir serves as a style rather than a genre, I felt it easy to relate to Schrader's "Notes on Film Noir" in which he distinguishes noir from the western and gangster genres that rely on "conventions of setting and conflict" by pointing out the focus on tone and mood that is so characteristic of noir films.  However, I was initially taken aback by his characterization of film noir as a period of film history in addition to being a very distinct style.  Having seen and enjoyed such movies as L.A. Confidential (1997), Brick (2005), and Assassination of a High School President (2008), all of which I consider to be noir films, I have a hard time accepting Schrader's limiting noir time period (1941-1953).  I absolutely agree that this style arose as a result of the four timely influences Schrader points out - war and postwar disillusionment (highlighting the darkness in the world), postwar realism (emphasis on real shooting locations), the German expatriates (including filmmakers/masters of chiaroscuro), and the hard-boiled tradition (literary emphasis on tough, cynical acting and thinking) - but I refuse to believe that this style ever really faded.  Upon further reflection on these modern examples of film noir, I began to see the temporal limits of this style in that each one of these films has throwback elements to the peak time period of film noir.

The easiest throwbacks to point out are the period pieces (L.A. Confidential, Chinatown (1974), etc.) which actually take place in the 40s and 50s.  The viewer is transported to the time when noir was the norm through the visuals of costuming and setting, making the style more digestable to the viewer who is presumably accustomed to a lighter, less stylized visual.

Brick and Assassination of a High School President both take place in high school with a scrappy, adolescent outsider guiding the story.  Both films display many of the stereotypical elements of noir - femme fatale, narration, flashback, a unique colloquial lingo - but both cloak their protagonists in a trench coat or at least a jacket reminiscent of a trench coat (I swear I made this connection before Bart pointed it out!).  This seemingly small gesture could easily be interpreted as an homage to earlier films, but is actually necessary in that it gives our hero the credibility and maturity of a detective in search of the truth for the sake of navigating the blurred lines of good and evil.  

For your viewing pleasure, another example:

Last week, Maria actually used Sin City as an example of a highly stylized non-noir film, to which I responded:

"To me Sin City is very much a noir film. In fact, I remember watching it in theaters thinking that it is the perfect update of the noir genre. It successfully uses black and white photography, and gives it another dimension with punches of color that both add narrative significance and blur the lines between good and evil (think Alexis Bledel's character whose shockingly blue eyes make her seem so angelic, yet she proves to be a traitor). The heroes of this comic book adaptation (Dwight, Marv and Hartigan) embody the ideals of the noir protagonist (confident and seedy, yet moral) while their counterparts (Gail, Goldie, and Nancy) are blatantly sexual, independent and dangerous. I can't think of a modern film that better fits the outline of the noir genre."

The above clip (combining the first and last shots of the film) actually demonstrates how the film fits all 7 stylistic elements of noir listed by Schrader: night, oblique and vertical lines, lighting, compositional tension, water (rain), romantic narration, and complex chronological order.  (If you haven't seen the movie, the latter element is demonstrated by Josh Hartnett's "the salesman" who only appears in the very beginning and the very end, providing a cyclical element to the story and suggesting that any resolution established in the movie will not withstand the perpetual corruption of this dark world.)  Also evident in this clip is the throwback element that seems to resonate in all modern noir films.  The music, Hartnett's slicked back hair, their dress, the dialogue and the demeanor of both characters all contribute to the classic look and feel established in noir's post-war peak.  It seems that a modern attempt at noir requires some form of historical significance to make the style relevant to the viewer.

Note: I didn't feel it was appropriate to include Kiss Kiss Bang Bang in this analysis as I consider it more of a parody of noir films than an actual film noir.  That said, it was definitely my favorite movie we've watched so far this semester.

As a complete aside, I made a random connection between Elijah Wood's character in Sin City and the deaf gas station attendant in Out of the Past.  Neither character ever speaks or shows any emotion and (like Anne pointed out last week) both have a dark, supernatural aura about them.  Not to mention they both kill without any remorse or consequence (Elijah with ridiculous speed and strength and the gas station attendant with a freaking fishing rod).  Just me?

Female Spectacle

After reading through Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" I was relieved that the only modern movies I could think of that employ the "woman as spectacle" mentality were comedic (The Mask, 1994), pornographic (um... porn), or just plain ridiculous (Basic Instinct, 1992).

For whatever reason, the first movie that came to mind was The Mask, in which Cameron Diaz makes her film debut as a sexy nightclub singer.  She emerges from a flower of palms

 in a slinky, glittering dress with her back facing us so we can admire her curvaceous body.  She then makes her way down the stairs from her pedestal cooing "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good to You", conveying the subservient demeanor of the spectacle that is woman, as described by Mulvey.

Then, confirming Diaz's status as an object of desire, the camera reveals the greasy mafioso watching her who exclaims, "Beautiful!"  But the purpose of this modern commodification of women is explained when the other spectator is revealed: Jim

 Carrey as "the mask".  Carrey ogles Diaz with cartoon-like actions, turning into a howling wolf as well as the exaggerated jaw drop/eye pop (pictured).  This scene mocks the outdated and previously accepted tradition of the man's gaze that is only relevant in this film when put in context with Carrey's zoot suit and later on his impressive swing dance with Diaz - other elements comically brought back from yesteryear.

Another interesting example of a modern twist on this old film convention was last year's grossly overlooked Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.  In it, Amy Adams plays Delysia Lafosse, a hopelessly bubbly singer/actress with a slew of suitors who wants nothing more 

than to be a star.  This spritely yet frivolous bombshell, unable to manage her own affairs, seeks the help of a social secretary.  

Instead what she gets is Miss Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), a frumpy, out-of-work nanny who is desperate to keep herself fed and off the streets.  These two characters come to represent the spectacle of the past and the voice of reason (I'm sure you can guess which is which).  

For Delysia, the true affair that needs sorting is whether she will choose love or life in the spotlight.  She describes the reasons for her various suitors, "With Nick, I get this magnificent flat.  With Phil, I get a chance to be the star.  Michael wants to marry me."  With the first two, she gets the glitz and glamour that she longs for, whereas Michael can only offer his love.  From the beginning we see how willing Delysia is to throw away this man who offers himself to her for the sake of her acting ambitions.  So long as she can maintain her many romantic relationships she can stay in the spotlight, but this maintenance proves to be a bit taxing.  Miss Pettigrew's first task as social secretary is to hide the evidence of the affair with Phil when Nick arrives.  Nick spots a cigar butt, which Miss Pettigrew claims is her own:

Nick: Since when did girls smoke cigars?

Miss Pettigrew: If I want to smoke cigars, I'll damned well smoke cigars.

Nick: They're yours?

Miss Pettigrew: You betcha, baby.  [takes a puff and coughs]

This comical interaction suggests that Miss Pettigrew can't quite keep up with the boys, but through her strong will she persists and successfully throws Nick off the track.  Throughout the film, Miss Pettigrew acts as the backbone of her mistress and begins to show her there is more to life than being the object of a man's gaze, that she can be equal with a man in a relationship based on love.  When Delysia starts to understand Miss Pettigrew's words, she reflects back on the time when she was once a simple, small town girl who went by the name of Sarah Grubb.

This light comedy, whether intentional or not, displays the progression of the movie actress from screen siren to human being and helps us recognize that behind every Delysia Lafosse is a Sarah Grubb.

Narrative Space: Sleepless in Seattle and Hitchcock's Suspicion

"It is men who create the space in which they move and express themselves.  Spaces are born and die like societies; they live, they have a history" (Heath 29).

Acknowledging the reality that space is defined by and unique to the individual is an integral part of the process of bringing a story to the screen.  In comparing and contrasting the eye and the camera Stephen Heath points out the unique ability of film to construct space through the "impression of reality" that is "neither absolutely two-dimensional nor absolutely three-dimensional, but something in between".  This construction is a conscious decision made by a filmmaker in light of the nature of the story being told and the tone the filmmaker wishes to convey.  Through the movies Sleepless in Seattle and Suspicion we see the significance of how the filmmaker chooses to frame the film, in particular from which character's perspective the viewer watches the narrative unfold.

Sleepless in Seattle tells the story of a man and woman (Sam and Annie) on opposite coasts who defy the odds and logic by falling in love.  The serendipitous tone of this romantic comedy is achieved by constructing spaces around the two main characters.  The story could have easily been told from the point of view of either of these characters - from the perspective of Sam (Tom Hanks), the widower whose son tricks him into meeting the woman of his dreams, or from the perspective of Annie (Meg Ryan), the woman who questions her own engagement upon hearing the sad story of a man who was once passionately in love.  However, had the choice been made to construct the reality of only one of these characters, the viewer would miss out on the story of the other character and would consequently have been cheated out on all the obstacles that character had faced leading up to the romantic first encounter.  By showing both characters' stories, the viewer gets to see how close Sam and Annie come to actually meeting as well as the misunderstandings that nearly keep them apart.  For example, the scene where Annie travels all the way to Seattle on a whim.  While there, she follows Sam and his son Jonah on the beach and later on witnesses Sam happily embracing a woman.  From Annie's perspective, it seems as if Sam is happily in a relationship, but the viewer who has also seen Sam's story knows the mystery woman is only a friend.  Understanding both sides of the story, the audience is left yearning for Annie not to give up and for Sam to take notice of her, which he does, only to be separated by a truck passing between them.  The choice to show both perspectives lets the audience see how much these two characters belong together and all that they must overcome in their journeys to find one another.

Suspicion on the other hand relies on the single space created around the character of Lina (Joan Fontaine, in her Oscar-winning role).  As the title suggests, the story is based on the unknown and the feelings that guide our intuition.  Lina is a woman bound to become a spinster (as declared by her father) who falls for Johnnie (Cary Grant), a smooth talker with a shaky reputation.  Throughout the movie, Lina picks up on clues that her husband is getting into trouble with gambling and such, but is always swayed by Johnnie's explanations.  Our one-sided perspective has us guessing with Lina, always wondering but never knowing the truth behind Johnnie's actions.  This hidden truth helps build suspense throughout the story, making the viewer wonder whether Lina herself is in danger.  Had the viewer been given insight into both characters' lives, the story would be less of a mystery/thriller (i.e. less of a Hitchcock film) and more of a domestic drama about secrets and lies.  Turns out Lina's sole perspective is necessary to maintain the anticipation and uncertainty that is so characteristic of the story.  The one time we actually see from another character's perspective is when Lina is visited by two inquiring detectives.  The second detective, Benson, who remains relatively silent, draws our attention away from the narrative and instead focuses on an otherwise arbitrary painting in Lina's foyer.  As Heath suggests, this jarring switch is meant to draw the audience's attention toward the painting of Lina's father in the following scene.  This change in perspective inadvertently also serves as a reminder that Lina's is not the only perspective in the story.  Our tendency to side with Lina, perpetuated by sharing her narrative space, hinders our ability to see any truth but her own.

Response: Bordwell & Cinema Paradiso

After reading through seven different perspectives on Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso and Classical Hollywood Cinema, as outlined by Bordwell, two opinions stand out: Tornatore strayed from the rules guiding the classic narrative style in creating Cinema Paradiso and the protagonist Salvatore's love for Elena is never fulfilled.   

The classic Hollywood narrative follows a very basic chronological plot line centered on the main character: "an undisturbed stage, the disturbance, the struggle, and the elimination of the disturbance" (Bordwell 19).  Rachael pointed out that Cinema Paradiso seems to stray from this basic outline due to its "retrospective narrative form", which is achieved by connecting different points in time with various objects (lemons), characters (the crazy man in the square) and Salvatore's own physicality (posture, etc).  I would argue that this retrospection is only meant to explain Salvatore's struggle with the disturbance at the heart of the story.  

My summary of the plot is as follows:

-Undisturbed stage: Salvatore is a wealthy man who is disconnected from his family and his past (as evidenced by his mother's inability to contact him)

-Disturbed stage: Salvatore learns of his mentor Alfredo's passing

-Struggle: Salvatore is forced to choose between heeding Aflredo's words on never returning home or honoring Alfredo by attending his funeral

-Elimination of the disturbance: Salvatore returns home to a familiar yet strange world

To me what's unusual about this plot is that its course is a rather minimal (with regard to screen time) portion of the movie.  The undisturbed stage is done quickly but effectively and the disturbance happens in a manner that deepens the protagonist's isolation from his past: in his new world Salvatore is casually told by his lover of Alfredo's passing.  The fact that this lover, who is presumably Salvatore's most intimate companion, is unaware of the weight behind the information she has shared implies complete separation between Salvatore's past and present.  It is therefore necessary to revert back to his childhood to intimately share the complexity of Salvatore's struggle.

In addition to narrative structure, Bordwell also pointed out the necessity of a second plotline centered on romance.  The most obvious romance in the movie is Salvatore's love-at-first-sight infatuation with Elena.  We first see her through Salvatore's camera, after which Salvatore woos Elena in an overly dramatic (dare I say, cinematic) manner and later passionately embraces her in the rain.  But after all the over-the-top drama and passion, Elena is just gone without a climactic send-off or disagreement.  There is no closure.  Upon further examination of this relationship, as Anne describes, his love for Elena is no more than "an infatuation with the love depicted on screen."  Salvatore's interactions with Elena are simply recreations of the romantic scenes he grew up watching.

Charles further points out that in the flashbacks to Salvatore's childhood we come to understand this "film-obsessed child and how the romance of the cinema, the community togetherness of the theater, shaped and created his identity."  The true romance in this story seems to be between a young boy and the movies.  This pairing has all the makings of the typical romance plot line: a goal, obstacles and a climax.  Salvatore is initially shunned from the movies he so desires to see, he then finds a way in, falls in love, and finally ends this "romance" when he leaves town after hearing Alfredo's declaration that his infatuation with movies is unhealthy.  This romance is given closure in the end of the movie when Salvatore watches the Cinema Paradiso fall and with Alfredo's last act as a mentor.  Alfredo leaves Salvatore a montage of previously edited out movie clips, clips Salvatore had longed to see as a child.  By viewing this montage, Salvatore is finally allowed to experience the embraces that he had been denied for so long. 

Freewater Spring 2009 Schedule

The new calendar is up!

check it out: http://www.duke.edu/web/movies/calendar.html

Reflection: How does film in general affect the way you see the world?

As a movie lover, I had a hard time getting into Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" as, in the beginning of the essay, it seemed that Benjamin's intention was to reduce the invention of film to the next step in the progression of mass production (i.e. the process of cheapening an object so as to increase it's availability).  With the frequent use of such terms as "decay" it is not hard to associate his sentiments to an overall negative outlook on the history of film.  I began to warm up to the article when, after a long commentary on the value of art lying in its authenticity as an original work formed by the artist, Benjamin recognized the evolving ideals of art that parallel our evolving society when he says:

"... the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed."

Furthermore Benjamin made the astute observation:

"... mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitic dependence on ritual.  To an ever greater degree the work reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility."

I think the key idea from this observation is that the filmmaker (or the photographer) is aware that he is creating art that is meant to be reproduced.  Before the invention of still and motion photography, I believe it was suitable to include authenticity in the definition of art.  The introduction of photographic technology made it necessary to modify said definition.  I believe an appropriate and broader definition of this new art that includes photography and film can hold on to the ideals that have always been at the core of artistic expression:

Art is the intention to create and communicate by lending one's humanity to what is otherwise without meaning.  (Note: This is my own working definition of art, I obviously don't expect everyone to agree with it.)

The added bonus of this new technology/form of art is that it can touch many more observers.  I believe first and foremost art is a form of communication, it is a way to express other perspectives, share other worlds, and questions our own existing beliefs.  Film is particularly effectual in this expression due to its unique ability to carry the observer into an entirely different universe and live in someone else's shoes.  

A prime example of this immersion into another universe is Fight Club.  The "one day" moment that sets the wheels in motion is when Edward Norton's "narrator" meets Brad Pitt's "Tyler Durden".  Tyler opens the narrator's eyes and helps him realize the insignificance of his possessions that have come to define his life.  This inspires a new bohemian existence, which sets the narrator on a journey of self exploration.  What he finds is that he is Tyler Durden... sometimes.  We finally see what the rest of the world sees: a man beating himself up in a parking lot, a bipolar lover, an ardent leader, and a social terrorist.  The film-goer gets to see both perspectives and as a result gets to ride alongside the narrator in his roller coaster of self-discovery.

The power of film, as illustrated by Fight Club, is the ability to transport the viewer into the mind of another.  The viewer gets to sympathize with the man who can't control himself, who projects his darkest desires onto another being and who justifies destruction as a means to find meaning in his own life.

Other great examples:

- Monster - learn to sympathize with a real life serial killer

- The Sixth Sense - see from the perspective of... well, I won't spoil the surprise if you are one of the few people who haven't seen it yet

- The Purple Rose of Cairo - see a "man" come to terms with being a fictional character who doesn't belong in the real world