The next two coming posts will discuss two examples of retro-cinema/television-manipulation and the questions they raise about the conveyed content:
THE METHOD - NEW LAND PARTY
(http://eretzchadasha.com/the-method)
The most comfortable standpoint from which to begin a discussion on political media manipulation, is through a faltering attempt to convince you of something you’re 100% confident is wrong. There’s nothing more fun than basking in the joyous justified anger about a badly conveyed statement your dad already taught you is false (assuming you’re in good relations with your father, otherwise it would probably be the other way around). Hens, all the audio/visual/edit augmentation methods used to bring this statement to the light only strengthen the pathetic invisible aura which you, the viewer, have already traced around it in your mind’s eye. Call it your silver lining.
The problem though arises when grotesque manipulation methods are executed to promote opinions which you (or your dad) are aligned with. The link above presents one of 7 (so far) Israeli short conspiracy films, from a series plainly titled “The Method” (HA SHITA). Perhaps campaign ads, perhaps honest gossipy confessions gone horribly wrong – all part of a new political movement named The New Land Party, led by the films’ protagonist – Eldad Yaniv – A journalist, lawyer and political consultant who is known to have been in close relations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and their likes. A while ago he publicly announced his run for politics, mainly to use it as a podium, determined to spill the beans on it all. Okay, we’re listening…
Granted, no one outside of Israel or the Hebrew speaking diaspora would be able to understand a single word in these films, but I can assure you it’s about as gossipy as it gets – Yaniv floods the ears with stories on how the prime minister goes around with dollar-bills roled-up inside his socks and how the minister of foreign affairs handles his lawsuits like Don Corleone, or, how he literally goes to bed with tycoons in what sounds like luxurious orgies and debauchery all-nighters. But the specific content is not important to the point of this text, it being, that the New Land Party decided to make a bunch of Film Noir homages (some of the films also take place in a gloomy Jazzy bar, over a couple whiskey shots) out of otherwise speculatively incriminating evidence against the current heads of state.
(question: if you’ve so publicly announced you’ll soon debunk Israel’s power lords for all their greed and glory, why aren’t you dead yet?)
There isn’t a single sentence uttered in these films which isn’t punched in perfect cue with a dramatic piano note or extreme close-up camera angle, blurry turns violently sharp, lenses and movements chosen with precision. The conversations do seem rather natural in tone and body language (as far as you can really tell with a dark melody hook constantly repeating in the background and rising in crescendo each time the speakers uncover a “shocking” hidden truth), but Yaniv’s counterpart in the New Land Party is Rani Blair, a film director and screenplay writer responsible for quite a few successful Israeli TV dramas. Furthermore, each short episode hosts a well known Israeli actor, usually familiar for a subversive dramatic or satirical role. So it might just as well be very good actors reading from a well conducted script, side by side a very determined storyteller, who propels the plot.
So then the question remains, in our post post post something post something point in media history (which is eventually all history), “what exactly are they trying to achieve?” I mean, these guys aren’t going to win the elections anytime soon, it’s in the cards and they’re not the ones holding them (not the ones with 8 digit figures on them). So what is this really? A self reflective ironic move? The medium looking back at itself? Is this a farce? Is this only a farce or both a farce and a political move? Is there a farce which isn’t at the same time also some kind of a political move? Have they simply underlined this? Are they actually trying to surpass the creative ambitions of The Sopranos (literally – they shamelessly have Tony Soprano’s photo hanging on the wall in the back) by sinking down to FoxNews tactics? Are they taking a piss at politics by portraying it as a horribly enhanced simulacrum of itself, the bottom line being: this is stuff for the screen not for real life state politics? Is this something that could nominate them for the Israeli TV Academy Awards? Or are they really hoping to shoot their way into the heart of the Israeli consensus, who’s dumbed down completely, lulled into its nightmarish comfort zone by perpetual hate-propaganda and scaremongering which saturates its everyday so overwhelmingly, that nothing could get through to it except for more of the same tactics, only this time, using news posing as entertainment instead of entertainment posing as news?
