The Blair Witch Project (DVD)

Take a witch from ‘Macbeth’, add one of the main themes of ‘King Lear,’ set it in the woods like ‘As You Like It,’ add a liberal dose of weirdness a la ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ and then update it by employing a video camera. And behold! The Blair Witch Project is born!

There have been varied reactions to this film, ranging from ‘a big pile of poo’ to ‘scariest movie ever made.’ My opinion falls somewhere between the two, and then off to the left a bit. I shall explain further. But first…

~THE CONCEPT~
You all know the premise. Three students go into the woods to make a documentary about a witch. They disappear, but a while later their footage is found blah, blah, blah…

And this, I must admit, I find an interesting concept. In most Hollywood movies, the camera plays the role of ‘omniscient narrator.’ That means that it can leap from the point-of-view (POV) of the victim, for example, to the POV of the murderer, to the POV of the detective, and so on. This technique gives the viewer a kind of vicarious omniscience (vicarious because it is still controlled by the camera) and therefore places him/her in a more empowered position than, for example, the victim. “Look out!” we howl joyfully, “there’s an axe-wielding maniac in your wardrobe!”

We are placed in a more knowledgeable than the characters in the movie. At times, we are made more complicit with the murderer by taking a true POV when we see through the murderer’s eyes as they prepare to spring from their wardrobe hiding-place. In short, the audience becomes visually and narratively empowered.

Neatly, TBWP overturns this convention. The audience is placed in a LESS empowered visual position by (mostly) seeing only the footage that remains. This disempowerment is one reason why many people disliked the film – they are denied the ‘visual plenitude’ (getting to see everything) that takes place in many of the other films.

A good example of this is when the camp is attacked by an unseen assailant. Standard Hollywood fayre certainly, but in a Hollywood movie you know that near the end you will get to see whatever horrible creature it was – no doubt lovingly crafted by the warped inhabitants of the SFX department. In TBWP, you don’t get to see the monster/psycho/witch. Not once. An interesting break from the Hollywood norm.

~OPEN NARRATIVE / CLOSED NARRATIVE~
Another thing that in my opinion turned a lot of people off the film, is the fact that it was an open narrative. This means that the ending wasn’t neatly tied up, and the audience was left with a whole lot of unanswered questions. On the whole, audiences tend not to like this, because it is much easier to have everything wrapped up for you so you don’t have to think about it.

So every film-maker is faced with the choice: make a closed-narrative film that everyone enjoys but that no-one really thinks about afterwards, or make an open-narrative film that a lot of people dislike but which sticks in their minds for a while as they try to make sense of the ending.

Obviously, the TBWP creators opted for the open-narrative approach – and I think it worked pretty well. I mean, what was going on with that ending anyway? Answers on an epostcard to me, please.

~YOU MENTIONED KING LEAR?~
Another reason that I liked the film was that it explored notions of sight, observation, and voyeurism in quite a sophisticated way. The rumours about the child-murderer who once frequented the area stated that he made his victims face the wall because he did not like to be watched. This links in with the sight/empowerment theme that I mentioned at the beginning. In short, if you can see another person when they can’t see you then you feel a sense of power over them. The psycho didn’t want to be watched because he didn’t want to feel disempowered. Imagine his reaction when a group of students turn up not merely to investigate the mythology of the place, but to record it on video camera. Moderately peeved, I would think.

Sight is often used as a metaphor for understanding, but although the students see and record a lot of things, they fail to understand many of them. This sight/understanding metaphor is one of the major themes in King Lear. Also, although the audience gets to see the whole film, they are left at the end not understanding it. Were the murders carried out by the ghost of the Blair Witch, or by the ghost of the psycho who came later, or by someone else altogether. The questions are never answered. Understanding is never achieved.

~SOME OTHER THINGS~
Having discussed this idea of ‘omniscient narrators’ and POVs at some length, I must say that I would have preferred it if the whole film had been the supposedly ‘found’ video footage. I thought that the more traditional shots near the beginning of the film that established the situation were a bit of a cop-out. If you’re going to do a ‘found their video footage’ movie then you should do the whole film like that.

I found the repetitious ‘running through forest with camera jiggling on leafy forest floor’ a bit nauseating in a literal sense. They actually made me feel queasy – sort of like motion sickness in a car. Maybe that was the point

~ICONIC STATUS~
Finally, I think you can often judge the cultural effect of a film by the number of pastiches and parodies that it generates. There are certain filmic sequences that have been parodied so many times that they have almost taken on a life of their own:

The shower scene in Psycho.
The chest-burster scene in Alien.
The ‘you looking at me?’ scene in Taxi Driver

And I think that the tearful, dribbly-snot ‘I’m so scared’ sequence in TBWP has now taken its place amongst them.

Good thing too, as far as I’m concerned. I like a film that makes me think – and this one certainly did that.

As for the sequel – well, that’s another story…