Behind the Lens: Cloverfield

I was going to write a simple review of the film Cloverfield (which I saw a week ago, but have been wrestling with in my head since), but I could not quite pin down what I wanted to say. I liked the film, no doubts there. I could dare say I come close to loving the hell out of it. But I could not say exactly WHY. Then it hit me. I kept coming back to one line: "People will want to know. . . how it all went down." This one line says so much about the filmmakers' aims and goals, and simultaneously comments on the current direction of popular and media culture, and it echoes through much of the film both thematically and in specific scenes. So, here we are. Cloverfield as cultural lens.

The plot can be summarized thusly: Giant Monster Wrecks House in New York. Most else is superfluous, in the general "this is what happens" scheme of things. But, for sake of expansion of purpose, I'll elaborate a bit more. The movie purports to be "found footage", a "Digital SD card" (which is a bit of a misnomer, as the D in SD stands for digital) recovered by the US Department of Defense from the "site formerly known as 'Central Park'", referring to an incident known as "Cloverfield". So, from the start, there is a sense that something big has happened in New York, big enough to warrant the renaming of Central Park. (Also, Lost fans, there is a blip flash of the Dharma logo during the DoD watermark intro. Clue, or JJ Abrams fucking with people? U-DECIDE!) The "tape" proceeds to document the going-away party thrown for Rob, a young yuppie type who is going to Japan to take a high-profile marketing job, and is attended by a well-maintained balance of hipster stereotypes and ciphers, including Rob's brother Jason, Jason's girlfriend Lily, his friend "Hud" (who is the man behind the camera for the film, and serves as a sort of narrator [and is named for a first person video game term H.U.D., or "heads up display"]), Marlena, whom Hud has a thing for, and a whole host of nameless pretty people. Also attending is Beth, a girl whom Rob has been good friends with for a while, and, we find out through blips in the video which show the footage that was taped over for the party (and aftermath), whom he has recently slept with and then not called since. In the midst of all this dramadramadrama, a giant monster shows up and wrecks house in the city. There is panic, evacuations, deaths and deaths and deaths, 9/11 evocations, miniature parasitic creatures that are very reminiscent of the Xenomorphs from the Alien films and Bugs from Starship Troopers, bodily explosions, more deaths, and one VERY pissed off monster of unknown origin, species, and motives. Much destruction follows. And the camera is running intermittently through out. (One of the complaints from some is that the movie takes place over a 7 hour period, and there's no way the camera's battery lasts that long. Thing is, the camera is not running the whole time. The actual footage is only the 70+ minutes that makes up the film proper. So, the battery only really ran for a little over an hour. Myth: BUSTED.)

The thing I want to talk about though, revolves around a very specific scene right after the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. (This is what the first trailer for the film was, shown before Transformers without a title.) During the party, there is what seems to be an earthquake, and many of the kids gather on the roof of the building. A massive explosion happens in the distance and they all flee in a panic for the street, only to see the Statue of Liberty's head flying through the air and come to a rest in the street in front of the building. What happens is very interesting, and very of the moment: the minute it stops moving, onlookers come forward with camera phones and digital cameras (including the camera that provides the audience's POV) and begin to film the head.

That scene, plus the line mentioned above, combine to make a statement about modern society and how people in our culture deal with reality. Shakespeare said "All the world's a stage," and this attitude has been taken to the extreme now, as people need the lens of a camera to make things "real". Any given situation can be said to "be something like a movie" or "like something from TV," to the extent that people LIVE like they are characters in a film. People will not believe something that has not been filmed, analyzed, poked, prodded, and dissected ad nauseum. (And yes, I realize the irony of that statement in an essay analyzing a film. Fuck off, grasshopper.) Reality TV is only a small symptom of this, but it's the most obvious one. See also: celebrity gossip shows.

This plays into one of the major complaints people who dislike the movie have: the unlikability of the characters. The problem here is that I don't see the characters as being all that unlikable. We don't know them enough to like or dislike them. They are the barest of sketches, just enough so that we can feel bad about them getting killed or maimed, or to provide them with motivation for their actions later in the film. The problem here is that they are TOO real. Like mentioned before, there is an astonishing amount of people who act like they are the main character in a constantly filming movie of their life. While there is nothing wrong with this approach to life, it leads to somewhat of a disconnect with how they actually appear to be. I posit that if five random people were placed into the situation of Cloverfield, that they would not act significantly different than the actual characters of the film. People believe they are more interesting and significant in the grand scheme of life than they actually are, and can't see the irony of not finding other ordinary people uninteresting. A pair of ducks, yes.

I don't think this is where the interesting things about the film end. There is much to be said about the 9/11 parallels (and much has been said elsewhere, believe me), and the viral marketing behind the film was a thing of genius. As it stands, I also think there is a strange commentary on the film making process inherent in the film, whether intended by the filmmakers or not. All filmmakers have to, by definition, have the attitude that "People will want to know. . . how it all went down." Otherwise, what is the point of making a movie? The lens of the camera both records and reflects, and the focus isn't always what you think it is.