Israeli Reality & Film-Making

Israel is a country over-saturated with reality.
The historical legal encounter between the Jews and their Land, which have occurred in 1948 with the declaration of Israel by the UN nearly 58 years ago, has initiated a process of which at its end a phenomenon known as 'Israelis' came to life.

Six wars and numerous military and terrorists clashes have shaped the common Israeli cognition to a form of obsession - obsession with a high adrenaline-reality-driven-level. A week without deaths is a rare occurrence in Israel. Mostly all radio channels transmits 'The News' hourly, preceding the deep voice of the commentator by the sound of six sharp beeps, which in fact serves as an 'unconditional stimulus' - "Here Comes the Truth!"

Friday evenings are dedicated to family gathering, and conversations, regarding the latest weekly local events approaching high hectic tones are a welcome and familiar tradition. Hence the reality merchandiser, i.e. the Media, and the consumers, i.e. the people, live side by side striving on each other.

The rules of the games were changed when commercial TV channels were recently introduced. Once TV executives discovered the public addiction to reality, they were quick to capitalize on it, driving their programs to levels of emotional stimulation unknown before - justified and protected by free-market and free-media rules.

Karl Marx has coined the phrase "Stichia". A process guided merely by forces of 'free-market' would eventually lead to a state of disorder, or misfortune for the people. One could easily discern some cases in modern life: Air pollution, city traffic jams, etc., all occurrences shaped by market forces at their freest form.

Israel is like a child, given a new toy: Capitalism. This toy is being abused, broken. With using money should come responsibility and knowledge. The high-tech revolution has provided the human race with the illusion of 'The lost Paradise': everything and anything is available: all one has to do is to extend one's hand, double-click the 'mouse' key (perhaps a 'snake' would have been more appropriate...), and... There you have it.

This illusion is harboring chaotic cultural, sociological and psychological traps awaiting the unsuspecting mind. It is the responsibility of the person who foresee the outcome of these processes to try to herald and warn; To try to extinguish the burning desire in the hearts of millions, Israelis and Westerners alike, who's only aspirations in life is "The Goal", living by the false motto "The Goal Justifies the Means", neglecting en-route the most important factor - "The Process", hence neglecting their own life.

Film is coined 'the Seventh Art', meaning it is the seventh to be recognized as a form of art. But the digit 'seven' could also be looked upon as insinuating film encompasses all forms of art preceding it, hence having the power to attract not only people interested in dance, music, theatre or literature, but masses aspiring to experience all forms of art combined, as manifested in the finished product, projected on a white rectangle in a dark hall.

With art viewed by masses comes possibility and responsibility of many kinds: moral, cultural, social. Possibility and responsibility, in the case of a filmmaker, is to create something that will not only enrich the viewers life or merely entertain them, but will also shape and form reasoning, comprehension and order in the otherwise chaotic situations existing in the fast changing world around us.

The viewer, as he walks into the dark theatre, surrenders to the filmmaker, praying silently: show me, enrich me, move me, excite me, seduce me, explain to me... The filmmaker, by lifting this glove, involves himself with the most intricate and complex form of art, having numerous factors and components to account for.

Imagination and Sensitivity are two key ingredients en-route creating a meaningful work of art. Sensitivity is a given: either one has it or one doesn't. But imagination - that is another story. This mysterious creature would exist and flourish only in a low-level-reality-saturated-environment. Hence writers of all sorts travel to a great distance to create their desired environment in which the powers of imagination can flourish.

A film could be analogous to a body of a person, when the screenplay would serve as the heart, and the blood vessels pumping life into the heart would serve as imagination and sensitivity. But imagination and sensitivity will not suffice. If the maker is concerned with communicating and generating audience participation, comprehension, enrichment and order of form - syntax of language, cinematic know-how, discipline and ingenuity must all preside - hand in hand. Only then film-making could be considered as art.

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