catfish

Last night I watched the film Catfish.

I have a bit of a habit of looking up things about films whilst I'm watching them (I don't do this in cinemas!) If an actor impresses me or looks familiar I google them or look the film up on IMDB for any interesting notes on production and reception.

Catfish tells the polemic story of 'meeting' and creating virtual relationships online, illustrating the extent to which the internet allows one's online and real life lives to differ.

I didn't really do this last night, I guess it totally absorbed (albeit several bits which irritated me as explained here). It didn't occur to me until about 2/3 the way through that there was a possibility that Catfish could be a 'real' 'authentic' documentary and not a fabricated drama pertaining to be a documentary.

As others have pointed out - why would the filmmakers start filming their friends life before anything had even began to unravel which might suggest that there could be a story here? But also - coming from a filmmakers perspective here - the quality of the filming is TERRIBLE. There is noise in practically every sequence. (By noise I mean grainy bits in the picture). Now I know I'm one to talk, my last couple of films have bits of noise in them as I've struggled with getting to grips with the techincals of my new Canon and ISO, aperture and frame rate (think I've got it now!).
But did they set out from the start to use this footage as a feature film? They obviously had ambitions to begin with. Was it their very first film? (It's not, the producer Andrew Jarecki produced 'Capturing the Freidmans' - another film I have many grips against!) Did they not have a friend, anyone who could have helped them with avoiding noise? It amazes me even more that this is a result of documentary filmmaking rather than a choice made by the producers in a drama to give it an amateur feel... for this reason I believed it to be a drama along the lines of the latest trend of wobbly handheld camera technique - Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project style...

I found the film made me question lots of things, perhaps the wrong questions though... Rather than questioning the authenticity and technical aspects, I should be asking questions about what it says about our society today, the way we live and communicate with each other. The way loneliness and despair drives people to go to such extremes.

As Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian said - I don't think Catfish is a fake: the hidden story is all too plausible.
Whether you agree with him or not on the fake question - he has a point!

Bill's in Covent Garden

Only a couple of good ones from this film, must try harder. Camera reluctantly been given back, only to be sold on E-bay. Off I hop to buy a better one from there, they're only about £2!

the boyfriend who didn't fit in

There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.

If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.

And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.

He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.


By Robert W. Service 1874 - 1958
Could have been written about my ex-boyfriend...