ESSAY. “LOVE. DEATH AND ROBOTS”: is the concept more important than the meaning? — Movies and series on DTF

We make our debut in video format with a new essay about “Love. Death and Robots”. Let’s talk about an important topic today. What is more important: the idea of ​​the work or its depth?

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I watched this anthology during a dark period of my life, when thoughts were blackening clouds, everything flew to hell and constantly felt slimy loneliness. After watching Love. Death and Robots” made me feel better. He did not make me a hundred pounds optimist like Krosh, but I got a little out of the circle of sadness.

So what was it?

There were two chic uncles: director David Fincher, who is considered the genius of the thriller and the master of human darkness, as well as Tim Miller, who first came to riches after the first Deadpool, and then fell into the dirt after Terminator: Dark Fate.

Between greatness and fall, Miller and Fincher created an anthology of animated shorts, Love. Death and Robots”, whose idea they nurtured for ten years.

At first they wanted to make a series of several short films inspired by Heavy Metal magazine. Among the directors of future animations were such uncles as Zack Snyder, James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro and Gore Verbinski.

Everything promises a complete fucking, but only things didn’t get off the ground, Fincher ran out of film rights to the magazine, and then the guys scored on the magazine and decided that they would stir up their own.

As a result, we got “Love. Death and Robots.

Short format, important ideas, addictive directing and, most importantly, awesome and different visual styles!

But still the question is: why is the anthology so addictive?

After all, there have been animated anthologies before, like the same Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight. There were also animated shorts with crazy style and powerful speech. There were and are anthologies that tell about the sins and troubles of the modern world. That’s just why the stars took and converged over “Love. Death and Robots?

Okay, I’ll go with trump cards. Timing. As the great George Carlin said, one of the paradoxes of our time is that we have “learned to hurry, but not to wait.” We don’t have much time today for…everything. Including viewing content.

Netflix understands this better than others, which collects user statistics and knows how long, on average, a viewer can watch. Because they know for sure that the short format is convenient for viewers who want to see more in less time. Only, this is only part of that success.

I think another important part of success is conceptuality.

As I said, LSR is an anthology. Each episode is a separate, complete story. The only thing that unites them is one of the keywords from the name: “love”, “death” or “robots”. And that’s all. The rest is the will of the artist. Someone wrote their story, someone was inspired by some stories, but there was only one thing left, and, in my opinion, the most important thing: a powerful idea. And when I talk about the idea, I mean the concept of the story:

• Abusers in the time loop

• The robot vacuum cleaner that evolved into an artist

• “300 Spartans” during World War II and with monsters

• A monster that uses a human as an avatar

Okay, you might be asking, “Are you kidding? But what about depth? But what about the meaning?

But please don’t leave this place. Now I will clarify.

For many years there has been a confrontation between two worlds: the world of “form” and the world of “content”.

Content is, in fact, what the work is about. Meaning, if you will.

Form is the way in which a work is created. It can be either a shooting style or a genre. Both the method by which the work was made, and the medium in which the work was created.

Each of the camps believes that one is more important than the other, but those who are filled with their knowledge have long known that this confrontation …

…complete crap.

If you ask me “Is the form of content more important?”, then I will answer you: “No”.

The content can influence the form. The legend of a handful of warriors that oppose a horde of infidels, somehow, in each of its reincarnations, takes the form of an epic story. For example, the Secret War series.

If you ask me “Is the content more important than the form?”, then I will answer you: “Nichrena”.

Form can influence content. For example, a story about mutual abuse can be both a detective thriller for a couple of hours) and a mystical thriller for 11 minutes. Watch the Witness episode.

No, one does not contradict the other. The fact is that Form and Content are one and one affects the other. I would say that it is like Yin and Yang, but I will say that it is like shawarma. You can throw out the meat and it’s already a salad in a tortilla, or you can throw out the pita bread and get a meat salad. And if you throw out the salad, then there will be a barbecue in pita bread. In short, in order for the dish to remain shawarma, it is important to keep everything together.

Form and Content should hold each other by the hand, and not fight.

And here we return to the beginning: how then to form a single bundle of form and content?

Only through concept.

You can talk all you want about evolution and the meaning of life, but “Winter Blue” is most likely based on the concept “what if a simple cleaning robot becomes so overwhelmed that one day it will find the meaning of life?”

You can talk at length about racism and war in the Middle East, but “Werewolves” is probably based on the idea that “there is a world where werewolves exist and they serve in the military, but they are rotten because of who they are.”

Why do I say “most likely” and “probably”? The answer is the same as if I were talking about the “hidden meaning” of the work: I do not know the thoughts of the Authors and cannot firmly say that “the idea was just that.” So why would I take it upon myself to argue that the concepts were just that, and that it’s more important to build stories based on ideas rather than depth?

One answer: Roland Bart.

This is the same uncle that is most often remembered in conversations about the “hidden meaning.”

He is a philosopher and wrote quite a few important works, but probably one of the most popular is “Death of the Author“, in which Bart literally says: “get away from the author with the question “what is this work about?”, no matter what the author wanted to say, think for yourself, because it’s better for you and the work“.

You will find the very meaning only if you turn not only to the work, but also to yourself, to your personal baggage of knowledge. This is where the depth is born.

That’s just it grows from the very idea of ​​the work, which everyone must dig out himself.

Yes, as an Author, you must have some kind of concept, on the basis of which you will build a further story, which then each viewer will interpret in their own way. It’s hard not to go crazy with the scale, but as you study life, you will somehow turn to yourself and ask questions: “what can I say?” and “what do I like?”.

So if you want to make a story about Shakespeare’s love between a vampire and a werewolf, then do it. If you like thrillers and photography, then you washed down a story in the spirit of The French Connection about a photojournalist.

It is important to keep coming up with ideas that will resonate with you and then one day you will know that they will resonate with someone else. And then you feel that you, at least, are not alone.

The authors: Mitya Dokuchaev and Nikita Boss