Rewriting (of a Kind)

Writer/director Michel Gondry is known for his visually stylistic music videos, advertising spots and films. He will often shoot stop-motion, but rather than using animation, he will use miniature sets made from different art media such as Legos. He has also written and drawn his own comic books. Through his website, Michel Gondry.com, you can purchase a personalized portrait sketched and autographed by him. Clicking the appropriate links from his site, a user is rerouted to Flickr.com and can view the numerous sketches of he made of his fans.

Gondry shot his film Be Kind, Rewind, in two weeks in the town of Passaic, New Jersey. The notion behind this film was to make a low-budget film using the scenery and the people of this town, as well as make a social commentary on how history is often overlooked but is essential part of a community. By using a narrative plot in which the two protagonists have to remake numerous films after the VHS in a rental store have been accidentally erased. As the demand for these quirky remakes escalates, the two men solicit help from members of their community. As the plot thickens, the community assembles to help save the site of the rental store, which itself is the historic landmark of jazz musician, Fats Waller (information which Wikipedia claims to be untrue).

The films are dubbed as “Sweded,” as in “they are a rare type of video that comes from a faraway, expensive country.” Since the protagonists are filming these remakes themselves, there are a limited number of movies that they can shoot in one day. Even the hardest of the town’s thugs enjoy these movies and end up watching films they wouldn’t have otherwise seen and, naturally, learn life lessons from these narratives. When the Sweded project grows too large, the protagonists encourage the community to Swede their own favorite movies and to make an original biopic of Fats Waller’s life in a meaningful story of their town.

Sweding (the act of making a Sweded film) is a way of inviting a fan into the authoring of a pre-existing narrative. First of all, Gondry is paying homage to the original film narratives by including them in his film. Secondly, the film sets up specific guidelines when a character wants a film Sweded: it has to be low budget, the film has to be made within the last 30 years, and it has to be kept between eight and ten minutes in length. Herein lies the opportunity for fans of Be Kind, Rewind to create their own Sweded film. As a promotional tie-in to the movie, there was a website in which fan-made Sweded movies were hosted. Even though this site is no longer active, this concept of Sweding has produced a YouTube channel dedicated to Sweded television shows, various websites hosting Sweded films, and an annual Sweded Film Festival held in Fresno. Some of the sites that host Sweded movies are swededcinema.com, swededfilms.com, and swededmovies.org. Gondry has also made a book, You'll Like This Movie Because You're in It: The Be Kind, Rewind Protocol, that discusses " the appropriative and participatory practice 'sweding,' which is to say, 'putting you into the things you like'" (quote from editoral note on Amazon).

While the actual film, Be Kind, Rewind is a comedy, Gondry is also making a social commentary about the media industry in large and how, in this era of digitalization, it is hard to keep the fan at bay and by doing so, effectively eliminates today’s audience – which is an interactive one. Retelling/co-authoring and re/co-creating narratives is a way in which to keep storytelling interactive and even if it is something as silly as Sweding a film, it creates a space for community, human interaction, and the exchange of ideas.

In the Web of 2.0

In the 1930’s, Vannear Bush had an idea of a “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.” His essay, “As We May Think” delved into the concept of “associative trails” that would link common thoughts and themes together so that when someone would go to use a Memex, they could follow the trail to retrieve additional information. If one chose, they could let others use their personal Memex machine and link their own associations to another’s store of information. Even though this device was never seen into production, Bush’s was conceptualizing was the internet and hypertext.

One of the flaws of the Memex was that the associative trails could not be widely published. These trails would stay on the deskbound device. The invention of ARPANET and sequentially, the internet as we know it today, allows users to publish “associative trails” through hyperlinking, tagging, bookmarking, “liking,” sharing, and all the other ways Web 2.0 can help tell the story of the human race at large. At the end of this video, the author notes “Web 2.0 is not just linking information… Web 2.0 is linking people.”

When comment or “like” someone else’s post on a social networking site, blog, or even an NPR story, I am telling everyone that “this means something to me; this is part of who I am.” I am leaving a part of my personal narrative. Of course, Web 2.0 could not work without the technology supporting it, but likewise, the narratives we are accessing in the digital age rely on understanding the analog narratives and their mediums that have come before. Many of us run to the computer to gather more information on something we have heard on the radio or find the background story of a film and its actors. The narrative of stories, fictional or not, is obviously no longer linear but do I think that the traditional narrative is still and it is integral that we continue to understand both to understand the world at large. Perhaps Web 3.0 is how we access the network of communication and information in both digital and analog forms?