Funny Only When It Ends: Silicon Valley, “Binding Arbitration” (S2: E9)

In Roger Ebert’s review of This Is Spinal Tap, he explains how the Stonehenge gag is funny. The audience knows the size of the Stonehenge prior to the band. We then laugh to their reaction of the very undersized object. The order of the shots brings about this desired effect. Now, in the most recent episode of Silicon Valley, “Binding Arbitration”, the primary gag ends only when the credits roll. While this gag isn’t exact as the one in Spinal Tap—i.e in how it’s presented by the editing—I was still reminded of it. The episode felt, in the same spirit, patient with its humor. No concern for quick and cheap laughs, but clever.

Based on the incredible and inspiring true story . . . so what?

Charles: What if you interviewed your mom about what her dreams were about, and then you hired actors to act them out? . . .  that might show your thesis more clearly. 

Amy: I mean it might, but then it wouldn't be a documentary. 

Charles: How would it not be a documentary? It's still about your mother. 

-her (2013)

What's unique about film and Terrence Malick's Response

Film has built this reputation of outputting visual stories tagged with an emphasis on recorded performances. Novels and comics are the inspirations of the many popular films, as people, understandably, want to see their imaginations realized on the silver screen. But when we consider the distinguishing mark of film from other art mediums, unfortunately it is neither screenplays/stories nor acting. Storytelling permeates itself through many mediums, while the art of acting was birthed long before film in theatre.

Nöel Carroll notes that early philosophers did not view film as an art, but a mere recording device for the true art of acting. The way a vinyl record is not art, but the music recorded on it, likewise with film, a series of moving photographs is not art but the performance it displays. It wasn’t until noticing film’s specific technical devices that have allowed people to argue for film as an art form. Cuts and splices, dissolves, superimposition, and close-ups are a few examples that give film its artistic intention. They’re what distinguish film, from the haunting that is theatre. And unlike theatre, these devices take away from actors.

Terrence Malick, the subject at hand, leaves to literature what belongs to literature and leaves to theatre what belongs to theatre, and makes explicit what is unique about film: He conveys ideas with careful consideration in his cinematic language. This can be seen by how he manipulates film techniques, takes importance away from actors and the script, and how he utilizes lyrical narration to enhance the pictures. Good writing and good acting are art forms in their own right, but as far as film’s place in art they’re the cherry on top. Nevertheless, so it goes with the flock and some critics, the normality of movie-going has taken shape in acting and storytelling, without which a film has no legs to walk.