Having never really taken the time to study Matisse in my life leading up to this visit, I found myself forced to glean talking points from sparse texts and conversations between roaming art teachers and their husbands. What I, potentially incorrectly, overheard is that the focus of Matisse's early period concerned itself with breaking down the human form into basic, thick, deliberate lines and colors.
Application:
Parring film down to its 'essential elements' (space, light, time, etc...) and then building onto these elements interactions between people and other people as well as people and their environment, without building those interactions towards a narrative climax brings us closer to what Ray Carney describes as pragmatic art, an art that finds its value in the mundanity and repetition of daily living.
Er go, seemingly the only way to achieve a pure pragmatic form is to strip film of its defined narrative grammar. A film constantly poised on the edge of conclusion (much like life) without climax is the closest we can come to a sincere form, as it does little to manipulate what already exists within the confines of that existence.
