May 08, 2016

Innocents and Others - Dana Spiotta

Scribner, March 8, 2016.



Three Stars



Meadow and Carrie grew up together in L.A. during the 1980s. They were so close that they even chose to follow the same career path. Both women became filmmakers, although their work couldn’t be more different. While Carrie makes mainstream, popular movies, Meadow is edgy and avant-garde, preferring to film in a confrontational documentary style. Their contrasting ideologies are much of the reason that the two best friends grew apart.


The novel is filled with supposedly source documents, beginning with the story of Meadow’s affair with a much older filmmaker, although this account is later discredited by other sources. Right away, we are shown that these primary documents are unreliable, and that fact calls into question the whole concept of documentary films. When each section contradicts what came before it, we cannot know if anything is absolute truth. Meadow films real people telling their authentic story, yet she manipulates it to fit her own preconceived plot – it is a reminder not to believe everything we see on a t.v. screen.


The novel also poses moral questions about exposing people’s innermost thoughts and feelings on film. There is the matter of consent, and whether the documentary subjects truly understand what they are agreeing to. This is best illustrated in the character of Jelly, a woman who seduces male members of the film industry over the phone, in order to disguise her physical self. She eventually agrees to be a part of one of Meadow’s projects, and exposing herself on film dissolves her sense of self. While Carrie works on films with happy endings, Meadow wishes merely to incite people to reveal themselves, regardless of the consequences.


Because the story jumps around between so many sources, including multiple perspectives, articles, reviews, diaries, etc., it was hard to really sink into the novel. It didn’t really come together for me until the final third or so, and I wish the various plot threads had connected sooner. The quickly changing points of view bring a cinematic element to the novel – as we suddenly cut to different scenes, the reader is manipulated by the filmmaker/author. Spiotta is clearly talented, but I found her style of writing cold and distant, often slipping too far into the abstract. It would be gimmicky and pretentious if it hadn’t been handled so well. Even so, I couldn’t help but compare this novel to one I read last year, also about a filmmaker: The Life and Death of Sophie Stark was much more compelling, both as a character study and as a novel about the making of films.


I received this novel from Scribner and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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