“1 Giant Leap” is a digital film showing at the McDonald Theatre. It isn’t a typical project; it hops genres and takes advantage of multiple artistic mediums. However, these facts alone don’t necessarily make it a compelling film.
The story goes something like this: Two musicians and filmmakers, Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman, went around the world to 25 countries to make an album and video with people at the places they visited. They went to Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and North America.
The film’s central question is “Can music make a difference?” The theme is unmistakable. The screening began Friday with a small clip from the film, followed by someone coming onstage to explain what the project meant and its cultural implications. This preface was annoying, because a film should explain itself through what’s onscreen and not require additional information.
So the answer to the film’s question is, “Of course music makes a difference.” But isn’t this obvious?
Music has been making a difference forever, so what does traveling to 25 countries have to do with anything? The film never goes beyond the surface to answer its questions — save for the psuedo-philosophical “One unifying it all.”
I have no doubt that the filmmakers were changed by going on their trip, and I will even admit there’s more to the philosophy than what made it on the screen. But the result brought to a potential audience is aesthetically unfocused, flamboyant and loaded with pop styling counterproductive to their message.
This brings me to the music itself: Although the filmmakers received contributions from around the world, the music I heard, overall, struck me as predominantly Western and “anglofied.” Catto and Bridgeman seem to have had a preliminary beat that the rest of the artists worked from. Maybe that was the problem — their framework made the result flawed from the start.
Again, I’m not critiquing whatever philosophy is put forth, but the movie provides it callously. The main question isn’t very dialogue-driven, yet there is dialogue. Instead of straightening the film’s message, the dialogue only makes it more random and fleeting.
In fairness to the creators, the film wasn’t shown in its entirety (I assume because it would take too long to do so), but the people with the most screen time seemed to be celebrities: Dennis Hopper and authors Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. In all honesty, I don’t know if any of these people said anything I couldn’t hear better from a homeless person on the street selling hair dryers out of a gym bag.
The insights of the dialogue are tired, and the fact that so many of them come from comfortable, rich celebrities is only further alienating from a message of unity. Seeing a bunch of successful people talk about how something inspires them is hardly inspiring. I don’t see how they’re talking about real change at all.
The filmmakers used the digital technology to their advantage. It’s not fair to critique digital-versus-traditional-celluloid aesthetics, as most common digital cameras do not match the quality of their traditional, analog counterparts. This has long become a tired debate, so I’ll just avoid it and say I doubt this project could have been made without the use of digital technology.
The difficulty here is that through all criticism, the filmmaker’s hearts were in the right place. But what does this count for when it comes to creating a film that’s unleashed on the public as a commodity to be consumed? On the whole (or at least, the parts shown), “1 Giant Leap” feels empty and disingenuous.
The film is playing two more times on Friday, at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at the McDonald Theatre. Tickets are $7, and the screenings are a benefit for KLCC 89.7 FM.
Contact the Pulse reporter at [email protected].
Film uses artistic mediums, questions the impact of music
Daily Emerald
January 15, 2003
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