| we carry on |

they matched each others freak and they almost died

pls go give this edit some love on tiktok I DID NOT MAKE IT! i just wanted to share it here because i think it deserves a lot more attention than it got, here’s the link: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTNAUh7mt/

With the work of Hitchcock

The first two seasons were so critically acclaimed. Despite this season's mixed reviews, it's still going down as one of the top TV shows of all time. What I love about watching The Bear is how each season feels different from the last, and Season 3 stands out the most because of its version of meta filmmaking.

So, what is meta-filmmaking? It’s a language of art where the creator draws attention to the work itself, and characters reflect on the craft of filmmaking.

In my previous post, The BS3: A Conversation with the Viewer, I covered the first four episodes, which were packed with meta-dialogue. But this clip features episode 9, the most meta of all. It has parts of the documentary Alfred Hitchcock & The Pure Art of Cinema, which I'm thinking the creators of this show watched, given that it features commentary from legends like William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese.

This season is about Storer's legacy and how his creative work is influenced by mainly Scorsese and William Friedkin, but both legacies come from the Hitchcock family tree. The family tree Legacy: Storer- Friedkin-Scorsese- Hitchcock.

For this post, we'll start with one part of the legacy and its Hitchcock and his use of self-reflexivity.

Meta Self Reflexive Films :

Self-reflexivity means "consciousness turning back on itself," and reflexive cinema is about films which call attention to themselves as cinematic constructs.

Alfred Hitchcock is widely acknowledged as a “reflexive” or “self-reflexive” filmmaker who inscribes himself within his own works through cameos and authorial surrogates, orchestrates the narrative world as a world of selfconscious artifice, and acknowledges and invokes the role of the audience in his films, ×

Self-reflexivity is often a character Hitchcock would write in the script- this was an audience or director surrogate. This character guides the audience with commentary as they navigate the movie and solve the big mystery, acting as a conduit between the filmmaker and the screen. In some films, they don’t often break the fourth wall but play within the narrative alongside other characters.

Self-reflexivity was something thebear instagram played on for the promotion of the Bear as they called it a paradigm shift- @brokenwinebox discovered this promotion for this season- a paradigm shift- a break between viewer and the show itself:

Back to self-reflexivity in film. Since hitchcock used surrogates- remember, for season 3, who is the director's surrogate?

Author David Sterrit on Hitchcock's choice in director surrogates:

He does this not by becoming a character…but in two other ways: through his famous cameo appearances, which allow him to enter the action directly, costumed unmistakably himself, and through his use of characters and objects that serve as surrogates for his own presence.- link

The first thing that comes to mind for this kind of surrogate is its heavy use of well-known chefs' cameo appearances this season. These chefs like Thomas Keller came in with costumes- chefs' jackets and unmistakably be themselves and would be immersed in the show. The use of characters that play as surrogates to the filmmaker is Richie. The conduit.

Since he is the conduit -what was Richie doing this season?

Based on a conversation with @fresaton Richie as the directors conduit is watching and figuring sydcarmy out for the audience and the art itself.

We're going based on film legacies and what Storer has shown us, then he is, in fact, doing a style of meta-filmmaking based on the legacy of Hitchcock. But he also takes inspiration from Friedkin and Scorsese, which I'll cover in the next 2 parts.

Read Part 2: The Bear Season 3 & Meta Filmmaking

Read:

Hitchcock and His Use of Surrogates

Ancestors and The Bear by @whenmemorydies

Richie and The Viewer by @whenmemorydies

Natalie & Night of the Hunter by @espumado

The Bear Season 3 & The Mirror @currymanganese

Richie's Journey is not Over @currymanganese

The Paradigm Shift @brokenwinebox

Syd: Enters The Room

(✿◠‿◠)

when life is like a dumpster fire

Well, this, uh this director that I admire, he visited this. And when he got there, he was like, "What is this? A bunch of just rocks and combed sand?" He didn't really, you know, know what to make of it, but then, slowly, he began to realize. That the rocks are people. And we're all separated. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking yeah. Exactly.