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October 18, 2006
Le jeu, c'est moi!
Not too long ago I was watching an Ingmar Bergman film, puzzling at the meaning underlying the story, trying to understand what it was that he was really getting at. As it turned out, certain characters in the film stood in for parts of the psyche, somewhat related to id, ego, and superego, though not directly. The moment I understood this was an epiphany, that piercing of the veil to let a little truth in, and it was heady, made more heady, in fact, because I felt such a strong recognition of myself in the mental life that the film represented.
I felt an amazing kinship with Bergman in that moment, knowing what a personal filmmaker he is, knowing that he may have been trying to represent aspects of himself.
It recalled for me a statement by Gustav Flaubert, who said of his famous heroine, "Madame Bovary, c'est moi". Now, there are any number of ways to interpret that statement -- that the book is him, that the character is him, that the forces which give rise to a book and character like Emma Bovary are what give rise to an author like Flaubert. In most ways of interpreting his statement, however, it's clear that Madame Bovary is an immensely personal work, one that only Flaubert could have envisioned and executed.
Finally, I recently read the following bit in prep by Curtis Sittenfeld¹:
I have always found the times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters. That reminder that it can be different, that you need not go through your life unknown but that you probably still will -- that is the part that's almost unbearable.
That moment of recognition was something of what I felt for Bergman (and in myself, through his film); that recognition is something Flaubert perhaps sees in Emma (and therefore perhaps we can see in Flaubert). And it's a recognition I never see in games.
That's not to say I don't see parts of people in games -- Tim Schafer's desperately manic humor comes through in both his games and in person -- but it's rare that I can look at a game and feel like it's telling me anything more about myself, or that I can recognize myself in it.
I don't think it's an inherent limitation in the medium. I can sort of do a gedanken experiment where I envision an interactive experience along the lines of Grace and Trip in Façade which isn't all that different from the film I describe². In such a game, the characters might experience several scenes, rather than just the one, and their available mental states might be highly constrained according to the point of view the auteur is trying to put forward³. This doesn't seem like it need lead to some sort of fatalism -- after all, the film that Bergman constructed is only one of myriad possible scenarios between these characters, and perhaps the interactive experience involves finding new juxtapositions, experimenting with the potential relationship space that those characters represent.
I think a contributing factor to this lack of recognition is that we work in such a highly collaborative medium these days that single auteurship has pretty well gone out the window. When so many people work together in close collaboration, it's often to the benefit of the game, since so many shifting viewpoints will hopefully create fun for a wider audience4. But this is very counter to the experience in watching films by those directors we call auteurs (and naturally, entirely different from reading a book) -- directors who chose collaborators who were able to work within their framework.
In terms of the fun gaming experience, though, maybe the best we can hope most of the time for is a game which uniquely caters to one's own sense of fun -- one to which we respond, "That's my fun!" rather than "That's me!" It's a small mirror, to be sure, but a mirror nonetheless, and I'll keep holding out for the bigger ones, that reflect more of us.
¹Though I enjoyed the book, I'm not in complete agreement that it was one of the most notable books of last year. It seemed a little, well, chick-litty to me. Which yes, is an admission that I can enjoy certain forms of chick-lit, I suppose. But I'm man enough to admit that without feeling threatened. ;) That said, a quote like the one that follows above is sometimes enough for me, though the density of such quotes was pretty low here. I feel like I could jot down passages from just about any random page in Saramago. (back)
²Oh dear, I've done it now, I've painted myself into a corner where I must reveal the film, and therefore perhaps reveal a bit of my psyche. In any case, the film was Bergman's Cries and Whispers, a totally great film. Wow. Anyway, psyche exposed, let's now continue. (back)
³With all due respect to the makers of Façade, it doesn't feel like this level of authorship is at work here -- and in fact, that might work counter to the goals of the exercise, or simply be a side effect of the limitations that they have, in terms of a character's sublety of emotion. (back)
4Which is a great reason to diversify our industry; wider inputs probably mean a wider audience. Suits take note, if you can find a way to incorporate a more diverse team, you will likely sell more units. (back)
Posted by Brett Douville at October 18, 2006 07:12 PM