proximoception | (no subject)

Intended this to not (potentially) spoil future episodes, rather than those so far, but it almost certainly does both. So basically don't read it:

Trying to determine if there's anything unfair about the handling of the medium in True Detective - which I now officially love, mostly because it's letting me try to determine things.

Specifically, does it commit The Usual Suspects' sin of not letting us know whether a scene we're watching is footage requisitioned from the infallible Recording Angel, a filmic reenactment of the possibly mistaken memory of a character, or something a character is making another character envision. And worse, does it commit the Sixth Sense's (and Wild Things', if anyone cares about that movie) sin of not having the presentation of relevant facts follow an implied set of rules. An implicit contract about what a movie is, really.

For True Detective, the initial contract between presenter and viewer would seem to be as follows: for everything discussed in two 2012 accounts of what happened in 1995, the true versions will be shown. This presumably works as some partial justification of the show's title, but more importantly it allows quite a bit of leeway for acceptable twists. At times, though, the connection seems to be thematic, such that we're wondering if the speaking character is supposed to be remembering something that he isn't saying, some association brought to mind while overhearing himself. And since presumably the character doesn't fall silent while being overwhelmed by several minutes of cinematic recall, the scene is more of a shorthand for what the character either enduringly knows or more briefly calls to mind. But in that case shouldn't we get shorthand for all other (relevant) things the character knows? One reason to think this is that the show presents itself as though we are getting that, or that we will at least get to each bit in its proper place in the 2012 account of the investigation. It takes a while before you realize that's not quite what's happening.

Contractually, we can't simply be given a story that tells us everything we need to know to solve a mystery except those things that would give it away at once. That's what mystery stories have to virtually do, but they always need some other reason for information to just happen to be limited in that fashion - mere teasing can never be the overt procedure. The most usual method of limitation is to trail an investigator, give the audience only the clues provided to him. The method of a lying or otherwise misleading narrator is the next most common; there, information can plausibly be limited because a character plausibly wants it to be. This setup combines elements of both, but at the end of the day there has to be a hierarchy.

Perhaps you can argue that while putting their stories together the interviewees have to suppress certain facts even from themselves. Some sorts of memories and knowledges intrude viscerally, others, having been more carefully prepared against, are successfully kept out of consciousness. The two are vulnerable to sideways ironies but not their most important secrets.

That lies they told superiors, including ones that would get them in legal trouble, are corrected in their memories is one possible problem with this. While you could say that what's suppressed is even more crucial for them to conceal than facts that could get them jailed, it's less clear how they could pursue their own agenda of planting certain bits of information in their interrogators while gleaning others without their at least occasionally thinking about why they're doing so.

For a while I wondered if what we were seeing was a sort of hybrid: their shared knowledge of those things that occurred during their partnership. But this clearly isn't true - we've seen many things neither would tell the other. The suppression thing is the only possible justification, and it's pretty iffy.

I guess you could use the initial investigation of the crime scene itself as cutoff, making the rule this: anything relevant that happened between that examination and the dissolution of their partnership relevant to either their 2012 answers or thoughts while answering will be shown fully. It's possible that the occurrences both parties are keeping secret were all prior to that moment. But is that rule really justifiable? Conceivably it is as a sort of guiding principle each adopts - you want to know about that investigation? Oh, I'll tell you about THAT (mostly). But either lie or give prepared semantic statements about what went before, refusing to allow myself to picture any of it.

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Another possibility's that the flashbacks show what the 2012 investigators know from the earlier reports and various other "stories" they claim to have heard. But does everything that's happened fit that? Who heard Hart whisper "fucking prick" after leaving Quesada's office? I suppose Hart's mistress and Cohle's drug dealer, and the kidnapped biker could have told them about the misdoings they observed. Does that cover everything that's happened though? And how does it account for flashbacks presented after the interviewees leave? Do they really know Cohle went back to the school, for example?

And who could have set them straight about the meth factory setpiece? Surely not the girl.

You've laid this out very well. I was thinking about this too but your thoughts are much better organized. I haven't watched any episode more than once. Do you imagine there are visual clues all over the place? Have you seen any?

Julie just pointed out that the fact we see the little girls interacting alone proves we're not seeing memories. Hart couldn'tve overheard all of their arguing about how to fish, which was partly presented from their perspective.

And after the interviewing part breaks down we get scenes of the girls alone back in the '90s. Julie argues there's no narrative contracts. I think there have to be, but perhaps we expect and forgive a few violations.

As for clues, there's plenty that led to my current read, but I'm not sure what you mean by visual. The competing mandalas? I'm not entirely straight on those yet.

I keep thinking about the beer cans. I know they're so obvious as an attention grabber but I was wondering if MM has any black star tattoos or like crazy swirls painted on the inside of his fridge or things like they hiding in plain sight.

Things seen in people's homes are occasionally relevant. I would suggest. But so's a lot else. Strange moments between people.

Also - I'm trying to avoid any reddit threads about the show. I'll never get back those weeks of my life spent reading Lost theories.

Julie also points out that the scene with the thrown crown seems to be the first that neither detective is even present for. Though we get some moments with the kids and Hart's wife where Hart or Cohle are merely nearby.

I think Julie's right. I can't think of another.

I'm trying to think of a case where the flashback is known to be untruthful, and I can't. So far everything we see is true, at least so far as we know. Right?

But I can think of cases where the flashback directly contradicts the narration. My favorite is when Hart is going on talking about the importance of boundaries at the same time his flashback is showing him as not having any. And then there's the Ladoux "shoot-out". In both cases though, the narrator knows he's lying. Hart has this smirk on his face when he's talking about the importance of keeping family life separate, etc. He knows it's bullshit when he's saying it.

The only other thing I'm assuming as contractual is that there will be no goofy surprises, at least none that are not foretold.

Yeah, they're all true.

What I forecast about the 2012 murder might strike you as goofy. A similar development in a prior series seemed that way to others.