Storyteller and Conceptual Magician Derek DelGaudio attempts to understand the illusory nature of identity and answer the deceptively simple question 'Who am I?'
16 Jun Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself (2020)
Dark Crystal
Frank Oz has always puzzled me. He is the second voice, the Garfunkle to whomever is the Simon. He is not the guy to have and manifest the primary vision, so his projects are inept. On the other hand, given a framework from a relative master, he can make things sing. Star Wars would be far less without Yoda, and the rumour is that Oz was the force behind recasting Darth’s voice.
I mention this because this little film is superb in many small ways that show he knows how to shape a story from a master and have it work better than without him aboard. I imagine that this film experience is more profound for someone like me than being physically in the show.
If you do not know the film, it is a sequence of extraordinary magic tricks, wrapped in an effective monologue about identity, personal projection, and the ambiguity of goodness — which he equates in some way to honesty.
This all rests on the verbal nuance of DelGaudio’s spoken delivery, its cadence, the choreographed distance’ between him and us, the way we are tricked into being us, and the raw, potentially lethal honesty that underscore it all.
This is storytelling, of course. But these are all values that can be enhanced cinematically, and that’s what Oz does here.
DelGaudio is a master, no question. But the hidden partner here is our cinematic Yoda.
Excellent.
Posted in 2024
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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